‘The myth of white Argentina still shapes the nation’
Federico Pita at Al Jazeera
While a “majority of countries acknowledged the need to address the contemporary consequences of slavery and colonialism,” Argentina’s “rejection of reparations is part of a state-sponsored tradition that has organized the nation, since its independence, based on specific racial hierarchies,” says Federico Pita. The “formation of the Argentinian state was marked by its elites’ explicit project of demographic and cultural whitening.” This “institutional architecture consolidated one of Latin America’s most enduring national narratives, that Argentina is a white and European society.”
‘Can the World Cup transcend Donald Trump?’
Ishaan Tharoor at The New Yorker
Donald Trump “clearly sees” the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a “source of prestige to boost his flagging presidency,” says Ishaan Tharoor. Trump is “dominating the buildup to the World Cup for all the wrong reasons.” It is “difficult to look beyond the gloom surrounding this World Cup, whether because of the cringe-inducing bonhomie between Trump” and FIFA officials, the “disenchantment of foreign fans, or the frustrations of domestic supporters who are angry about exorbitant ticket prices.”
‘High-tech seeks skilled tradesman’
Dina Powell McCormick and Mike Rowe at The Wall Street Journal
America has “claimed the lion’s share of the world’s greatest inventions,” but it was “generations of American workers who strung the telegraph wire, laid the railroad tracks and built the interstate highways and buried the fiber,” say Dina Powell McCormick and Mike Rowe. The “artificial intelligence revolution shows that America’s technological progress and skilled workforce are still inseparable.” To “maintain our technological edge, we need to build infrastructure at scale and with great speed.”
‘The end of Pax Americana at sea’
Michael Hochberg at UnHerd
Ukrainians “have a lot to teach the United States and the Trump administration about naval warfare,” says Michael Hochberg. Unmanned naval warfare is “transforming everything we thought we knew about maritime military strategy.” How the U.S. “adapts — or fails to adapt — to this technological threat will have implications for years.” Some “assumed that only maritime powers could field the sort of navies that win wars” but “cheap autonomous craft are already falsifying that assumption.”