Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Opinion | Strongmen around the world are increasingly inspired by America’s example Welcome to America’s new democratic export: the unchecked executive. If America’s Founding Fathers were to come back and look at their legacy, what would without doubt stun them is the modern presidency. They designed the American political system explicitly to fragment power. They were reacting against a monarch and the “accumulation of all powers … in the same hands” ( Federalist No. 47 ). They purposefully conceived of a decentralized and restrained executive, described in the notably brief  Article II . The presidency was an office for “ faithfully executing the laws ,” bounded by carefully constructed checks from the legislature and the judiciary. Congress, by contrast, was named the  first branch  of government and vested with the  lion’s share of authority  — the powers to tax, spend, declare war and regulate commerce. James Madison, the de facto author of the Const...

  Opinion | Khomeini promised free water. Iran is running out of it. Such videos have flooded social media in recent months as Iranians document how reservoirs that once supplied Tehran are disappearing. Their capital, a city of nearly  10 million,  is edging toward “Day Zero,” when its taps will run dry. President Masoud Pezeshkian  warned this month  that if meaningful rainfall didn’t arrive by December, Tehran might have to be evacuated — an  unprecedented scenario. Iran has entered its sixth consecutive year of drought. The  five major reservoirs  that supply Tehran are down to an average 10 percent of their capacity. Around the country, 19 others are below 5 percent, according to  state media . Following  Opinions on the news Oil is not the only precious resource handled poorly by the Islamic Republic. Today’s empty reservoirs, dried wetlands and depleted aquifers stem largely from decades of poor water management by the clerical es...

  Opinion | Ukraine’s inspiring democratic resilience Democracy is making a comeback in the war-weary country, and that’s a good thing. Martial law, imposed immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting — but at a cost, including no elections. In the pursuit of streamlined decision-making, Zelensky has concentrated power around himself. Yermak personified that. On the surface, this story appears to be about corruption. Ukraine’s independent investigative agency, NABU, revealed earlier this month that it had uncovered evidence linking several people in Zelensky’s government to a procurement kickback scheme in the energy sector. The scheme was particularly infuriating for regular Ukrainians, given that they are currently suffering through hours-long blackouts due to Russia’s relentless assault on the electricity grid. And while the initial investigation didn’t implicate Yermak, most Ukrainians suspected Zelensky’s top fixer at least knew...

  China's steelmakers look abroad as domestic pressures mount Producers begin building mills in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa Steel rolls from China are seen after being unloaded at the Valparaiso port, Chile, on July 10. China's outbound shipments surged 22.7% in 2024 from the previous year. © Reuters FAN RUOHONG, LUO GUOPING and DENISE JIA, Caixin November 29, 2025 13:26 JST It wasn't the drop in production that alarmed China's steel industry this year. It was that demand fell even faster. By the end of September, Chinese mills had produced 746 million tons of crude steel, down 2.9% from a year earlier. But domestic consumption slumped 5.7% to just under 649 million tons, a much steeper decline. The imbalance sent a clear message: In the world's largest steel-producing nation, the core problem isn't output; it's overcapacity, with too few buyers at home to absorb what's being produced. That demand shortfall is reverberating through the eco...

  Jet fighter lags behind Anduril’s most high-profile, and potentially most lucrative, military project has also faced challenges. When Anduril won a multimillion-dollar Air Force contract last year to develop and test a prototype of an unmanned jet fighter, known as a “Collaborative Combat Aircraft,” it signaled the company’s biggest shot yet at building a major weapon system for the Pentagon. The company, which has never manufactured weapons at a large scale, is building a plant in Ohio to produce the unmanned jet. Air Force leaders initially set expectations for the aircraft to fly before the end of summer. But in a test in August, a mechanical issue caused a nail to be sucked into the aircraft’s intake, damaging the engine, people familiar  with the matter said. Anduril didn’t publicly disclose the engine issue, and when asked about the timing of the flight during a call with reporters in September, Luckey said the delay was due to the rigors of Air Force ground testing be...

  Japan says it will reach 2% defense spending early -- but there's a catch Takaichi government relies on counting supplementary budget Japan's extra defense budget for this year includes 56.6 billion yen for missiles. (Photo by Konosuke Urata) RYOTA OGATA November 29, 2025 07:40 JST TOKYO -- The supplementary budget approved by Japan's cabinet on Friday will boost defense spending by over 1 trillion yen ($6.4 billion) to 2% of gross domestic product two years ahead of schedule, Tokyo says, but only after a change in how these outlays are counted. The Defense Ministry proposed 847.2 billion yen in spending for the fiscal 2025 supplementary budget. Combined with public works and other government agencies' requests that can be used for security purposes, such as science and technology research, related spending in the budget rises to over 1 trillion yen. Including the 9.93 trillion yen in the regular budget, defense-related spending for fiscal 2025 as a whole would reach ...