Newsletter #467 — June 29, 2026

by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess

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Highlighted Links

A few suggestions about links that we think are especially interesting.

• Interstate War
  Losing the War of the Future — From Foreign Affairs, an extremely important, must-read, article that explains just how dramatically the balance of military power has changed and why the United States is no longer the super power we all think it is.
• Interstate War
  How Iran Devastated an American Naval Base—and Caused a U.S. Recalculation — A report on Iran's under-reported attacks on U.S. forces in the recent war -- attacks that led the United States to conclude that its military position was much weaker than previously thought.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  Iran Won the War but May Lose the Peace — A longer term look at the likely consequences of the recent Iranian war -- a look that tries to anticipate the complex interactions that will arise when those affected by the war attempt to apply its lessons.
• US Politics
  The Democrats have their own MAGA now — News that dynamics similar to the ones that produced the extremists of the MAGA right are now starting to produce comparably extreme political figures on the left.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The next Iran War starts now — One of the most realistic assessments I've seen of the U.S.-Iranian peace deal -- an assessment that makes it clear that the best we can hope for is a brief interlude in which everybody prepares for the next phase of this long-running confrontation.
• Artificial Intelligence
  AI Warfare Is at the Point of No Return. What Now? — The war in Ukraine has made it abundantly clear that there is no realistic hope of escaping a future driven by AI-empowered weapons and AI-based military tactics and strategy.
• Theories of Change
  To beat socialists and populists, liberalism must get radical — As populists on the left and right threaten to overrun the more moderate liberals in their political center -- an argument that the center could best defend itself by admitting and correcting its past mistakes.

Reader Suggested Links

Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.

• Saving Democracy
  One-Party Rule Is Hiding in Plain Sight — A surprising and quite perceptive argument that, despite the deep divisions that exist within U.S. society, a majority of us effectively live in jurisdictions governed by one party rule with no meaningful political opposition.
• Class Inequity
  See What Your Lifestyle Says About Your Economic Class — A different way of thinking about class differences that sheds new light on the depth of the chasm that divides U.S. society.
• Civic Education
  How America Gave Up on Its Own History — The description of the far-reaching, and potentially catastrophic, implications of our desire to avoid, rather than constructively engage, the tough questions surrounding United States' history.
• Media Reform
  The Miseducation of American Journalists — A scathing indictment of the way in which the U.S. has, in recent years, trained its journalists and an explanation of why this training is responsible for much of our hyper-polarized political dysfunction.
• Peacebuilding
  Meet the world’s new peacemakers — A surprising article about the increasingly prominent role that autocracies are playing in peacemaking efforts.
• Constructive Communication
  Introducing: The Honesty Project — A report on a new effort to better understand what we really think -- an effort based on an innovative new polling strategy.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The Left-Wing Case Against Anti-Zionism — An important argument that explains why the left, if it is to be true to its principles, should support, rather than oppose, Israel.

Colleague Activities

Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.

• Developing a Unifying Vision
  What Democracy Does . . . And Does Not Do — An informative meta-analysis of the benefits of democracy.
• Saving Democracy
  The 45% Vacuum: Can You Build a Political Tribe Out of the Moderates Left Behind? — Congress has stopped passing bills, the parties have abandoned the middle, and 45% of voters are stranded. Can a new party actually organize them?
• Civic Education
  10 Moments That Almost Broke America, But Made Us — We hear it a lot: America is more divided than ever. But we've survived worse. Much worse. And every time we did, we came out stronger than before. Here's some history worth remembering.
• Saving Democracy
  Turning Our Tools on Ourselves — Danielle Reiff's assessment of the United States' democracy, using the assessment tools USAID used abroad in past years.
• Rule of Law
  How AllSides Creates Balanced News: A Step-by-Step Guide — An explanation of what AllSides does to help all of us become better informed.
• Culture and Religion
  Water, Systems, & the Stories We Tell Ourselves — We swim in the water of the systems we’re in. And because we’re used to this water --these systems -- they come to be an invisible and inevitable part of our lives.
• Constructive Communication
  7 Questions to Ask Someone You Disagree With — Nobody in the history of the world has ever been insulted into changing their mind. What about instead of trying to land the knockout punch, get curious. Ask a real question and then actually listen to the answer.
• Theories of Change
  How Embodiment Transforms Systems Change — Just as education matured beyond drills and rewards, systems change practice must evolve beyond predominantly cognitive approaches to integrating more embodied ways of being and making sense of the world.
• Theories of Change
  Launch of "Renew American Democracy (RAD)" Strategy — Homegrown organizers fuse with the experts who spent careers fighting autocrats abroad. The strategy they built together may be our most comprehensive answer yet.
• Trust / Trust Earning
  Politics can’t save us — We suffer from a pervasive crisis of belief -- in our leaders, institutions, systems, even one another, writes Rich Harwood of the New Civic Path.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  A Democracy That Works for All — The new website of the Democracy Renewal Group, a community of global democracy and peacebuilding specialists using their experience and expertise to protect and strengthen U.S. democracy for all.
• Suppressing Opponents
  Nonprofit Toolkit: Resources for organizations facing government investigations — This toolkit offers best practices for responding to politicized government investigations so that organizations can keep doing lawful, mission-based work.
• Saving Democracy
  Democracy Accelerator — Information about the new Democracy Accelerator platform, designed as a place for democracy organizations to share information, resources, and collaborate on projects.
• Authoritarianism
  How Dictators Are Defeating Democracies — For defenders of democracy, an update on the ways in which authoritarians are challenging democratic societies.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Democracy Stories Lab — The world needs compelling storytelling about democracy -- stories that touch people’s hearts and minds, that can move them to participate in many forms of public life and, in doing so, create social and political change.
• Theories of Change
  Hahrie Han of Johns Hopkins University on What Moves People to Act Together — Hahrie Han joins Daniel Stid to talk about her research on belonging, civic action, and transformational community organizing.
• Constructive Communication
  America @ 250 Dialogue Guide — On our 250 birthday, the United States stands at a crossroads, facing critical dilemmas and existential challenges. Dialogue can help us face these together. Essential Partners shows how.
• Crime / Policing / Guns
  Victims Ignored Is Justice Denied — Upholding victims’ rights is an essential part of serving as a federal prosecutor. An argument that under President Trump, DOJ leadership has been consistently ignoring its obligations and losing the trust of crime victims.
• Saving Democracy
  The Importance of Civic Culture to Democracy, with Laurie Patton, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences — A podcast discussing how civic culture is democracy’s foundation and that a strong civic culture calls for us to engage in a way that recognizes each other’s humanity.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Shared Stewardship: How We Build a Thriving Democracy Together — A rising movement of stewards is working across differences to help every community thrive.
• Theories of Change
  "What Can I Do?" -- The Answer in Less than 30 Minutes — Stories Change Power has a short video specifically designed for people who are distraught about what is happening in and to the United States and want to know "what they can do" to help turn things around.

News and Opinion

From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)

• Social / Economic Complexity
  Systems Get Gamed — An interesting and likely valid theory about our many institutional failures -- eventually people figure out loopholes that allow them to exploit the most well-meaning institutions.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  I escaped Hezbollah — and found the truth about Israel. — A case where lived experience can tell us a lot about misconceptions embedded in the widely believed stereotypes about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
• Media Reform
  School phone bans make big promises. They won’t solve this problem. — A timely and important reminder that the use of phones during school time is not the only media threat facing young people. What about the rest of the day?
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The U.S.-Iran Deal: Glass Half-Full? — An exceptionally good analysis of the on-again, off-again Iranian ceasefire deal -- an analysis that goes beyond simply deciding who won and lost and starts thinking about what comes next.
• Progressive Left
  Coleman Hughes: The Case for Progressive Patriotism — An argument that, in the United States, patriotism is consistent with, rather than antithetical to, progressive ideals.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  A good offence is the best defence — For those who believe they have been targeted by a large-scale disinformation campaign – thoughts about how to respond constructively and effectively.
• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  The Price of British Multiculturalism: Women as Livestock — From Great Britain, a heart-wrenching story about what happens when the core goals of the feminist movement collide with the multicultural imperative to combat anything that might see as Islamophobic.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The Betrayal of the Iranian People — A timely and important reminder of the brutally repressive nature of the Iranian regime -- a regime that is finding its power dramatically enhanced by the revolution in inexpensive drone warfare.
• Race / Anti-Racism
  The Comfort of Victimhood — A thought-provoking exploration of the downsides of seeing oneself as a victim (even when one has been victimized).
• Artificial Intelligence
  Assume You Will Be Hacked — A blunt warning about one way in which AI is already threatening critically important infrastructure.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  Israel keeps winning wars. So why are we losing? — A perceptive and critically important observation that the decisive battles in the ongoing wars against Israel are being fought in the court of world opinion, not on a conventional battlefield.
• Effective Problem-Solving
  We’re dermatologists. Sunscreen isn’t the problem. — In the context of the great debate over sunscreen safety an explanation of the important difference between proven dangers and theoretically possible risks.
• Effective Problem-Solving
  The American West is burning. This maze provides kindling. — As we, in the western United States, enter another round of red flag weather, a timely article that looks at the way in which bureaucratic hurdles undermine our efforts to contain wildfire risks.
• Culture and Religion
  The Reconquest of Mainline Protestantism — An enlightening analysis of the decline in mainstream Protestant denominations in the United States, the role of culture war conflicts in that decline, and the ongoing resurgence of many of these religious communities.
• Communication Complexity
  Does anything I write matter anymore? — From Noah Smith, a man we count on to write consistently insightful and well-documented essays, thoughts about the diminishing audience for such thought-provoking work.
• Saving Democracy
  What’s the Matter With Congress? — For those who want to quit complaining about Congress and try to understand what's gone wrong and how it might be put right -- a compilation of the latest political science thinking.
• Superpower Conflict
  China’s Last Moonshot — For those impressed by China's astonishing ability to build things, a look at what happens when the things that are built are unneeded.
• US Politics
  Trump Is Turning Journalists Into Criminals — A detailed assessment of the complex legal questions surrounding the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute journalists who publish unfavorable reports.
• Theories of Change
  America Needs a New Sputnik Moment — As the world's geopolitical rivals are about to embark on an unprecedented arms race, a call for the United States to mobilize the next generation of talented young people.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  America’s Big Mistake in Iran — An article that looks at US and Israeli strategy in the recent war against Iran from the perspective of a longer-term debate about the efficacy and morality of strategic bombing.

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About the MBI Newsletters

Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.

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