WORLD ROUNDUPThe Realist Case for Global Rules | Africans Are Building Putin’s Suicide Drones | Trump’s Tariffs and the Stakes of Korea’s Snap Election, and more

Trump’s Tariffs and the Stakes of Korea’s Snap Election  (CFR)
On June 3, Korean voters will head to the polls for a snap presidential election. The outcome will reverberate far beyond Korean domestic politics—resetting the strong U.S.-South Korea strategic partnership, recalibrating regional trade, and even redefining how a U.S. president manages its most stalwart allies.
The vote comes amid a period of political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial-law decree in December 2024, which he issued in an attempt to break a parliamentary deadlock. After massive street protests and an extended Constitutional Court review, Yoon’s impeachment was finalized in early April but left in its wake deep partisan cleavages.

Trump Administration Targets Brazilian Judge for ‘Censorship’  (Jack Nicas, New York Times)
A new State Department policy to restrict visas from foreign officials who censor voices online appears written for a specific Brazilian Supreme Court justice.

Africans Are Building Putin’s Suicide Drones  (Economist)
Russia is luring young African women to make weapons to attack Ukraine.

Israel Fuels Three Emergencies as Its Furious Allies Bail Out  (Economist)
Binyamin Netanyahu has a lethal addiction to crises.

The Realist Case for Global Rules  (Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy)
You don’t need to be an idealist to be worried about Donald Trump’s approach to global order.
There are many things that U.S. President Donald Trump doesn’t understand about world politics—which is astonishing given that he’s in his second term at the White House—and one of them is the importance of international institutions. Institutions are rules, and Trump’s contempt for rules predates his entry into politics. He has long seen norms, laws, and rules as pesky constraints that sometimes prevent him from taking whatever he wants, and he’s brought that attitude to foreign policy. Whether he’s accepting lucrative emoluments from foreign governments, threatening to seize Greenland and annex Canada, or bullying foreign visitors in the Oval Office, Trump sees no norm as beyond challenge, no agreement as sacrosanct, and no global institution as worth investing in or defending.
You might think a realist like me would nod in approval. Don’t realists think that power is all that matters and that norms, rules, and institutions have little impact on what states—and especially major powers—do? If that’s what you were taught in your introduction to international relations class, go back to your instructor and request a refund. Yes, realism does view power as the most important factor in world politics, and it maintains that powerful states have the greatest impact on the institutions that prevail at any given point in time. Realists also stress that because there is no central authority to enforce compliance, states can defy the rules if they wish. But sophisticated realists like Hans Morgenthau, Robert Gilpin, Henry Kissinger, Stephen Krasner, and even John Mearsheimer also emphasize that any system of interdependent states cannot function without a set of rules and that even powerful states will pay a price if they defy existing rules too often or too egregiously.

American Far-Right Views Are Welcome in China  (Maya Wang and Mason Wong, Foreign Policy)
Racists in the United States and Chinese nationalists share common ground.

How Trump Is Helping Washington’s Foes in Africa  (Nosmot Gbadamosi, Foreign Policy)
Ramaphosa’s treatment at the White House cemented that the U.S. is writing itself out of the continent’s future.