‘We’re going to be in a new world.’ The combined military budget of the United States is now nearly one trillion dollars a year—and some of its programs are truly enormous. The F-35 fighter jet, for instance, relies on several hundred suppliers that together employ about a quarter of a million workers. In 2015, the U.S. Navy had 271 active surface vessels; Congress has now called for no less than 355, while the incoming U.S. president, Donald Trump, believes the number should have more than 400. Meanwhile, the United States is modernizing its stockpiles of nuclear weapons—to the tune of US$49 billion a year. What’s behind all this?

Today, Adam Tooze explores how America’s rivalries with other great powers—Russia, to be sure, but principally China—are spurring America’s political leaders to strengthen its military might, entrench its alliances, and recalibrate its strategic thinking for a shifting future.

—Gustav Jönsson

111 MHz: ‘Isotope.’ Cookin’ 1960s Jazz is the mode here, with a quartet led by the pianist McCoy Tyner and the tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. From a newly released live session laid down in 1966—but that sat in the drummer Jack DeJohnette’s archive for nearly 60 years: Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Another fall in Europe. The government in France collapsed on December 4, after the National Assembly passed a no-confidence motion—and just weeks after the government in Germany fell.

The cabinet, headed by Michel Barnier of the Conservative Party, will go down as the shortest-lived government in the history of the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958—and no government had been ousted by a no-confidence vote in France since 1962.

Two days earlier, Barnier’s minority government had used a constitutional provision to push a 2025 budget through the legislature without a vote. That angered both the far-right National Rally and the bloc of four left-wing parties called the New Popular Front, which together have a majority in the National Assembly.

French President Emmanuel Macron will appoint the next prime minister—and can choose anyone he likes—but with none of the left, right, or center holding a majority in the legislature, any potential cabinet faces a difficult path to confirmation. How did France wind up here?

In October, Matthias Matthijs looked at the pattern of emerging political crises in Europe the situation in France belongs to. Macron made a grave strategic error by calling snap elections in June, after the National Rally’s victory in the European Parliament election earlier that month, Matthijs says—but the sources of France’s growing political instability go deeper, into the public’s loss of confidence in the traditional parties of the center-right and center-left. Now, the electorate has fragmented among several parties ranging from the far right to the far left, making any governing coalition shaky and weak.

—Michael Bluhm

Meanwhile, in Tokyo …. For the past 55 years, Japan has—effectively, for the most part—been a one-party state. In all these years, the Liberal Democratic Party has been in charge, only twice falling short of a majority in the popular vote. Between the end of World War II and 1968, the LDP guided the country from its defeat and widespread destruction to being the world’s second-largest economy.

But now the party is back on its heels again. In late October, the LDP failed to win a majority in general elections, losing almost 70 of its 259 seats in Parliament. A financing scandal hurt them, while inflation has unsettled the country’s economy. The party did manage to secure Parliament’s approval in mid-November for a coalition government; still, the cabinet only has a minority of seats in the legislature, raising questions about how it’s going to govern. What happened here?

Today, Tobias S. Harris examines the steep drop in support for the LDP, the years-long erosion of trust in Japan’s public institutions, and the unusual reasons why populist politics haven’t had any real traction in the country’s national politics.

—Michael Bluhm

111 MHz: ‘Fluorescein.’ Aria Cheregosha and Lauren Spaulding formed Tallā Rouge—which means “the gold-red” in a combination of Farsi and French—a few years ago while students at Julliard. They both play viola with Persian and Cajun sensibilities, respectively. In this brief track from their new album, Shapes in Collective Space, the interplay between them is gorgeous and hypnotic.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Magliabechi’s: The Presidential Pardon Power. On Sunday, December 1, U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden for “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.” What's remarkable isn’t just the fact that the elder Biden broke his promise not to interfere in the legal process against the younger—who’s been convicted on gun-, tax-, and drug-related charges—but the sheer sweep of the pardon. Hunter Biden has not only been pardoned for the crimes he’s been convicted of; he’s been given immunity from any potential federal prosecution in connection to his foreign business dealings. On its face, this would all seem highly unusual. But how unusual is it?

No American president has ever pardoned his child before, but several have issued pardons to other family members and supporters. Abraham Lincoln pardoned his wife’s half-sister Emilie Todd Helm, who had sided with the Confederacy. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger Clinton for drug-related convictions. Donald Trump—who’s expressed indignation about the Biden pardoning—pardoned his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, who’d been convicted of witness tampering, tax evasion, and illegal campaign contributions.

Jeffrey Crouch’s The Presidential Pardon Power traces the history of how U.S. presidents have used the power to pardon. Traditionally, Crouch says, it was used to grant mercy for essentially humane reasons—but ever since President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate burglary, presidents have used it more and more to protect their subordinates and supporters.

—Gustav Jönsson

A holiday gift offer. For the month of December, we have a simple-enough offer: Anyone who buys an annual membership will receive a free gift membership to give to someone else. (Founding members will get three.)

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We’ll look forward to having you as a member—and to setting up your gift subscription.

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—Hywel Mills

111 MHz: ‘Come to Me.’ From the official motion-picture soundtrack to Nosferatu—the British-Irish composer Robin Carolin brings symphonic vigor and more than a little menace to Robert Eggers’s upcoming remake of the 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film, scheduled for release on December 25.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Magliabechi’s: The Fundamentals of Campaign Finance in the U.S. In 15 weeks of the American presidential race, the Kamala Harris campaign spent some US$1.5 billion. Since the election, the campaign has continued to solicit money, which it’s directing to the Democratic Party’s principal executive-leadership board, the Democratic National Committee. The DNC, however, is laying off most of its staff, several hundred in total. The union representing DNC workers has been quick to criticize the DNC, not only for the scale of its post-election turnover but for laying off permanent employees with one day’s notice and no severance. And Democratic Party insiders have begun leveling recriminations at their leadership: What was all that money spent on, anyway?

The Harris campaign spent roughly $600 million on television and digital advertising, $70 million on mail, $28 million to produce merchandise, $50 million on paid canvassers, and some $111 million on online ads soliciting further donations. It also spent lavishly on consultants and celebrities—including the talk-show host Oprah Winfrey’s production company, close to $2.5 million.

Local party branches got their share, too. The Harris campaign sent at least $100 million to branches in battleground states. Which is emblematic of the role American presidents and presidential candidates now play in their parties. In The Fundamentals of Campaign Finance in the U.S.: Why We Have the System We Have, Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny explore how presidents and presidential candidates have become “fundraisers in chief.” They’ll travel to cities across America to collect money for their party’s local organizations. Over time, as the country’s political parties have become more and more hollowed out, they’ve also become more and more reliant on the president’s or candidate’s personal appeal—limiting the ability of local party heads to oppose their national leader.

In August, here at The Signal, Kolodny looked at the changing dynamics of political fundraising in America—and how new sources of money were shaping the coming U.S. election.

—Gustav Jönsson