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The first days of the new year are the traditional time for making resolutions\u2014we vow to eat or drink less, exercise more, be kinder to our friends and more forgiving to our enemies, and to be better people overall. I\u2019ve got a long list of my own: read more books and fewer social media posts, practice a musical instrument every single day, write to friends more often, improve my down-the-line backhand<\/a>, and do more experimenting with artificial intelligence. Come back in a year and we\u2019ll see how I did.<\/p>\n Given the widespread perception that 2025 sucked<\/a>, it follows that several world leaders and public figures would benefit from making some ambitious resolutions this year. I want to be helpful, so I decided to offer some New Year\u2019s resolutions for global VIPs.<\/p>\n U.S. President<\/em> Donald Trump<\/em>.<\/strong> I begin with the leader who most needs to improve. As a realist, I don\u2019t expect a 79-year-old with a long and well-documented record of bad behavior to devote much (any?) time to becoming a better person, and recent trends aren\u2019t encouraging.<\/p>\n But I do have one modest suggestion: stop posting on social media, or at least let Chief of Staff Susie Wiles screen them for you. Those unhinged rants<\/a> on Truth Social may please the dwindling MAGA base, but you\u2019re alienating swing voters, exposing your mental decline, and signaling to the rest of the world that the United States is led by a narcissist with zero impulse control. For your own good, put the damn phone down.<\/p>\n Russian President<\/em> Vladimir Putin<\/em>.<\/strong> There are a lot of suggestions I could offer you, but I\u2019ll limit myself to two. First, do some more reading on modern nationalism<\/a> to understand why Ukrainians don\u2019t want to be ruled by Moscow and have fought like tigers to avoid that fate. You clearly have a good sense of how to appeal to Russian<\/em> national sentiments, but you seem to have overlooked the fact that other societies have distinct identities of their own, even if they share some distant historical features with others. Granted, the tide of war is now running in your favor, but it has lasted nearly four years, the costs far exceed your initial expectations, and it will take Russia many years to recover.<\/p>\n Second, get someone to bring you up to date on the latest developments in AI, where Russia ranks 31st<\/a> in some indexes. Even if you achieve most of your war aims in Ukraine, you are bequeathing to your successors a smokestack economy in an increasingly digital world. Hope they like being China\u2019s junior partner for many years to come.<\/p>\n Europe\u2019s Leaders<\/em>.<\/strong> Both the European Union and many of its member states are badly in need of reform, and plenty of smart people have been compiling lists<\/a> of things that Europe should fix. But in 2026, Europe\u2019s leaders should start by recognizing that trying to appease the Trump administration isn\u2019t working. Ordinary Americans are still friendly, but the Trump administration isn\u2019t<\/a>, and Trump and Co. are also bullies who take advantage of the weak and irresolute but back down when facing resolute resistance. Here\u2019s step one: resolve to diversify your trade relations by signing that long-delayed trade deal<\/a> with Mercosur. Do it now.<\/p>\n The <\/em>Kakistocrats<\/em><\/a>.<\/strong> The Trump administration has set a new standard for top officials who are unqualified for the positions they hold and who demonstrate it every day that they serve. This might be wishful thinking on my part, but if I were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and a few other beneficiaries of the \u201cPeter principle<\/a>,\u201d I\u2019d steal a page from the Dan Bongino playbook<\/a> and get out while I still can. The wheels are coming off the MAGA bus<\/a>; the next three years are going to get ugly, your legal jeopardy is going to increase, and you might be able to take what\u2019s left of your reputation and land a cushy gig at Fox News or Prager \u201cUniversity.\u201d Just say you want to spend more time with your family, thank the president for the opportunity to serve, and spare yourself and the rest of us further damage.<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister<\/em> Benjamin Netanyahu<\/em>.<\/strong> I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not on Netanyahu\u2019s list of people to take advice from (a short list in any case), but I wonder if he realizes that 2025 was not the great strategic triumph that he likes to proclaim in public. Yes, Israel has damaged some of its most immediate adversaries\u2014Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis\u2014but its economy is in bad shape<\/a>, it is no closer to a lasting settlement with its Palestinian subjects (who comprise nearly half the inhabitants of the lands it controls), and its actions in Gaza and elsewhere have caused a stunning sea change in public attitudes<\/a> toward the country. More Americans<\/a> sympathize with the Palestinians than with Israel, dozens of countries have formally recognized a Palestinian state, support from the U.S. Democratic Party is cratering, and the MAGA movement is splintering<\/a> over this issue too.<\/p>\n And trying to deflect or silence criticism by blaming all this on antisemitism isn\u2019t working for one simple reason: Most anti-Israel sentiment is driven not by hatred of Jews but by opposition to the country\u2019s actions. People such as Nick Fuentes remain a distinct minority\u2014fortunately\u2014but what should worry you are the reasonable people (including many Jews around the world) who are repelled by what Israel has done under your leadership. For 2026: recognize that what is in your personal political interest may not be in Israel\u2019s long-term interest and resolve to focus on the latter instead of the former.<\/p>\n Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman<\/em>.<\/strong> You might be feeling pretty good about 2025\u2014you got a nice reception when you visited Washington in November, the Trump administration is doing its best to kill the green revolution and keep oil at the center of the world economy, and efforts to sportswash<\/a> the kingdom\u2019s image are working tolerably well despite some setbacks<\/a> for the LIV Golf tour.<\/p>\n But some of your bigger mega-projects<\/a> seem to be heading for the same fate as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s \u201cVirgin Lands\u201d initiative<\/a> or Chinese leader Mao Zedong\u2019s \u201cGreat Leap Forward,\u201d and for similar reasons: overweening ambition, reliance on best-case assumptions, and rejection of expert advice. Self-confidence and resolve are valuable traits in a leader, but they need to be tempered with a willingness to listen to others and admit mistakes. To see why, hire someone to translate James C. Scott\u2019s Seeing Like a State<\/em> into Arabic, study it carefully, and resolve to listen more in 2026.<\/p>\n U.S. Secretary of State<\/em> Marco Rubio<\/em>.<\/strong> We\u2019ve never met, but I\u2019ve watched some of your public performances, and you seem like a fairly smart guy. So I\u2019ve been puzzled that you agreed to gut the department that you are supposedly leading at a moment when China\u2019s diplomatic outreach efforts are surging and when the United States is badly in need of skilled and experienced representatives who know how to talk to their foreign counterparts and persuade them to see things the way Washington wants them to. Declining to attend major conferences<\/a>, leaving dozens of embassies without an ambassador, and then pulling<\/a> 30 serving ambassadors out of their posts without warning signals contempt for the rest of the world, and I find it hard to believe that this is the message you genuinely want to send.<\/p>\n Your New Year\u2019s resolution for 2026 should be to tell Trump that you\u2019ll resign if he doesn\u2019t stop tearing the State Department apart. Lest that seem like a risky step, remember that Trump got to be president in 2016 by taking controversial positions and sticking to them, which made him stand out from the crowd of colorless Republican Party regulars (included you). If you hope to succeed him (and I suspect you do), it\u2019s time to grow a spine and prove that you stand for something more than toppling governments in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n The Tech Bros<\/em>.<\/strong> It\u2019s been a great year for a lot of tech titans, apart from Elon Musk\u2019s epic fail <\/a>as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. This is not a group of people noted for humility, and I can easily imagine each of them thinking that there is no need to make any New Year\u2019s resolutions or to entertain the possibility of self-improvement.<\/p>\n Think again. Even if AI lives up to the loftiest expectations, a winnowing out is inevitable, and some high-flying companies today will turn out to be the 21st century versions of Netscape. More importantly, those oligarchs who have amassed vast fortunes while millions of other people are struggling\u2014and who seem blithely indifferent to the latter\u2019s fate\u2014are courting a vast and dangerous backlash. You think people won\u2019t push back big time as their electricity bills soar to feed your data centers, and when the administration you\u2019re so fond of is killing wind farms<\/a> that might help?<\/p>\n My advice: learn what happened to aristocrats and priests during the French Revolution and resolve to do more to help those less fortunate than yourselves. Progressive politics has repeatedly saved capitalism from its worst vices, and it\u2019s a better guarantee for your own long-term survival than the crude libertarianism to which many of you seem devoted.<\/p>\n Academic Leaders<\/em>.<\/strong> It\u2019s been a rough year for university presidents, deans, boards of trustees, faculty, and students, but that makes it somewhat easier to draw lessons and make resolutions on how to do better in 2026. Thus far, university leaders who have stood up to the Trump administration have fared better than those who tried to appease it (in part because extortionists like to make new demands), even though they haven\u2019t been able to contain all the damage. And it\u2019s increasingly apparent that right-wing culture warriors demanding greater intellectual diversity weren\u2019t genuinely committed to wide-ranging discourse; they just wanted to substitute<\/a> their own orthodoxies for ideas that they didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n In 2026, I hope those charged with managing the critical national resource of higher education and academic research will resolve to defend academic freedom in the face of pressures from any direction and maintain their institutions as bastions of free and rigorous inquiry. No country ever made itself safer or more prosperous by cutting its research institutions or stifling free expression, and academic leaders must defend their institutions even when governments won\u2019t.<\/p>\n The Rest of Us<\/em>.<\/strong> I\u2019ve been focusing on \u201cglobal VIPs\u201d in this column, but as David Hume observed a long time ago, in the end, \u201cforce is always on the side of the governed.\u201d When roused, ordinary people can make their voices heard and their desires manifest, even in the face of strong opposition. In 2025, significant popular protests occurred in more than 70 countries<\/a>, including the \u201cNo Kings\u201d rallies in the United States and the mass protests that toppled leaders in Nepal, Mongolia, and Bulgaria.<\/p>\n Whatever your political views may be, I hope you\u2019ll resolve to do more to express them next year. Maybe you\u2019ll write a letter, back a campaign, sign a petition, attend a demonstration, or even run for office\u2014that\u2019s up to you. And while you\u2019re at it, I hope you\u2019ll also make an effort to study the views of those with whom you disagree and see if there\u2019s something you might learn from them or if there\u2019s any common ground between you at all. We live in an era of deep political polarization, and it\u2019s all-too tempting to cheer on our own tribe and assume that our opponents are evil ignoramuses with nothing to contribute.<\/p>\n As some of my previous points reveal, no one is immune to this tendency, but our common future likely depends on being able to find common purpose across lines of difference. I guess that means that my list of resolutions for 2026 got a little bit longer. Happy New Year!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n