In the past few days, the US president, Donald Trump, has turned his curious loathing for his country’s allies towards South Korea. He has complained that the nation free-rides on the US military presence on the peninsula and did not participate in the Iran war. He has also talked up his rapport with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. To date, Trump has focused his anti-ally ire on Western partners such as Canada and Denmark; this turn towards Asian allies is new.

It’s also risky. The US has fewer allies in East Asia than in Europe and faces higher stakes there. China is a far greater challenger to US power than Russia, which means that Asian allies are much more important than European ones. While Europe has the combined weight to resist Russian regional ambitions, Asian partners do not have the same power regarding China nor are they effectively co-ordinated through a multilateral body such as Nato.

More broadly, a decade into the Trump era, his entrenched loathing for US allies and comfort – even glee – while tearing down long-standing US relationships is still rather a mystery. There appears to be no strategic rationale. The reasoning seems nothing more than petulance.

Trump has long complained that allies take advantage of US security guarantees. His claims began as early as the 1980s when he was a New York businessman. He appears to see US alliances as protection rackets rather than embodiments of international liberal solidarity. Hence his constant refrain that allies “rip off” the US and his demand for cash payments – he says that he has just asked South Korea for $10bn (€8.6bn).

The US president has, to be fair, identified a genuine issue. Many allies, especially in Europe, underspent on defence after the Cold War (a complaint also raised by American secretaries of defence for the past three decades). Perhaps a blunt force such as Trump was necessary to compel change – Europe, for example, has the wealth and industrial base to fully support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

But South Korea’s defence spending is higher than most US allies: 2.6 per cent of GDP and trending upwards. It has a large army to defend itself against its northern neighbours and a modern, if small, air force and navy. Most of its American assistance is logistics, intelligence and command-and-control. And the East Asian nation does pay. The terms of the agreement that allows the US to have a presence in South Korea means that Seoul gives about $1bn (€860m) annually – a number that has been rising for years.

Trump’s complaints miss the obvious value of US alliances. In South Korea, the pact gives the US access to bases on the peninsula where the Americans can do mostly what they want. The Iran war has illustrated the importance of such friendly bases. After Iran bombed US sustainment sites in the Gulf early in the war, American ships could no longer use the sites and are now accruing a backlog of maintenance needs. Conditions on some ships have become so bad that crew members’ families have complained to Congress.

This lesson applies more broadly to US partnerships elsewhere. Canada maintains early-warning radar for North America to detect missile launches across the Arctic. Okinawa in Japan houses a huge American presence without which the US cannot contest rising Chinese naval power.

The bigger takeaway from all this is an unmoored US grand strategy. Since 1940, the US broadly pursued an internationalist posture of alignment with fellow liberal democracies against the world’s various tyrannies. Strains were always present but the notion that the US would defect to the other side was never entertained. Yet today, Trump seemingly prefers North Korea to South; Russia to Ukraine.

If Trump were not so chaotic and undisciplined, this would be a revolution in US foreign policy. But it probably is not. Although American administrations are required to produce a formal statement of their national security strategy – and the White House released one last year – it has been a useless guide to Trump’s actions. Since its release last December, US foreign-policy behaviour has rarely conformed to it. While it speaks of restraint and caution, Trump has recklessly used force. 

What “strategy” there is appears to turn on Trump’s pique. Rather than drop both literal and verbal bombs, the US president should take note from his predecessors: alliances are a force multiplier. The US is lilting and Trump has neither the discipline nor desire to steady the ship.

Robert E Kelly is a professor of political science at Pusan National University.

Don’t sit next to me at dinner. It’s not that my table manners are that bad – it’s just that one minute you will generously be telling me some interesting fact about your life, then the next I will be suggesting that you should tell this story to Monocle’s readers. Perhaps pen a few hundred words or jump on Monocle Radio.

It’s a warning that I offer to my team at Monocle too. Earlier this year, when we were in Shanghai for our Entrepreneurs Live conference, I was able to spend time with our Asia editor, James Chambers. He happened to mention that he and his wife had decided to home-school their two children; more than that, they were “unschooling” them, letting their offspring help choose what they wanted to do and learn every day. James explained that it was going well – his children are inquisitive and already, instinctively, excelling in languages and mathematics (James’s wife is Chinese and they are based in Bangkok, so there are lots of linguistic opportunities).

So, of course, when we started planning this issue themed around knowledge, lifelong learning and education, James found himself swiftly commissioned to write an essay about the experience and how we should all question how children are taught. His is just one of many fascinating looks at education over the following pages but I am delighted that he has told you his story – one that challenges us all to question how we should teach young people.

And we definitely need some new thinking because AI is set to undermine many of the old certainties about work and life, forcing governments to scrub down their national curriculums as they think how to help young people gain skills that won’t be erased by machine learning. One of the big shifts that we are seeing is a re-embracing of the value of learning a manual trade, gaining craft skills. That’s why for this issue we also set out to find “masters and apprentices” in everything from shoemaking to boatbuilding to hear about the growing allure of making and building with your hands. I was struck by how, in Australia, an advertisement for a plumbing apprenticeship received 300 applications and also by the relationships between all these teachers and students. One skilled educator can reorientate a life.

I was diligent but slightly plodding at school and only found my footing once I reached university, where I could follow my own path more and teach myself. So, while I did all the prescribed reading for my course, I also lost myself in books about art and design, took myself to the theatre and to see arthouse films and started writing for the university paper. When I began looking for work, I knew that I had to find a way into journalism and somehow landed an internship at Time Out in London. There, I met Tony Elliott, the title’s founder, who was probably the first person to see in this awkward but keen young man someone who might be worth employing – and a long career in journalism commenced. Often, that’s all anyone needs: some mentoring, a few words that help focus a young mind. That’s why we have asked 25 successful people to tell us about the one life lesson that they most cherish; the one piece of advice that provided a ticket to a different future.

Among the answers are numerous nuggets of inspiring wisdom. Gildo Zegna, of the famous fashion house, says that he has been guided by his grandfather’s advice to “do what’s right, not what’s convenient”. Automotive CEO Klaus Zellmer urges you to “be bold enough to step into unfamiliar territory”. I also like architect Amanda Levete’s belief that you should “hold onto your passion. You can figure out the rest as you go.” Perhaps it resonates because I think that this has been my plan too.

I hope that you enjoy our September offering – and learn a few things along the way. And if you would like to send me a report card, perhaps even a gold star, you can always find me at at@monocle.com. Here’s to staying inquisitive.

Good advice is like gold dust: rare, hard to find and all the more precious for its scarcity. Hear the right words at the right time and they could alter the course of your life for the better. We all have stories of transformative nuggets of wise counsel received at pivotal moments of our careers – whether from strangers, family members or the pages of a book picked up by chance in a shop that we walked into on a whim.

But often what inspires us most is the hard-earned knowledge of those who came before us and used their passions to power their success. Whether you’re considering how to start your career or weighing up a radical pivot, we have collated some words of wisdom that might come in handy. Here, 25 leaders from all walks of life share what has helped them most and what they would like to pass on.

Some speak of the importance of building a trusted support network, while others cite specific role models to emulate. But most agree with Los Angeles-based Thai architect Kulapat Yantrasast, who tells Monocle that it’s crucial to constantly expose ourselves to ideas that differ from our own. “When we stop learning,” he says, “we stop living.” Read on for more pieces of gold dust.

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1.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Chef and restaurateur

“Having a community around you is the ultimate source of support. It will help you to achieve whatever you seek. Trust and empower people, and remind them how good they are every day. A good education is primarily about building confidence; the rest hardly matters. In my experience, confidence has a lot to do with whatever is holding you back. You can learn everything else along the way. Education isn’t about setting impossible standards, which can be very demoralising. That doesn’t help anyone in the long run. And the skill that we all should have? Knowing how to make a really good tomato sauce.”

Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born restaurateur and the chef-patron of the Ottolenghi Group. His new book, ‘Simple Too’, is published in September.

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2.
Tim Marshall
Journalist

“The best advice that I have ever received is that if you want to change the world, change yourself. Also, ‘Duck!’”

Tim Marshall is a journalist and the author of several books, including ‘Prisoners of Geography’.

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3.
Masamichi Katayama
Interior designer

“Above all, you must enjoy what you do. Everything that you put into your work will ultimately come back to you. The secret to my success is that I found what I truly wanted to do and chose it as my work. I can continue doing it without growing tired of it. The best advice that I have ever received is, ‘If you want to create bigger ripples, throw the largest stone that you can into the very centre of the pond.’”

Masamichi Katayama is the founder and principal of Tokyo-based interior-design firm Wonderwall.

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4.
Sarah Andelman
Creative consultant

“One thing that I wish I knew when I was younger? Practise sport. And my secret to success is to work relentlessly.”

Sarah Andelman is the founder of creative consulting company Just an Idea.

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5.
Neville Brody
Graphic designer

“I wish that I had known earlier that trying and failing are vital steps towards greater knowledge and experience. The worst advice that I have ever received was to give up struggling as a designer and go into advertising instead. The key to a good education is to confront your own limitations and, with support, exploring new and unfamiliar ways of looking, thinking and responding. That creates skilled, independent minds. If the goal is to develop familiar and clichéd ways of thinking, the result is standardised minds. Trust yourself. You’re not there for the institution.”

Neville Brody is a professor of visual communication at the Royal College of Art in London.

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6.
Hanna Stjärne
Journalist and media executive

“When you face a difficult decision, leave it until the next morning. Most things can wait and the solution will be more evident after a good night’s sleep. Also, value the success of your team and your colleagues more than your own.”

Hanna Stjärne is the executive director of the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm.

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7.
Giuseppe Sala
Mayor

“The worst advice that I have ever received was not to enter politics because nothing would ever change. It’s important to be persistent. Believe in what you do and build a solid base on which your vision can become a reality.”

Giuseppe Sala is the mayor of Milan.

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8.
Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Architect and curator

“The poems of [US modernist poet] Wallace Stevens taught me the most valuable life lesson that I have ever learnt: not to attempt to impose an order upon reality but to accept complexity and to inhabit it. Another important lesson is ‘to change nothing so that everything is different’ – a quotation from film director Jean-Luc Godard. Transformation isn’t about altering reality but about changing the way in which we perceive it. And the worst advice? To buy NFTs. Thankfully, I never followed it.”

Stefano Rabolli Pansera is the founding director of contemporary-art spaces Khao Yai Art Forest and Bangkok Kunsthalle in Thailand.

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9.
Ruth Rogers
Chef

“Never hold a party without a margarita. And if I could live my life again, I would probably learn how to play the banjo. I have recently been listening to actor and musician Steve Martin play the instrument and he has inspired me. Meanwhile, one thing that I wish I knew when I was younger is that you don’t have to answer questions right away. You can say that you will think about it.”

Ruth Rogers is an American-born British chef and the founder of The River Café.

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10.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Novelist

“A skill that everyone should have is the ability to change their minds. And we should also remember that no matter how awful or brilliant a particular experience is, it won’t last for ever. Time will pass.”

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora writer and the author of literary thriller ‘At Sea’.

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11.
Kim Ghattas
Journalist

“Perhaps the least helpful piece of advice that I have received is that I would never succeed as a journalist or make a living from it. It’s a good thing that I didn’t listen. Nothing is as definite or as final as you might think. When I was younger, I sometimes felt overwhelmed by the need for every choice or decision to be perfect. But I have learnt that you can always make amends or adjust course. I grew up during Lebanon’s civil war so I missed a lot of school. But reading avidly gave me a deep sense of curiosity about the world, which has been key to setting me up for success. People should know more than one language – it opens up your mind, your horizons and your heart. The most valuable lesson that I have learnt? It sounds like a cliché but I have come to believe that setbacks always have a reason. Eventually, they lead to something better if you learn from them and focus on creating your own luck.”

Kim Ghattas is a Beirut-based journalist and the author of ‘Black Wave’, about the origins of the Saudi-Iran conflict. Her forthcoming book, ‘The Best Kind of American’, is published in October.

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12.
Fareed Zakaria
TV anchor

“Money, fame and career success aren’t the most important guiding forces in my life. Instead, it’s time. That’s what is most valuable to me and I work hard to manage it carefully and thoughtfully. The best lesson that I have learnt is a simple one and it’s still my golden rule: be nice and forgiving. In other words, give people a second chance. It’s good for the world but even better for you. It means that you don’t live with tension bottled up within you. Let it go.”

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s weekly international-affairs programme ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’.

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13.
Peter Saville
Art director

“The best advice that I have ever received was from [former Pentagram design director] John McConnell. He told me, ‘The solution is the problem.’”

Peter Saville is a London-based graphic designer and art director.

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14.
Benjamin Vuchot
Hotel group CEO

“Everyone should have the abilities to quieten their mind through daily meditation and to listen properly. In a fast-paced world, the best connection often begins with understanding what is not said, picking up on unspoken details and responding with empathy. I don’t think that there’s one great secret to success but I have always believed in staying close to people and to the details. True achievement is never a solo endeavour. Beekeeping is a hobby of mine; it has taught me to rely on a collective unity, where every individual’s contribution is vital to the harmony of the whole. The most interesting careers rarely follow straight lines. Some of my most valuable lessons have come from outside the boardroom – from interacting with customers on the shop floor, from moving countries and from learning about different cultures.”

Benjamin Vuchot is the CEO of Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels Limited, the parent company of The Peninsula.

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15.
Gildo Zegna
Fashion executive

“When you’re young, you believe that everything has to happen quickly. But building a group that’s meant to last – and the team to drive it – is like being part of a family. It takes consistency, focus and a long-term vision. There’s a lot of value in patience too. When it comes to leadership, hard skills aren’t enough. You also need soft skills, so cultivate both. The classroom teaches you some things; life teaches you the rest. Do what’s right, not what is convenient. This is what my father and grandfather taught me, what I have taught my sons and what I will teach my grandchildren.”

Gildo Zegna is the CEO-turned-chair of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group.

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16.
Andrea Trimarchi
Designer

“Uncertainty is an essential part of learning. The key to a good education isn’t a pyramidical structure. Learning should be as horizontal as possible. Stay curious and ask better questions. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ a lot of times.”

Andrea Trimarchi is a co-founder of Italian design studio Formafantasma.

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17.
Klaus Zellmer
Automotive CEO

“Several of the defining steps in my career came through roles, projects or challenges that I hadn’t anticipated and initially might not have considered myself fully prepared for. There’s value in knowing your strengths and building on them. But if that becomes an excuse to remain in your comfort zone, it can limit both personal potential and organisational progress. For me, growth has often begun when I said ‘yes’ to something unfamiliar. Adaptability isn’t just about individual capability. It requires the ability to nurture followers who understand the need for change, trust the direction that you set and contribute their own energy and expertise. That’s how a group becomes a team and a team becomes one that wins. If I could share one secret to success, it would be to expand your role before someone else expands it for you – and be bold enough to step into unfamiliar territory.”

Klaus Zellmer is the CEO of Czech carmaker Škoda Auto.

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18.
Tara Bernerd
Interior architect

“The moment when you think that you’ve learnt everything is the moment when you stop growing. So practise the art of staying interested. The world is full of extraordinary people, places and ideas, and I have found that curiosity has opened more doors than any grand plan ever could. So much of our work is about our relationships and the people we meet.”

Tara Bernerd is a UK-based designer and the founder of interior-architecture practice Tara Bernerd & Partners.

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19.
Kulapat Yantrasast
Architect and designer

“The key to a great education is to be around curious minds that don’t necessarily agree with you. When we stop learning, we stop living.”

Kulapat Yantrasast is a Thai architect and a co-founder of Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary design practice Why Architecture.

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20.
Ben Smith
Airline executive

“One thing that you learn as you grow older is that life goes by so quickly. You can choose to spend your time with a lot of people but bear in mind that you won’t ever get any of those days back. So make sure that you spend them with the ones who you truly care about and those who genuinely care about you. Also, try to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Not everyone is comfortable with that but I am.”

Ben Smith is the CEO of Air France-KLM.

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21.
Amanda Levete
Architect

“One day you realise that you can learn as much from your younger self as you can from decades of experience. Hold on to your passion. You can figure out the rest as you go.”

Amanda Levete is a British architect and the founder of London-based studio AL_A.

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22.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Author

“The worst advice is to just be yourself. That is well-meaning but mistaken. Everyone can benefit by learning from and emulating what is excellent in others, often by reading about lives and perspectives other than their own. The best advice that I have received came from my father. He told me to read as much and as widely as possible while I was young because in adulthood, no matter your intentions or plans, life gets in the way. Though I’m now a writer and it’s part of my job to read, I see just how right he was and I’m grateful for those early years. Everyone should develop the ability to listen and not just be quiet until it’s their turn to speak. This is harder than it seems.”

Thomas Chatterton Williams is an American cultural critic and writer.

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23.
Alain de Botton
Philosopher and author

“Every choice is painful. The only kinds of success that are worth measuring are serenity and the absence of anxiety.”

Alain de Botton is a Swiss-born writer and the founder of The School of Life.

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24.
Roksanda Ilincic
Fashion designer

“Learning is a lifelong conversation. Art, travel, literature, architecture and human encounters all become teachers if we are attentive. I wish that I had known when I was younger that uncertainty isn’t something to fear. It is often where imagination begins and where the most meaningful work takes shape.”

Roksanda Ilincic is a Serbian-born fashion designer and the founder of label Roksanda.

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25.
Arthur Person
Fashion executive

“Too often, France’s elite business and engineering schools, its grandes écoles, teach their students how not to listen to their own instincts and to fold themselves into narrow career templates. But the key to a good education is letting a child take an interest and open up. It’s about constantly widening the field of what’s possible for them, whether through concerts, exhibitions or discoveries – all with a real sense of pleasure. It should be an ongoing dialogue, involving them in every decision that concerns them.”

Arthur Person is the head of Parisian menswear label Octobre Éditions.

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Quotes gathered by: James Chambers, Grace Charlton, Julia Jenne, Rory Jones, Tomos Lewis, Ed Stocker

Medicine, law and engineering have long been the holy trinity of Singaporeans’ career aspirations. But the city-state’s politicians hope that this won’t be the case for much longer. “The country would like students to have a broader definition of success,” says Vincent Chua, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Years of rote learning and high-pressure exams have laid the foundations for growth here but, as the economy evolves, education is refocusing on ways to foster entrepreneurship, risk-taking and resilience. So, while the world is worrying about engineering and STEM subjects, Singapore is building design schools and encouraging the study of the arts.

“In an industrial economy, there’s only one peak, which is the academic peak,” says Chua. “Going forward, we want to have multiple peaks: a mountain range where different people can excel in their respective areas.”

One peak has already been conquered. NUS, which sits at the apex of a world-leading education system, is the highest Asian institution in the 2027 QS World University Rankings. In 2022, Singapore’s students came top in mathematics, reading and science in the OECD’s prestigious Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings. The following year, they finished first in the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for the third time in a row. Alongside academic success has come government-level recognition of the fact that the old, hard-nosed education system undervalued the importance of creative and technical skills. “The old model has its limitations. It gets you far but it doesn’t always bring you to the top of the innovation chain,” says Chua.

When Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, the newly sovereign nation, which had no natural resources and little physical space, made education a priority. “There are two factors in the formative influences of a young man or young woman’s life: one is the home; the other is the school,” Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state’s founding prime minister, once declared. “We cannot do very much about the home but we can do something about the school.”

In 1979, the country rolled out the New Education System, which divided pupils based on academic ability. The goal was to build an elite workforce that would drive economic growth and attract foreign investment. It worked. Singapore’s economy grew by an average of 9 per cent annually in the first 25 years following independence, transforming what was little more than a poor fishing port into one of the world’s pre-eminent financial centres.

In 2019 the state announced that secondary-school streaming, a key facet of the New Education System, would be abolished. Signalling a change of focus, the Primary School Leaving Examination for 12-year-olds overhauled its scoring system to reduce grade comparisons in 2021. Its total numerical score was swapped for a rubric assigning “achievement levels” for individual subjects.

Then, in 2024, Singapore’s prime minister, Lawrence Wong, announced that the Gifted Education Programme – a learning path designed to nurture high-ability students – would be discontinued after 42 years amid concerns about elitism and judging children’s potential too early. It is expected to end in 2027. “It’s no longer just about technical competence,” says Chua. “You now need to be future-ready and global-ready too. That means being more creative and adaptable.” The challenges of today’s workforce, he suggests, aren’t the same as those faced by the successful students of the past.

Such moves represent a shift away from a model geared solely for academic achievement towards one that encompasses broader attitudes to citizenship, resilience and creativity. During a speech to parliament last September, Wong acknowledged the need to “reduce the stakes of single exams”, “broaden definitions of success” and “give every child the chance to discover and develop their strengths – be it in languages, science, sports, art or technical skills”.

A significant milestone in this new mission was the establishment of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), a state-supported private institution. Formed from an alliance between Lasalle College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa), it welcomed its first students in 2024. Besides offering an expanded range of programmes including fine art, design and performing arts, UAS now validates, confers and awards its own degrees. This represents a pivot away from Lasalle and Nafa’s long-standing degree partnerships with universities such as London’s Goldsmiths and Royal College of Music.

“We always aspired to become a fully fledged university and slowly built the capacity to run our own degree programmes,” says UAS’s deputy vice-chancellor, Venka Purushothaman. The founding of UAS was a response to rising demand for arts-based courses; between 2024 and 2026, undergraduate applications to Lasalle soared by 56 per cent. “People have started to realise that the arts aren’t peripheral to the economy,” says Purushothaman. “We shouldn’t accept a false dichotomy between the arts and the sciences.”

NUS has taken a similarly multidisciplinary approach. It has set up two new institutions: the College of Humanities and Sciences, and the College of Design and Engineering. The latter’s core curriculum states that it seeks to develop students with the critical skills to “meet the needs of a rapidly evolving and complex world”. Purushothaman, meanwhile, says that he is hoping to create a new “venture centre” for students at UAS. “Part of being an artist is fundamentally entrepreneurial,” he says. “We want to help our students to better articulate their value proposition for a changing world.”

Entrepreneurialism, which most Singaporeans previously saw as too risky, is also booming, supported by the city-state’s growing network of venture capital firms and accelerators. Singapore has the highest concentration of technology entrepreneurs in the region, says Caela Tanjangco, the head of Asia for New York-based non-profit Endeavor Catalyst, which set up its fifth global hub here in July. “To support the best founders from around the world, we need to be here.”

Mili Kale can attest to the strength of the nation’s startup scene. Despite not having a background in finance, the co-founder of Moom Health, which makes natural supplements for women, raised S$4.7m (€3.2m) across two funding rounds in order to expand her operation overseas. “Everyone says Singapore is small but the biggest benefit of [it] being small is that you can get a response,” Kale tells Monocle. “You can find the connections you need.”

A vital catalyst for such connections is NUS’s Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme, which finds internships for Singaporean students at start-ups in places such as Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, and has been running for 24 years. In that time, more than 1,200 start-ups, including three unicorns, have been founded by NOC alumni.

Singapore’s craft scene is finding fresh expressions too. In 2019, Matthias Yong, the son of one of the city’s few metalworkers, founded Baremetalco, which makes metal sculptures, furniture and accessories for clients including Adidas and the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Local makers can’t compete with China in terms of price; as a result, the likes of Yong and fine-jewellery brand State Property focus instead on artistry and quality.

The latter company’s founders, Afzal Imram and Ruiyin Lin, have carved out a niche by leaning into an eclectic mix of influences, from architecture to literature. State Property’s The Voyager collection, for example, drew inspiration from Carl Sagan’s gold-plated phonograph records that were attached to Nasa’s Voyager spacecrafts. Unlike legacy maisons with centuries of heritage, Imram and Lin have had the latitude to forge their own path. “There are no traditions or conventions to hold us down,” says Lin.

Timber specialist Ruben Chong has a similar strategy. What began as a playful exercise in sanding the teak parquet floors of his parents’ home soon matured into Calvary Carpentry. Founded in 2011, Chong’s woodworking business now employs more than 50 people. His burgeoning portfolio includes the 3.5km Marina Bay Sands boardwalk, the School of the Arts concert hall and wooden structures for Amanpuri’s luxury resort in Phuket, Thailand. Chong has also invented EZ-Rail, a proprietary clip-fastening system for wooden decking, and is one of the pioneers behind Onewood, a Singapore-made homogeneous reconstituted timber that is intended to help plug the gap amid a global hardwood shortage.

Singaporean technological innovation also abounds and the benefits are being felt around the world. The titanium fan blades that propel the Trent aero engines of the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner are manufactured at Rolls-Royce’s Seletar Campus in northeastern Singapore; UK-based fintech company Wise’s multi-currency debit card was designed here; and eyewear brand EssilorLuxottica’s Essilor Stellest Lens, which slows down myopia in children, was conceptualised in the firm’s Singaporean innovation centre. Then, of course, there’s Dyson.

Founded in 1991, the British electronics company moved its global headquarters from the UK to Singapore in 2019. Though the media attributed this to the city-state’s low taxes, the relocation wouldn’t have been possible without the presence here of a deep talent pool. “Singaporeans instinctively think globally and there is an openness to constant learning,” says John Churchill, Dyson’s chief technology officer. “There are excellent universities, which we work closely with, and a large number of engineers and scientists, as well as people of many nationalities and backgrounds.”

The city-state has become the command post for some of the firm’s biggest recent breakthroughs. The Hyperdymium 140k, Dyson’s smallest and fastest motor, was designed here; it powers the PencilVac, the world’s slimmest cordless vacuum.

Hunn Wai is a co-founder of Singapore- and Milan-based creative studio Lanzavecchia + Wai, and an adjunct associate professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He has had a front-row seat to his country’s creative and technological evolution. “Back in the day, Singapore was more of an auxiliary design market. When I graduated in 2005, we were supposed to work for companies such as Philips and Sony Ericsson – not designing the main product but working on the accessories,” he tells Monocle. “We have moved beyond that. We are now becoming self-made people, moving fast, prototyping and iterating.”

Having taught at SUTD for eight years and incubated young designers as the curator for DesignSingapore Council’s award-winning exhibition at Milan Design Week, Prototype Island, Wai sees how government reforms have mirrored a change in mindset. “Everyone today, by default, is well educated and these young people now have the space to dream,” he says. “My hope is that they will continue to grow in confidence and contribute original ideas to the world.”

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Singaporean education at a glance:

1. Ranked first place in the 2025 Global Talent Competitive Index
2. Top for maths, science and reading in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment ranking
3. First in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
4. Singaporean maths textbooks have been licensed to more than 60 countries
5. Singapore’s literacy rate (aged 15 and over) is 98.6 per cent
6. Nine in 10 literate residents under the age of 45 can read two or more languages

1.
Doctors, nurses and paramedics

Though many of the more utopian AI-related predictions concern medicine, few expect the technology to put professionals in that sector on the breadline. This is partly because demand for their services is constant. It is also because lateral thinking, nuanced judgement and spontaneous inspiration might be the difference between life and death. And if something does go wrong, someone has to be accountable. It also matters that medical professionals of all kinds are also the people we interact with at our most vulnerable and worried. It’s annoying enough when we’re expected to check in for our doctor’s appointment on a screen smeared with who knows what. Hearing the worst from R2-D2 would feel like insult added to injury.

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2.
Hospitality workers

Frequent hotel guests are burdened more than most with dolorous insights into the annoying and tedious tech dystopia that might await us – QR codes instead of room-service menus; receptionists who will only interact with you on WhatsApp and might not even be in the same building; touchscreen check-ins; controls for lights, the TV and bathroom that would baffle a submarine navigator. Nobody asked for any of this and it’s difficult to imagine the kind of weirdo who prefers this sort of thing to picking up the phone and having your enquiry answered by a human. It seems a reasonable bet that higher-end hotels – as well as bars and restaurants – will eventually realise that their guests are paying a premium not just for a room or a table but for things to be made easier, rather than more complicated. And that they’ll hire accordingly.

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3.
Plumbers

Even the most pessimistic assessments of the post-AI jobs market – those portents of a world of shoeless data analysts plodding door to door, offering to track key performance indicators for spare change – acknowledge that people who can fix and build stuff should be OK. Plumbers are especially emblematic of the forthcoming aristocracy of the practical. These are people we usually call in an emergency and the kind of emergency that we would rather have dealt with now. Plumbers have specialised, expert knowledge about mechanisms that most of us would not and should not trifle with for fear of making matters even worse. Building a robot capable of replacing a shower mixer is probably more trouble than it is worth. Plumbers have only two things to fear from AI. One: a stampede of financial advisers retraining as plumbers. Two: the increasing dominance of electronic payments reducing opportunities to ask, with a nudge and a wink, to have the bill settled in cash.

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4.
Gardeners

It is already possible to get a robot to mow your lawn. In 2023 an AI-powered robot developed at the University of California held its own in a vegetable-growing trial against six human horticulturalists. At this year’s Chelsea Flower Show in London, some green-fingered hands were raised in horror at the inclusion of three gardens designed by an AI app. All of which might sound discouraging but human gardeners still have a place. There will always be sentimental sorts who maintain a garden precisely because it reconnects them to nature and the illusion of the bucolic idyll is hardly reconcilable with sleek machines zooming about the place making beeping noises. Nor will any android be able to furnish the kind of folk who hire gardeners because they seek authentic interactions with the muddy-kneed peasant classes that they can boast of later to burnish their person-of-the-people credentials.

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5.
Air-traffic controllers and airline pilots

Air travel is likely to prove a special case. On purely technological grounds, it will probably be possible to outsource control towers and cockpits to computers: Embraer, for one, has floated a concept for a fully autonomous business jet. It might even make sense from a safety perspective: studies consistently identify human error as the most common cause of plane crashes. Airlines would certainly prefer not to pay pilots. However, people don’t think rationally about flying. Safe though it is – and automation might make it safer still – getting on an aeroplane still feels different from getting in a car, on a train or on a boat. Polling so far detects little enthusiasm for being 11km up in the sky without a calm voice from the flight deck reassuring us that we are in good – and human – hands.

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6.
Police officers

Several cities in China already have their traffic directed by androids in hi-vis uniforms. Police forces around the world have trialled robot dogs – tireless in rescue work and building searches, and no need for biscuits. Surveillance drones are becoming commonplace. All of which might actually make the human component of policing more important. AI and robots can pick up the dull stuff – removing the need, for example, to endure long shifts shivering in an unmarked vehicle outside a suspect’s house while doughnut wrappers gather in the footwell – freeing human officers to do the work most valued by the citizenry, such as catching criminals. Human officers will also remain necessary for the more pastoral aspects of policing. No one would appreciate being told of a death in the family by RoboCop. It also seems likely that AI-powered android officers, if deployed in societies less deferential than China, will end up with traffic cones on their heads and/or heaved into a canal.

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7.
Politicians

Politicians might appear ripe for being superseded by an entity that is efficient, logical, incorruptible and sober. At least one country – Albania – has unleashed what it claims is an AI cabinet minister: Diella, a hallucination of a woman wearing traditional costume, nominally responsible for improving access to public services. But even if turning AI loose on our bureaucracies does result in more effective governance, voters will still expect human leadership. We would not rally, during a crisis, to even the most Churchillian of holograms. We would feel weird standing on our doorsteps discussing bin collections with a cyborg. We will not beat an eager path to the polling station to vote for a party whose slogan is, essentially, “Your call is important to us.” An increasingly automated world might even prove more susceptible to office seekers blessed with an ability to radiate warmth, empathy and sincerity – or, at least, convincingly simulate them.

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8.
Athletes

In 2025 the first World Humanoid Robot Games took place in Beijing. It’s meant to be an annual occurrence but it’s hard to imagine any such event displacing the Olympic Games or World Cup in our affections, however faster, stronger or more skilful than us the robots become. We watch sport to marvel at people endowed with broadly the same physical equipment as ourselves do things that we cannot. We watch it to relish vicarious risk, to thrill to the spectacle of someone putting everything on the line. It’s probably possible to race Formula 1 cars remotely in total safety. It’s tough to imagine anything less interesting. Obviously, elite sport is not accessible to most – that’s what makes it elite. But jobs in elite sport are: coaches, trainers and everybody else involved in getting someone to the starting line or a team on the field. Though there might well be football fans reading who believe that the most rudimentary chatbot could do a better job than the bozo managing their mob presently.

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9.
Journalists

One of the more depressing consequences of the advent of AI is a further corrosion of trust in the media. There is already a canon of scandals pertaining to hacks sneaking AI-generated copy past their editors and a depressing quantity of outlets knowingly serving up AI slop to their readers. Most of us will already have found ourselves wondering about some succession of plodding paragraphs whether we are consuming something merely written by a dullard or something written by nobody at all. There is a case, however, that this makes proper, diligent, informed journalists more valuable than ever. Any AI-generated news article is assembled, if often haphazardly, from facts gathered by an actual reporter. All AI-generated journalism is therefore a demonstration of the truth of the acronym GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. AI cannot and will not pack a notepad and hit the road.

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10.
Comedians

This is genuinely what you get back if you ask ChatGPT to tell you an original joke about an elephant. “Question: Why don’t elephants use smartphones? Answer: Because they’re afraid of forgetting their trunks… and ending up with too many ‘undelephant-ed’ files.” Wouldn’t open with it, and so forth. It is already the case that AI can cough up to order words, pictures and music, and that – depressingly – a non-zero number of people are content to consume all of this, cultural junk food though it is. But AI can’t make us laugh and it won’t. There will never be a queue outside your local comedy club for an evening with the ChuckleBot 3000. Henri Bergson called it back in 1900, in “An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic”. He wrote, “The comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human.” Bergson won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927 – another accolade likely to elude AI.

Anyone who goes through secondary education in Japan will be familiar with bukatsu (after-school clubs). Though participation in these activities isn’t compulsory, almost everyone does something, whether the focus is on sports or culture. (The Japan Sports Agency identified 47 types of the former and 26 of the latter.) It could be a daily commitment, such as baseball, which some say is the most demanding club of the lot, or a weekly martial-arts session (kendo, for example). Others join a brass band or choose calligraphy, anime or photography. Not long ago, being clubless was considered so anomalous that those who weren’t part of one were referred to slightly derisively as the kitaku-bu (“go-home club”).

As with so much of Japanese education, the purpose of bukatsu is bigger than the clubs themselves. When Thomas Blackwood, an American sociologist and professor at Tokyo International University, asked adults in the country about the importance of bukatsu, more than 70 per cent said that participation in them during their school days had been useful in later life. What they valued wasn’t always the technical skills they acquired but rather the life lessons they had picked up along the way: the ability to read a room, consideration for others and persevering after failure.

Japanese education always scores highly in formal global rankings but many abroad wrongly assume that it’s all rote and no fun. There is, of course, a certain amount of drilling out of necessity. The written Japanese language is among the trickiest to master; to read a newspaper, you need to know 2,000 to 3,000 kanji characters (mainly derived from Chinese ideograms), as well as two phonetic alphabets: hiragana and katakana. Even for native speakers, learning it all is a slog and there’s no way of cutting corners. But beyond that, the public school system is built around the goal of creating decent citizens, as well as literate ones. The result of this effort can be seen in the sense of cleanliness, order and calm that so impresses visitors to the country.

The idea of cleaning has an elevated place in Japanese culture, influenced by the concept of do (“way”), which frames the honing of any skill as a journey of self-improvement. In disciplines including judo and sado (the traditional tea ceremony) cleaning is a key part of training and seen to be good for the practitioner’s character.

Buddhism in Japan also prioritises the act of cleaning over study or chanting. The ministry of education set out detailed procedures for daily, regular and special cleaning in schools as long ago as 1897. This partly explains why the streets of Japan are so clean. Generations of people have learnt to tidy their classrooms at school and taken this approach to cleanliness with them into their adult lives.

Wielding a mop or a broom (as well as a zokin cleaning cloth, which every child has in their school kit) is a worthy life skill. In this context, it’s no surprise that the Japanese national team left behind a spotless locker room at the 2026 World Cup or that its fans cleared up litter after matches. Osoji (cleaning) isn’t a lesson as such but it’s part of daily life and starts for people when they’re students.

Even the country’s low obesity rate can be traced back to patterns practised in class. The local cuisine plays its part but there’s also an emphasis on eating properly at school. Forget chips and lasagne – Japanese children eat a balanced diet of rice, fish and miso soup (though what they buy in konbini when their parents and teachers aren’t looking is another matter). The pressure from some teachers to eat every last grain of rice isn’t always welcome but it teaches kids to appreciate the food that they’re given. Serving lunch to peers is another student responsibility, even at nurseries (where preschoolers given the task wear an adorable white hat and apron – surely this should be exported?).

The school sports days that I have attended have been organised with Olympic efficiency. They’re also inclusive and never designed for individual glory. The school divides pupils into two teams for the day and sports aces and less accomplished athletes compete together.

Most students also walk to and from elementary school solo from their first week, lugging on their narrow shoulders their distinctive, boxy randoseru school bags. Waving goodbye to a small child for their first unaccompanied commute is a nerve-racking moment for parents but the journey to school teaches kids plenty too – how to conduct themselves in public and be aware of the world around them.

Japanese education is built on tradition but it isn’t set in stone. Even bukatsu are being re-evaluated for modern Japan. Some after-school clubs are being moved into the community to give hard-working teachers a break, particularly those conducted at weekends.

It also helps to pool students in areas where the depopulation problem is most acute. In some places, the ageing population means that high-school rolls are declining and small schools can’t muster a sports team. No system is perfect and there are exceptions to every rule but, beyond academic achievement, the purpose of a Japanese education is to impart life skills. Don’t we all want a generation of polite, independent people who are considerate of the world that they inhabit? Surely there’s something here that we can all learn from.

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Inside the ‘randoseru’
Today’s randoseru dates back to the late 19th century, when the Gakushuin school was opened to educate the children of the imperial aristocracy. Its students carried a black-leather hold-all, whose name was borrowed from the Dutch word “ransel”. By 1897 the dimensions were set and little has changed since. The quality is high and the best cost a small fortune: a cordovan-leather randoseru from Tsuchiya Kaban in Tokyo has 150 parts and takes more than 300 steps to complete. A solid randoseru is an investment – often a gift from proud parents or grandparents. It’s robust and designed to last for the six years of a child’s elementary-school education.

Porpoises and bald eagles greet the GSL Lydia as the 350-metre-long container ship glides into Prince Rupert Harbour in British Columbia after a 12-day journey from Yokohama. It makes an 180-degree turn, then pulls up to a terminal where cranes are waiting to lift its cargo onto trucks or railcars. Until recently, containers would often go back empty. North American consumers have long been eager to buy Asian goods but Canada hasn’t been exporting across the Pacific with the same gusto. Sending raw materials to its southern neighbour, the world’s largest economy, has simply been easier. But a year and a half of belligerence from Washington has damaged the once ironclad relationship between the US and Canada, causing the latter’s prime minister, Mark Carney, to pivot his country’s trade policy towards global diversification. For Ottawa’s current leadership, the race is on to end the nation’s reliance on America.

New facilities for exporting commodities and propane are now arriving at Prince Rupert. The GSL Lydia docks alongside a sliver of port infrastructure that runs for 800 metres. Barely a blemish on this landscape, the container terminal hugs a stretch of coastal rainforest where British Columbia drifts into southeast Alaska. But this remote area, with a population of just 13,000, is the linchpin of Canada’s economic strategy to cultivate new trading partners and build closer diplomatic relations with fellow middle powers.

“We have had a tendency in the past to chart bold new foreign policies without substance behind them,” says David Perry, the president and CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “Making a meaningful contribution to a country’s food security or keeping its lights on is something substantial that you can anchor a relationship around.” However, Canada is also discovering how difficult it is to have a virtuous foreign policy and thrive in a fractious world.

On the day that Monocle boards a De Havilland Dash 8 plane for the sole Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Prince Rupert, the White House announces 50 per cent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods. The latest broadside against a neighbour that Donald Trump has needled as the “51st state” is likely a high-stakes tactic in the ongoing renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (which replaced Nafta in 2018). The move elicits a fresh round of harsh words – at least, by Canadian standards. Trump is “clearly a bully”, says British Columbia’s premier, David Eby, during an annual meeting of provincial leaders, vowing that there’s “not a chance in hell” that Kentucky bourbon or California cabernet will be returning to his territory’s liquor stores any time soon. A US-Canada trade war has also scuttled a planned opening ceremony for the Gordie Howe International Bridge. The long-awaited crossing between the city of Windsor in Ontario and Detroit, Michigan – named after a Canadian ice-hockey player who made his career on a US team and designed to improve trade flows – couldn’t have come at a worse time.

These rocky relations, however, could be welcome news for the Port Authority of Prince Rupert, which has been tasked with ensuring that Canada’s most geographically favoured Pacific port is ready for a future in which exports increasingly head west, rather than south. “I don’t focus on soundbites,” says its CEO, Kurt Slocombe. “I focus on what countries need from a stable trading partner.” Originally from Vancouver, Slocombe moved his family to Prince Rupert, Canada’s rainiest city, in 2007 to open the Fairview Container Terminal. But why offload cargo almost 500 nautical miles from Vancouver, a west-coast metropolis with a major international airport?

Railroad baron Charles Melville Hays would probably have said it was destiny. In 1905 he determined that this deep, ice-free harbour promised the quickest shipping route from North America to Asia, while offering the flattest rail route through the Rockies to a western terminus. Prince Rupert’s pre-eminent booster perished aboard the Titanic in 1912. Two years later, the first train from Winnipeg arrived but Hays’s vision of a “metropolis of the north” didn’t come to pass.

Instead, the town grew more modestly, focusing on fishing and logging. During the Second World War, it served as a logistics hub. By 2001, commercial fishing had collapsed and a pulp mill closed. From a peak population of 18,000, Prince Rupert lost a quarter of its residents. The shift from halibut and lumber to containers was a gamble but also the realisation of Hays’s vision, almost a century after he scoured Canada’s coastline for a suitable Pacific port.

The bespectacled Slocombe is mild-mannered and prone to understatement. He has been here from the get-go: first at the container terminal, now at the port authority. Over the past two decades, he has watched both the port and the town grow slowly but surely. Canada’s northern communities can often feel neglected but here there’s a sense of optimism and prosperity in the air. Monocle visits a new longshoremen’s union hall and strolls past a sleek detachment for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. New trucks and SUVs are parked outside a well-stocked grocery shop, with abundant fresh produce on display – a rare sight in most remote pockets of Canada. The bar and restaurant at Crest, the town’s best lodging, are packed on a Monday night.

How much the longshoremen will move in the coming years depends on the success of Carney’s globetrotting during his first year in office. His four-day trip to China in January, the first by a Canadian leader in almost a decade, pointedly included a stop in Prince Rupert en route. He has also been to India, Japan and Saudi Arabia this year on trade-focused trips.

While the prime minister was making his rounds, construction workers 5km south of the container terminal were toiling in the rain to build Canxport, a CA$750m (€468m) facility designed to make it easy to move exports into containers for shipment overseas. Carney might be returning to Prince Rupert in late August to formally inaugurate it.

Monocle hops in a Ford F-150 Lightning for a spin around Ridley Island, a port-authority-owned hive of industrial activity. In addition to Canxport, a CA$1.35bn (€842m) project named the Ridley Island Energy Export Facility will help to unleash a flood of Canadian raw materials onto global markets. When it becomes active at the end of this year, it will welcome tankers destined for countries such as China, Japan and South Korea that rely on liquefied petroleum gas (of which Canada is a leading global producer) to power homes and industry.

In the meantime, customers can already make orders for another, less glamorous Canadian export: polyurethane pellets. Their exporter is Montréal-based Ray-Mont Logistics, for which our guide, Ryan Storry, is the local terminal manager. “I’m in charge of this jigsaw puzzle,” he says, gesturing at the choreographed chaos of cranes and containers. Inside a huge, white-domed building, an army of vacuum pipes suck pellets from hopper cars, before soaring five storeys to fill 25kg bags with tiny plastic beads, then stacking them on pallets. Ray-Mont’s Vancouver-based automation expert Luca Villa is troubleshooting the state-of-the-art equipment, which has reduced railcar unloading times from four hours to one, ensuring that Canxport is running at full steam before a potential prime ministerial visit.

Prince Rupert’s new export investments are just the prow of the ship for Canada’s Indo-Pacific trade ambitions. While projects such as Canxport faced traditional regulatory and permitting hurdles that took years to overcome, many of the flurry of new proposals are from Carney’s Major Projects Office, which promises to cut red tape and expedite construction. “The government of Canada is working at a pace we have never seen before,” says Slocombe.

Inevitably, there are detractors: the full-steam-ahead trade strategy, much of it powered by fossil-fuel-based commodities, jars with the image of a country that until recently prided itself on its green credentials. As former prime minister Justin Trudeau said in 2016, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

Under his successor, a fellow member of the Liberal Party, the pendulum has swung back in the other direction. Though Carney has maintained a ban on oil tankers in northern BC waters such as Prince Rupert, there has been enough of a U-turn to cause the environment and climate change minister, Steven Guilbeault, to resign from his cabinet. But dissent in the Liberal ranks is unlikely to cost Carney much political capital, says Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based conservative think tank. “Elbows up has become more important than environmental purity,” she says.

The economic underpinnings of this Canada-strong foreign policy seem to have also become more important than holding the line on human rights. With the exception of his March trip to Japan, Carney’s trade-focused tours have been to nations where, until recently, the maple leaf was flora non grata. The 2018 arrest of Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver angered Beijing; yet the Canadian prime minister made a point of visiting the city in January to meet Xi Jinping. New Delhi and Ottawa withdrew their respective high commissioners in 2023 following the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia; in February, Carney talked business with Narendra Modi in Mumbai. “Whereas Canada led with its values for those 10 years [under Trudeau], now it’s leading with its interests,” says Exner-Pirot. “We are in an era of realism and pragmatism.”

Journalist Robert Kagan once quipped that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus – meaning that the former are attuned to power politics, while the latter remain preoccupied with peace and diplomacy. It’s a bon mot, though one that ignores centuries of history. The foundational texts of strategic thought, from Thucydides and Machiavelli to Clausewitz, all hail from the Old Continent. Grand strategy is not an innate American trait; it’s a lost European art. Decades of outsourcing security to Washington has caused Europe’s strategic muscles to atrophy. But given that this intellectual deficit is partly an educational failure, it’s a fixable problem.

The consequences have been evident in national security pronouncements in the past couple of years, particularly in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Scrambling to confront a revanchist Russia and fracturing global order, European capitals churned out documents cluttered with unachievable aspirations that ignored hard realities. Germany’s 2023 strategy listed nine core goals that promised robust territorial defence and preserved social-market spending, entirely ignoring the brutal fiscal trade-offs required to fund a modern military. The EU’s 2022 Strategic Compass, meanwhile, pledged to become a “security provider”, without ever defining what the concept would mean in practice.

Beyond this vagueness, some of Europe’s key powers consistently confused strategic means with ultimate ends. In 2022, France explicitly declared that its core objective was to be a “balancing power… by 2030”, treating international influence as a self-fulfilling goal – a fixation with prestige usually reserved for autocracies. Similarly, the UK’s strategic review a year later targeted an “open and stable international order” as an end in itself, forgetting that it’s merely a tool used to cultivate peace and prosperity.

Some of these omissions are being fixed in the latest iterations of strategic blueprints. But to understand how European strategy became so decoupled from reality, we should also look to its universities. For a generation, European higher education has treated international relations as a playground for normative ideals, viewing the study of raw military power with deep suspicion. However, we study war for the same reason that medical researchers study cancer: to understand and defeat it. A lack of academic rigour undermines democracy. When civilian leaders are strategically illiterate, they lose the capacity to exercise meaningful oversight over military affairs.

Reclaiming this lost art requires moving beyond one of Europe’s favourite reflexes: box-ticking. Simply adding a few elective modules or convening an advisory committee will not suffice. Instead, Europe needs a cultural shift that welcomes strategic “troublemakers” – analysts who challenge assumptions rather than rubber-stamping them. In the short term, dry policy papers should be replaced with immersive war-gaming, forcing leaders to experience the visceral, agonising choices of high-intensity conflict before a real crisis strikes. Europe can no longer afford to treat strategy as an American intellectual import. It’s time to study power once more or prepare to be dictated to by those who do.

It’s a Monday afternoon and residents of a village outside Oslo are throwing an impromptu dance party in the central square. Soul music blares from two speakers – feet tap, hips shimmy. It would be a moving scene anywhere but every participant here has severe dementia, a condition that erodes memory and cognition and that is increasing along with the world’s average age: nearly 10 million new cases are diagnosed every year, a figure expected to triple by 2050.

For decades, dementia care meant locked wards and sedated patients. But this afternoon’s shindig shows another way. The dementia-village concept was born in the Netherlands when two nurses, dreading institutionalising their parents, created De Hogeweyk, a residential development where sufferers move freely rather than being confined to rooms. It opened in 2009 and began inspiring others.

The Norwegian government’s 2015 Dementia Plan emphasised a desire to build communities in which those with dementia can remain integrated within wider society. As a result, Carpe Diem, the country’s first dementia village, opened in Bærum, a municipality on the outskirts of Oslo, ten years later.

Camilla Heier Anglero, head of healthcare design at Nordic Office of Architecture, which designed Carpe Diem, explains that the brief was novel in a number of ways. “It had to be a village,” she says. “Which is hard as we don’t have many villages in Norway.” Here, 18,000 sq m of wooden-clad postmodern Scandi buildings contain 158 bedrooms split between 17 apartments around a garden square. There are no sterile white corridors but individually designed, brightly coloured housing units entered using special wristwatches. Paving stones aid natural and intuitive wayfinding.

Textured walls, carpets and paving stones allow hands, eyes and feet to “remember” a route when minds no longer can. “When you have dementia, it’s your senses that go last,” says Heier Anglero. “We made sure we designed spaces with this in mind. That’s why, for example, there are hundreds of different plants in the yard.”

Carpe Diem has a pub, a hairdresser, a supermarket, a gym and a tiki bar. There’s a boat workshop for the village’s many former casual seafarers. Haircuts and pints are paid for with a card preloaded with funds by a resident’s family, allowing for independent sustenance rather than favours dispensed by staff.

Later-life care places financial strain on both families and governments. Though Bærum is an affluent district in a wealthy country, Carpe Diem’s residents cover most of their bed and board. Fees are paid from their state pension, which usually accounts for 75 to 85 per cent of the bill. While the generosity of Norway’s system might limit the potential for this model to be exported, its obvious benefits – longer-living patients and less carer burnout – have altered the way that policymakers think about dementia. Villages such as Carpe Diem allow the dance of life to continue a little longer – surely a good excuse to get up on one’s feet.

La Darbia
Chianti, Italy

Sometimes it’s no bad thing to fall for the Tuscan clichés: cypress trees, sun-bleached stone farmhouses and sloping vineyards. Less than an hour’s drive south of Florence, La Darbia is set in an 11th-century hamlet. In restoring it, architect brothers Gian Carlo and Matteo Primatesta kept the materials strictly regional: pietra serena, the “stone of the Renaissance”, a firm favourite of Michelangelo; terracotta from Impruneta, the town that made the tiles adorning Florence’s cathedral dome; and travertine from centuries-old quarries in Rapolano.

“We weren’t looking for a famous destination for its own sake,” says Gian Carlo, “but for somewhere with a strong sense of place and a genuine identity.” The restaurant, led by chefs Matteo Monfrinotti and Sebastiano Pagliaro, honours the estate’s agricultural rhythms. Its olive oil comes from the on-site grove and 40 beehives produce lavender honey.
chianti.ladarbia.com

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The Companion
Vienna

Berlin-based architect and interior designer Piotr Wisniewski was entrusted with the interior design of The Companion on Mariahilfer Strasse in the Austrian capital. He has revitalised the historic Wilhelminian building with contemporary clarity. Columns marked by time are flanked by black-lacquered metal beams; terrazzo floors reference the city’s material heritage; and shelves made from bubinga veneer surround the lobby fireplace. At restaurant Boca, chef Lauryn Therin, who sharpened her skills at London’s Ottolenghi, delights with communal Mediterranean dishes such as tuna skewers with pistachio, tahini and sumac.
companion-hotels.com

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Perroquet
Fort Lauderdale

In Fort Lauderdale, where ever-larger resorts continue to reshape the “Venice of America”, Perroquet has taken a less brash route. Hidden on a leafy residential street between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean, the 37-key hotel occupies a 1950s motel that has been turned into a polished retreat by Belgian architect Bernard Dubois.

The emphasis is on quiet craftsmanship versus the spectacle that often typifies south Florida – neighbouring Miami, in particular. Rather than erasing the building’s history, Dubois has embraced it. Its original low-rise footprint remains, while lush landscaping and carefully choreographed outdoor spaces unfold gradually from arrival to the pool.The guest rooms continue that narrative with custom furniture, Sferra linens, Byredo amenities and an art collection featuring works by Jean Cocteau and Jeff Koons.

Perroquet has opened at a time when Fort Lauderdale is broadening its cultural appeal. Las Olas Boulevard’s boutiques, the 14-hectare Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, NSU Art Museum and the beach are all within a 10-minute drive, making the hotel an appealing base from which to explore the city’s pizzazz.
perroquethotels.com

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Casa JK Place
Rome

Walk into a room at the new Casa JK Place in Rome and it’s clear that this is far more expansive than the average hotel. Each unit is an apartment imagined on a grand scale, with five-star services and amenities. In the living rooms, gold-handled double doors seem to lead in every direction.Through one doorway, a black marble bathroom; through another, a sprawling Calacatta marble-topped kitchen, then bedrooms with walls painted Venetian red, ivy green and tobacco tones.

“Everyone dreams of a home that’s like a hotel and a hotel that’s as cosy as a home,” says Michele Bönan, the Florence-based architect of Casa JK Place and its European counterparts. The hospitality group has become synonymous with a lavish aesthetic: Florentine grandeur rendered in richly saturated tones, chrome and velvet, with antique statuary and vintage pieces akin to a collector’s house.

“Michele and I have developed a hospitality concept that’s become iconic over 25 years of working together,” says Ori Kafri, the owner of the JK Place group, which also has properties in Capri, Paris and a 41-key hotel opening next year in Milan. “Our clients are looking for privacy and flexibility,” says Kafri.
jkplaces.com

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