This week, several AEI scholars drew attention to the major changes reshaping relationships between institutions, nations, and individuals. While major tech firms can represent the best of the free market, Bret Swanson writes in The Wall Street Journal that they and large financial institutions such as BlackRock also can become "presumptuous monopolies" demonstrating a dangerous overconfidence in their ability to identify the truth — and an excessive distrust in others to do the same.
 
Tech was a major concern at the US-EU summit, too, but here the relationships are sunnier. Claude Barfield noticed a more conciliatory tone between the parties in the development of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council. One reason for this greater cooperation is the threat posed by China's authoritarian state capitalism. Whether a common enemy can inspire the political will to build on the good feelings at the summit remains to be seen.
 
As America's involvement in Afghanistan has demonstrated, sustaining political will over the long term can prove difficult. In Bloomberg Opinion, Hal Brands argues the United States has a poor record fighting "limited wars" because superpowers don't apply all of their strength against weaker enemies and are more likely to give up when the fights aren't existential. This doesn't mean we should never engage in such conflicts, Brands writes, but we should recognize their unique dangers before entering them.
 
Finally, on the home front, Daniel A. Cox analyzes the "friendship recession" plaguing American men especially. In a recent survey, only 27 percent of men say they have six close friends — down from 55 percent in 1990. Men also report being more emotionally detached from their friends. Cox suggests this trend may result from changes in the workplace and dropping rates of religious involvement and marriage.