Analysis | No one is rocking in the ‘free world’

You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. Sign up to get the rest free, including news from around the globe and interesting ideas and opinions to know, sent to your inbox on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

It was a little bit on the nose. On a trip to Kyiv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken swapped his suit for a more casual button-down and appeared, a guitar slung over his shoulder, at the front of a stage in a bar in the Ukrainian capital. There — before a crowd of locals, U.S. diplomats and the traveling press pack that accompanies him on his official trips — Blinken performed a rendition of the 1989 song “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” by Canadian American musician Neil Young.