Journal Entry #40
NORFOLK, CONN., JANUARY 16—A couple of good pieces of news come this way on an otherwise gray, bleak winter’s day. I thought I might share them with Cú Chulainn’s readers. Last autumn I published one of my long Q&A exchanges,…
Japan and the United States: Reflections on War, Empire, Race and Culture
The groundbreaking historian of Japan talks about the challenges of scholarship during rapidly changing times. This article appears in The Asia-Pacific Journal with a new introduction from Patrick Lawrence. It first appeared in The Nation on September 6 and September…
Journal Entry #39
Trump, Syria, and his minders: A yearend surprise. NORFOLK, CONN., DECEMBER 31—What an unexpected turn of events the terrible year now ending has delivered. It is not very Christmas-y, but there may be a gift in it—a big one, indeed….
Don’t Hold Your Breath on US Troop Withdrawal from Syria
It would be nice to think the president has final say on foreign policy, given the U.S. Constitution. But the misleading troop withdrawal announcement, followed by Trump’s boastful tweet, suggests the exact opposite, says Patrick Lawrence. The announcement on Wednesday…
Mexico’s Solution to the Border Crisis
López Obrador’s $20 billion development plan gives Washington a chance to help rectify the historic damage it’s done to the living conditions of people in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, writes Patrick Lawrence. A Latin American Marshall Plan, at a…
Pence’s Attacks on China Won’t Help Trump at G-20
Beijing wants to avoid an all-out trade war with Washington. That is what will count at the G-20 summit later this week, writes Patrick Lawrence, not the U.S. vice president’s hostility in Asia earlier this month. Trying to Isolate China…
America’s Absence in Istanbul: A Sign of Decline, Not Surrender
Team Trump missed the summit on Syria. In that, Patrick Lawrence sees another sign of Washington’s failure to accept its loss of diplomatic primacy. Lost in the Memory Palace: US Leads, But No One Follows You would hardly know it from…
David Hendrickson: We Need a ‘New Internationalism’
The author and professor in conversation. A friend recently told me about a book he was assigned to review and thought I should read. When he mentioned the title, Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition, I ordered it…
New Iran Sanctions Risk Long-term US Isolation
The U.S. is going for the jugular with new Iran sanctions intended to punish those who trade with Teheran. But the U.S. may have a fight on its hands in a possible post- WWII turning-point, writes Patrick Lawrence. Europe, Asia…
Why China Tiptoed onto the Far Side of the Moon
Xi Jinping’s state media was strangely quiet about its historic lunar landing, writes Patrick Lawrence in this look at the U.S. effort to maintain primacy over advanced technologies. When China landed a space probe on the far side of the…