Patrick Lawrence: Japan Reenlists as Washington’s Spear-Carrier
It is always the same when Japanese premiers travel to Washington to summit at the White House. Nothing seems to happen and nobody pays much attention even when important things happen, when we should all pay attention, and, when we…
“Between myth and history.”
Our 21st century passage. In mid-December, on a cold, rainy evening in Washington, I spoke to the Committee for the Republic, an interesting group of constitutionalists dedicated in large measure to restoring the rule of law to our institutions of…
Patrick Lawrence: ‘Pessimism of the Mind, Optimism of the Will’
Some years ago now, while researching a book that eventually came out as Somebody Else’s Century, I spent time in Ahmedabad, a city in the northwest Indian state of Gujarat. Ahmedabad has a long and interesting history as a place where…
Patrick Lawrence: Europe and the Legitimization of Deception
The U.S., having no need of or gift for statecraft, has long practiced what I’ve taken to calling the diplomacy of no diplomacy. You can’t expect much from bimbos such as Antony Blinken or Wendy Sherman, Blinken’s No. 2 at…
Patrick Lawrence: The Sino-Russian Summit You Didn’t Read About
The New York Times coverage of the recent summit between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping misses some of its most important details, writes Patrick Lawrence. It is never very easy to understand what is going on in the world if…
Patrick Lawrence: The Souls of Ukrainian Folk
As Kyiv prepares to persecute the souls of its own people, it seems we are about to witness just how inhumane this project has been from the outset. The U.S.–cultivated coup in Kyiv not quite nine years ago, when a…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A War of Rhetoric & Reality
Washington put us all on notice when Zelensky got to town: It has no intention of seeking a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis and every intention of recommitting indefinitely to its ideological war. Passing through Austin, Texas, the other night, we had…
Patrick Lawrence: Between Myth and History
Patrick Lawrence delivered the following remarks, based on his book Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century, before the Committee for the Republic in Washington on December 15. The Committee is a nonpartisan group founded in 2003 that advocates a…
Beyond a Failed Narrative
Americans are living a failed national narrative. Our almost universal belief in our exceptional status as a providentially “chosen people” suspends us in a beguiling myth beyond the reality of history. On September 11, 2001, we reacted with an almost…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Dimming the Lights
Two U.S. universities have recently taken the cultivation of ignorance to new lows, although at this point one hesitates to make any assumption as to where the bottom lies. Somewhere along the line, the thought seems to have taken hold among…