PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Bubble of Pretend
The lack of objective, principled coverage of the war in Ukraine is a degenerate state of affairs. The one thing worse is the extent to which it’s perfectly fine with most Americans. It is perfectly obvious by now, to anyone…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Imperial Infantilism
Diplomacy is an essential skill in the century swiftly taking shape around us, but we find that hurling playground insults at the leader of another nation has become normal in post-9/11 Washington. It’s getting downright difficult to keep track of all the epithets…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Casualties of Empire
Diabolic methods of propaganda and perception management are at work now that have no precedent. This is war waged in a new way — against domestic populations as well as those declared as enemies. The news reports come in daily…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: ‘Primacy or World Order’
Stanley Hoffmann doesn’t mention “multipolarity” in his book—maybe the term wasn’t yet in use—but it is precisely the world he was telling Americans about back in 1978 and that is today coming to pass. In the second half of the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Propaganda and Evidence
The wall of propaganda that towers over us, resting on an insidious culture of irrationality that has come to suffuse the American polity, is weakening. Finally. Finally our mainstream press and broadcasters show signs of waking up to the cynical,…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Russia’s Red Line
It is absolutely necessary that Moscow holds the line for the sake of a new security order in Europe and a sustainably stable world order in our time. “They must understand,” Sergei Lavrov said in one of his many public…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: In Praise of Protest
If the Jan. 6 demonstrators defaced the Capitol in the name of one thing a year ago, Pelosi and all the other clowns rendering “commemorative” performances last week defaced it in the name of something else. The over-the-top theater staged…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Putin Speaks
As the Russian president’s year-end presser helped underscore, Europe will increasingly understand itself as the western end of Eurasia rather than the eastern shore of the Atlantic. Vladimir Putin was “defiant” during his end-of-year press conference last Thursday. The Russian…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Maestro of Messes
Biden apparently dreamed of the presidency for decades. And now as his first year in office draws to a close we must reflect on how perilous it often turns out to be when dreams come true. How fitting that Joe Biden’s first year…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Great Acquiescence — Glory to Ukraine
Americans don’t merely acquiesce to the imperium’s wars, interventions, collective punishments and assorted other deprivations. They actively embrace them. The other day I ventured forth from my remote village to a lively market town called Great Barrington to shop for…