Now we face a nuclear North Korea: That might not be the worst thing
Kim Jong-un now has a nuclear deterrent, and diplomacy is the only sane option. Let’s hope the U.S. gets that We do not know everything, or maybe even very much, about North Korea’s latest missile test. But we know what…
American policy totally failed in Syria — let’s be thankful
Despite media obfuscation, last week’s meeting between Putin and Assad suggests a new order in the Middle East I kept hearing National Public Radio programs this week to the effect that liberals and “progressives,” not to mention those in the…
Trump’s foreign policy is confused — but it isn’t really Trump’s
Trump had one consequential moment during his Asia trip — and everyone in the rudderless American media missed it No sooner did Donald Trump return a week ago from his 12-day escapade in Asia than the bickering began. Did the…
Tragedy of the Rohingya: The Burmese crisis and the nation-state
Where did the human rights disaster in Myanmar come from? Believe it or not, the Catalan situation is related A number of readers wrote last week, either via the comment thread or email to my website, in response to a column…
The Catalan crisis: Is the contemporary nation-state in jeopardy?
Spain’s clumsy government has made a difficult situation worse. That doesn’t mean the nation should be dismembered We reach a grim moment in the crisis between Catalonia and the Spanish state. And it has come hard and fast since late…
Dumb and dumber: Trump’s foreign policy repeats decades of American mistakes
Trump’s foreign policy is entirely incoherent. But it’s just a stupider continuation of everything since 1945 Topic of the week seems to be Donald Trump’s foreign policy. This is about right. Annual reviews of a president’s record managing America’s conduct…
Making history safe again: What Ken Burns gets wrong about Vietnam
Historian Christian Appy: Vietnam was not a “tragic misunderstanding” but a campaign of “imperial aggression” Three questions came to mind when news arrived that “The Vietnam War,” the latest documentary film from Ken Burns (co-directed with Lynn Novick), would air…
John Kerry’s last hurrah: With the Syrian cease-fire, the secretary of state takes a parting swipe at Russophobia
The cease-fire ends his successful skirmish with the Pentagon, but the war will grind on long after Kerry is gone Secretary of State John Kerry now gives us another “cessation of hostilities” agreement — a not-quite-cease-fire — as signed with…
War in the media age: Hysteria over Trump’s supposed Russian ties made headlines, but the “story” is remarkably flimsy
A case study in how a co-opted press manufactures foreign policy consent From one week to the next, I note with mounting anxiety the media’s habit of using innuendo, loaded suggestion, assemblages of proximate facts, implication short of assertion and omission…
About those “experts”: Take a close look at the foreign policy insiders denouncing Trump
The possibility of a true outsider upending Washington’s unspoken consensus has thrown elites into hysteria This latest open letter from 50 Republican “national security experts,” wherein Donald Trump is denounced as “dangerous” among many other things, is simply too much. One does…
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