PATRICK LAWRENCE: Macron’s Europe
France’s president has proven himself to be a well-oiled weathervane. What he says on Monday may not match what he says or does on Wednesday. But his remarks while visiting China are interesting in several ways. Emmanuel Macron got poor…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Happiness of Others
For Americans, admitting that people in other parts of the world have and want different things from what they have and want can, in its subtle way, be devastating to their view of the world. George Burchett, an excellent painter…
Patrick Lawrence: The Pentagon’s Balloon Floats On
It is just as well that Antony “Guardrails” Blinken has called off his long-scheduled visit to Beijing, which was due to begin Tuesday. It would have been his first since taking over at State and the first by a secretary of…
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: Zhou Enlai’s Posthumous Triumph
Nations now fashioning a post–Western world order appear to be abiding by the Five Principles espoused by China’s first and long-serving premier. The big news over the Thanksgiving weekend — big such that you could hardly find it in the mainstream…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: More Futile Pacific Overtures
Nearly halfway through Biden’s term in office he finally met the Chinese president to discuss the single most important relationship between any two nations anywhere in the world. I’ve given up being amazed at how stupidly the Biden administration conducts…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Grave New World
Biden’s long-delayed National Security Strategy is the kind of pablum that disguises danger and comes with a price. The Biden administration — excuse me, the Biden–Harris administration if you please — has at last released its National Security Strategy, a document…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Pelosi Fallout
The U.S. now operates as a bulwark against time and history — a hopeless but destructive project. We witnessed a major breach in trans–Pacific relations last week in consequence of Nancy Pelosi’s self-indulgent, utterly failed maunder through East Asia. We…
Patrick Lawrence: Reeking of Butter
The House speaker has just given off a reek of butter that seems to have sent the whole of East Asia in search of hankies. The Japanese have a wonderful expression they sometimes use to describe Westerners when they are…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Deaf, but Not Blind to US Decline
In Fiona Hill’s recent speech it’s possible to detect the very faint signals of Washington’s policy elite responding to the immense global power shift that is underway. I count the advance among non–Western nations toward what we now call a new…