PATRICK LAWRENCE: Cold War Escapades in the Pacific
There is a lot to read into this moment, but one thing’s clear. The U.S. doesn’t know what time it is. First came the Defense Department’s formal request to Congress for a $20 billion check to upgrade its presence across the Pacific. That…
THE REVELATIONS OF WIKILEAKS: No. 7— Crimes Revealed at Guantánamo Bay
“Gitmo Files” lifted the Pentagon’s lid on the prison, describing a corrupt system of military detention resting on torture, coerced testimony and “intelligence” manipulated to justify abuses at the base, writes Patrick Lawrence. Today we continue our series The Revelations of…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Iranian Tankers & the Age of Interdiction
Two forms of interdiction — the steady expansion of U.S. sanctions and our stunning drift toward unmasked censorship — have begun to intersect. Over the weekend, a sixth Iranian cargo ship entered Venezuelan waters and is due to dock shortly. It follows…
A Circle in the Darkness: Post-War Europe
Diana Johnstone’s newly-published memoir offers an incisive, gritty, politically alert, and expansive account of post-war Europe, reports Patrick Lawrence in this interview with the author. Diana Johnstone first sojourned in Paris during the early postwar years, as France and the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Latest & Most Reckless US Imperial Act
Following the U.S. assassination of Soleimani, the Trump administration is leading American conduct abroad into a zone of probably unprecedented lawlessness. Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The US Moves on Iran’s Oil Market as an Expression of an Irrational Foreign Policy
Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo’s withdrawal on Thursday of U.S. sanction waivers from eight major importers. A Decisive Defeat in Long-Running Battle with Foreign Policy Minders Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement last week that no importer…
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…
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…
Bravate di Guerra Fredda nel Pacifico
This Italian translation appeared on Sakeritalia. Prima è arrivata al Congresso la richiesta formale [in inglese] da parte del Dipartimento della Difesa per un assegno di 20 miliardi di dollari per aumentare la propria presenza in tutto il Pacifico. Un mese dopo la…