The United States has several primary adversaries: Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. The Trump Administration’s recent efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Pakistan and India was successful, but otherwise its efforts to end conflicts have been frustrated. President Putin of Russia has shown no flexibility with respect to ending the Ukrainian war, is disrupting various countries in Africa…
The United States is in a worldwide competition with China. Until recently, considerations of this competition focused on the possibility of a war between the U.S. and China in the Taiwan Straits. It is apparent that a direct military confrontation in the Taiwan Straits is not in anyone’s best interest.
This competition is about far more than Taiwan.
The Trump Administration recognized it is a…
The world now awaits Trump Shock III, but it does not quite understand his Liberation Day imposition of tariffs on the world followed by a 90-day pause a week later. This combination is described as Trump killing free trade and then backing down, blinking, climbing down, doing a U-turn, and so on.
I surmise these criticisms are from people who have never negotiated anything. Trump’s reputation…
Over the past few decades, European countries developed a procedure for dealing with international problems. First, they formed the European Union with no military and no foreign policy authority. Second, they ignore the problem until it gets serious. Third, when it gets serious, they wring their hands and wait for the Americans to do something. Fourth, they complain about what the Americans do…
After World War II, the U.S. established a new “rules-based liberal international order” dominated by new “liberal democracies.” That system with its democracies is crumbling – right on schedule. As I have written previously, democracies vote for their own destruction; they typically last less than a century. The post-WWII democracies are now 75 to 80 years old, and they are at the end of their…
A hallmark of democracy is that, after an election, the losing parties accept the results and become the “loyal opposition.” As such, they accept the results and loyally support the government with alert scrutiny of its actions to guide their informed criticism expressed within customary procedures of civil discourse. Occasional heated expressions of unacceptable language do exist, but those can…
A hallmark of democracy is that, after an election, the losing parties accept the results and become the “loyal opposition.” As such, they accept the results and loyally support the government with alert scrutiny of its actions to guide their informed criticism expressed within customary procedures of civil discourse. Occasional heated expressions of unacceptable language do exist, but those can…
Over the past few decades, the Assad dictatorship in Syria, supported by Iran and Russia, played a pivotal role in Middle Eastern instability.
Syria was the channel by which Russia established a naval base on the Mediterranean and extended its influence to the heart of the Middle East and supported its military in sub-Saharan Africa.
Syria was also the avenue used by Iran to extend its threats…
Jaguar just released an ad for their new electric vehicle which must rank as the new standard for weirdness. It just might exceed the Bud Light ad for brand destruction. Too bad. Another sacrifice on the woke altar. Did Jag not get the memo from Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen about sales volumes?
The much-talked-about but not-much-done-about Energy Transition exists mainly in European politics…
After three decades of foreign policy based on Fukuyama’s End of History, the Strategy of Wishful Thinking, it is over.
Trump is putting his foreign affairs team together and we do not know what strategy they will develop, and we may not know for a while. His appointees have various backgrounds, and they have many immediate, ongoing, problems to address quickly. They will need to coordinate…
