“The Fuhrer beams,” Joseph Goebbels said of Hitler after Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in the spring of 1936 and the West did nothing. “England remains passive. France won’t act alone. Italy is disappointed and America uninterested.” As it turns out, Robert Kagan explains in “The Ghost at the Feast,” his new book about America’s global role between 1900 and …
President Biden’s surprise trip to Kyiv was gutsy, and he deserves credit for leading the West in an impressive military, diplomatic, and economic effort to isolate Moscow and help Ukraine rebuff Russia’s attempted conquest. One year into the war, however, Biden’s administration must discard its strategic ambiguity about U.S. war aims and make clear that, like Kyiv, …
Continue reading “High Time for the US to support Ukraine’s victory – and Russia’s defeat”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government — and its suspected efforts to fundamentally transform the nature of Israel’s democratic system — could significantly weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship over time. That relationship, dating back to Israel’s founding during the Truman years, is rooted in shared values and shared interests. Israel remains the Middle East’s lone democracy, and the United …
Continue reading “New Israeli government could transform U.S.-Israeli relationship”
Why won’t Iran cut a deal? Its regime has taken an uncompromising line in renewed talks over its nuclear program. Although that has left the United States and its allies bewildered and frustrated, the regime has solid reasons for doing so. After all, it is currently managing to weather the tough U.S. and global economic …
Continue reading “Iran has good reasons to hang tough in nuke talks”
President Joe Biden has revamped U.S. goals in Ukraine from de-escalation and negotiations to a Ukrainian victory and the “degrading” of Russia’s military, reflecting a long-overdue reappraisal of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war aims. It is not the first time of late that Washington has come to see that conventional wisdom about a …
Continue reading “Will Russia’s Ukraine War Prompt An American Awakening On Iran?”
North Korea tested a powerful new intercontinental ballistic missile late last month, ending its five-year moratorium on long-range testing. Earlier this month, meanwhile, a majority of members in Iran’s parliament wrote to hardline conservative President Ibrahim Raisi, urging the regime to secure “stronger guarantees” from the United States as part of the ongoing negotiations in …
Continue reading “West’s response to Russia could augur a more nuclear world”
Foreign policy does not allow for compartmentalization when you’re the world’s leading power. What America does in response to any significant global challenge has important implications for other dilemmas and crises. With authoritarianism rising and freedom shrinking around the world for nearly two decades now, the United States should avoid steps that will embolden autocrats …
Continue reading “If we de-list the IRGC, what will the dictators think?”