Section: New Republic (USA)
A “New Cold War” Against Russia Is a Terrible Idea
Donald Trump is often described as an unconventional politician, but there is at least one surprising way he’s following in the footsteps of his most recent predecessors. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama began their presidencies with high hopes of improving U.S.-Russian relations. At a 2001 summit in Slovenia, Bush met with Vladimir...
Trump Is Already Implementing an Autocratic Foreign Policy
The government of China doesn’t know what to make of Donald Trump, which is exactly what the president-elect prefers. Last week, he broke a decades-long diplomatic understanding with the country when he spoke by phone with the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. Trump tweeted that Tsai “CALLED ME,” and Vice President–elect Mike Pence...
Donald Trump Will Have His Eye on You
Edward Snowden was right. Glenn Greenwald was right. The American Civil Liberties Union was right.Throughout the Obama administration and indeed long beforehand, critics of the nation’s ever-expanding national security state have been grabbing Americans by the lapels and shaking them, trying to raise consciousness about the dangers. Their...
The Bolshoi’s Swans of Steel
The language of ballet is one of dramatic gesture: In La Bayadère, after the beautiful temple dancer is bitten by a poisonous snake, she communicates her resignation to death by throwing her hands up in the air; when Giselle discovers her lover is betrothed, she begins to dance wildly, eventually dying of broken-hearted exhaustion; in Swan Lake,...
Why Donald Trump Can’t Stop Praising Vladimir Putin
Donald Trump has long shown admiration and respect for Vladimir Putin, saying that the authoritarian Russian president is “doing a great job” in “rebuilding Russia,” and “I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” After Putin called Trump a “talented person” last year, he returned the favor: “It is always a great honor to be so...
America Wants This Couple to Break Up
Donald Trump has long shown admiration and respect for Vladimir Putin, saying that the authoritarian Russian president is “doing a great job” in “rebuilding Russia,” and “I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” After Putin called Trump a “talented person” last year, he returned the favor: “It is always a great honor to be so...
A Promised Land in the U.S.S.R.
The twentieth century did not bring an end to Jewish wandering. I’m a case in point: All four of my grandparents, originally from Poland, survived the Holocaust and made their way to Israel. There my parents were born. But the socialist ethos of Israel in its early years did not sit well with my paternal grandfather, and he did not feel...
Obama’s Asia Pivot Has Been a Historic Success
In 2011, at the annual East Asia Summit dinner in Bali, Indonesia, R&B icon Quincy Jones surprised everyone by appearing on stage and asking President Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to join him in singing “We Are the World.” An impromptu invitation for the leaders of the United States and China to sing in front of a gathering of world...
Witness Tampering
Until she won the Nobel Prize in literature last year, Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich was largely unknown in the English- and Russian-speaking worlds. After beginning her career as a reporter, she has spent the past three decades working at the boundary of journalism and literature. Her books, which she calls “novels in voices,” are based...
How Brexit Will Hit America
The UK has voted to leave the European Union, 51.9 to 48.1 percent Prime Minister David Cameron announced early Friday that he will step down in three months time.Unwinding the union will be a messy process that will take months, if not years, and have broad political and financial impacts.The pound dropped in value on the London exchange early...
