Section: The American Conservative (USA)
The Myth of American Retreat
The United States has been pursuing a grand strategy of primacy since at least the end of the Cold War. This hegemonic approach has sought, through active, deep engagement in the world, to preserve and extend the U.S.’s global dominance that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse. In other words, it has aimed to turn the unipolar moment...
Our Warped Understanding of ‘Strength’ in Foreign Policy
Dan Drezner makes an important and often overlooked point: One could counter that Putin’s geopolitical grabs in Ukraine and Syria show his increasing influence — except that it’s worth remembering that in 2008, Putin had stable, loyal cronies in charge of both countries. He’s now lost Ukraine, and Syria is a war zone....
Why Make Russia Our Enemy?
Here’s an extraordinary essay by Peter Hitchens, who covered Russia from Moscow during the Cold War for a British newspaper, writing about how the West is behaving stupidly in its hostile approach to the Kremlin. Hitchens focuses on the staggering suffering the Russian people have endured from past invasions, and from 75 years of Communism....
Trump, Russia, and the Washington Post
August 14’s Washington Post print edition featured news articles, op-eds, an editorial, and three letters to the editor all attacking Donald Trump. And the paper’s other bête noire, Vladimir Putin, was featured in the front-page lead story as well as in an op-ed. On the preceding Friday, Putin had been attacked in an editorial for...
What Trump Gets Right About Alliances
America collects allies like Americans collect Facebook friends: the more the better. As a result, Washington defends more than a score of prosperous European states, several leading Asian nations, and a gaggle of Middle Eastern regimes. Yet most of the countries on the Pentagon dole appear to be perpetually unhappy, constantly complaining that...
White Russia Makes Progress
Belarus is an interesting, attractive country, certainly off the beaten track. A beautiful, rebuilt capital city of Minsk (mostly destroyed along with 30 percent of the country’s population during World War II), with wide boulevards and parks and superbly clean, belies its old reputation as the last dictatorship in Europe. Its economy is...
Yes, Clinton Is a Hawk, and It’s Silly to Deny It
Matt Yglesias’ post on Clinton and foreign policy doesn’t make much sense: But despite the fears of her left-wing critics, Clinton is no neocon. Nor is there really much evidence to back up a broad-brush notion that Clinton is especially “hawkish” in a generic sense. Clinton’s record overwhelmingly reflects continuity, for...
Clinton’s Syria War Plans
In a seemingly full-throated promise to voters in Scranton, Pa. on Monday, Hillary Clinton said adding “American ground troops” in the war against ISIS in Syria “is off the table.” But every message coming from her surrogates in the media and in the Washington defense establishment has been that she will “lean in” harder in Syria, and whether you...
Trump the Peace Candidate
With Democrats howling that Vladimir Putin hacked into and leaked those 19,000 DNC emails to help Trump, the Donald had a brainstorm: Maybe the Russians can retrieve Hillary Clinton’s lost emails. Not funny, and close to “treasonous,” came the shocked cry. Trump then told the New York Times that a Russian incursion into Estonia need not...
There’s No Business Like the Weapons Business
When American firms dominate a global market worth more than $70 billion a year, you’d expect to hear about it. Not so with the global arms trade. It’s good for one or two stories a year in the mainstream media, usually when the annual statistics on the state of the business come out. It’s not that no one writes about aspects of...
