Section: The American Conservative (USA)
Removing Trump Won’t Solve America’s Crisis
America is in crisis. It is a crisis of greater magnitude than any the country has faced in its history, with the exception of the Civil War. It is a crisis long in the making—and likely to be with us long into the future. It is a crisis so thoroughly rooted in the American polity that it’s difficult to see how it can be resolved in any...
Interventionism and Ignorance Revisited
Kevin Quealy reports on the results of an experiment that tested geographical knowledge and related it to foreign policy preferences: An experiment led by Kyle Dropp of Morning Consult from April 27-29, conducted at the request of The New York Times, shows that respondents who could correctly identify North Korea tended to view diplomatic and...
What Is America’s Goal in the World?
For the World War II generation there was clarity. The attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, united the nation as it had never been before—in the conviction that Japan must be smashed, no matter how long it took or how many lives it cost. After the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945, however, Americans divided. Only with the Berlin Blockade of...
In Russia, It’s the Realists vs. the Ethno-Nationalists
Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in Russia in Vzglyad on January 13. It was translated by Paul Grenier under the aegis of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy dialogue project. Dmitry Drobnitsky, in his article “The foreign policy objectives of the party of internal development,” raises a question about the sort...
Going Off the Rails?
Four issues got Donald Trump elected president: immigration, free trade, political correctness, and the quest for American world hegemony along with the wars that it spawned. If he is to be reelected, he must deliver on all four. Unfortunately, on the fourth issue, wars of hegemony, it appears his young administration is already going off the...
Samuel Huntington Was Not Like Steve Bannon
The late Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” paradigm has been taking a beating lately. His critics have warned that such a worldview portends a millenarian war between the West and Islam. One reason for the pile-on is that Huntington’s theory has become associated with the views of Steve Bannon, who, as a call-in participant...
The Rise of the Generals
Has President Donald Trump outsourced foreign policy to the generals? So it would seem. Candidate Trump held out his hand to Vladimir Putin. He rejected further U.S. intervention in Syria other than to smash ISIS. He spoke of getting out and staying out of the misbegotten Middle East wars into which Presidents Bush II and Obama had plunged the...
Why Do We Want a Cooperative Relationship With Russia?
Some months back I organized a dinner on Capitol Hill that brought together some former and current Russian officials with a number of prominent U.S. Republicans and conservatives, including two congressmen, a conservative magazine publisher, some journalists, and others. It didn’t seem like a particularly newsworthy event—just a routine...
Don’t Start a New Cold War Over Syria
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow this week for his previously scheduled official visit with Russian officials. His journey came at a time when the chill in bilateral relations is especially acute following the U.S. missile strikes on Syria in response to the Assad government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Kremlin...
The Troubling Legacy of World War I
A hundred years ago this month, on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war against Wilhelmine Germany. Two pivotal events, dire in their execution and pernicious in their consequences, bracketed U.S. entry into the First World War: the Russian Revolution of March 8, 1917, resulting in the abdication of Czar Nicholas II; and later that year,...
