Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Trump Is About to Provoke an Unnecessary Crisis With Iran
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a debate about whether to stay in the Iran deal. Read the other entries here. There’s a decent chance that tearing up the Iran deal, as Trump seems likely to do next week, will lead to escalating confrontation with Iran throughout the Middle East, diplomatic isolation of the United States, and...
Ukraine’s Successful Courtship of Trump
The United States completed its shipment of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine on Monday, finalizing a sale that was reluctantly approved by President Donald Trump in November. The deal was widely reported as a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. “This decision … reflects our...
The Atlantic Daily: Here’s What You’re Getting Yourself Into
What We’re FollowingThe President and Friends: The Senate confirmed former CIA Director Mike Pompeo as the new secretary of state hours after Ronny Jackson, the White House physician, withdrew himself from consideration to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. In between, President Trump called in to Fox and Friends for a wide-ranging...
Visiting Chernobyl 32 Years After the Disaster
Today marks the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster—on April 26, 1986, technicians conducting a test inadvertently caused reactor number four to explode. Several hundred staff and firefighters then tackled a blaze that burned for 10 days and sent a plume of radiation around the world in the worst-ever civil nuclear disaster. More than...
How North Korea Learned to Live With ‘Fire and Fury’
It’s astonishing how quickly the story of the North Korea crisis seems to have changed from one of fear to one of optimism. It was less than a year ago that the U.S. president was threatening “fire and fury” against Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, to touting upcoming talks with him. It is not the case, as Trump tweeted Sunday...
The Sanctions on Russia That Never Came
There is a certain pattern to foreign-policy announcements from the Trump administration: A senior official foreshadows a new, tough announcement that’s widely applauded or criticized, depending on the policy. Later, it emerges that the president might actually want to do something else.The latest example: a fresh round of sanctions against...
A Reckoning Will Come in Syria
It is undoubtedly a good thing that a small international coalition of the willing responded to Syria’s latest chemical outrage with a limited military strike. But it marks only the first step in an effective strategy to stop Syria’s use of chemical weapons—and more importantly, to hold Russia accountable for its promise to oversee a...
The Most Revealing Moment in Mike Pompeo’s Confirmation Hearing
Donald Trump’s presidency has been shaped by two Russia storylines. One concerns investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign. The other involves a deepening rift between Russia and the United States over issues beyond Russian meddling in democratic processes:...
My Facebook Was Breached by Cambridge Analytica. Was Yours?
Facebook has begun to notify users who were affected by the Cambridge Analytica data breach. If you or one of your friends installed the personality-quiz app “This Is Your Digital Life” prior to 2015, then some of your data illicitly made it to the servers of the voter-profiling company.If your data was ensnared in the breach, you’re not...
The Threat Within NATO
Speaking days before an election most observers thought him sure to win, a long-serving Eurasian strongman railed against human rights, malevolent western powers, and rapacious “international speculators.” If delivered a fourth term in office, he vowed, vengeance against enemies of the state would be swift. His ruling party would achieve...
