Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Did Iraq Ever Become A Just War?
The week of the 15th anniversary of the Iraq War is ending. If past anniversaries are any guide, as that period closes, so will end the brief moment of reflection on the causes and consequences of the war—the mistakes that led to it and the damage that followed. All these years later, we’re still grappling with how it began, but that...
The Strange Tale of Trump’s Phone Call to Putin
“DO NOT CONGRATULATE.”That was the instruction that President Donald Trump received on briefing materials before he called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss Putin’s victory in a reelection widely regarded as corrupt.But Trump did congratulate Putin, and he also declined to bring up the recent poisoning of an ex-Russian...
How Russia Meddled in its Own Elections
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Joseph Stalin, surprised no one with his landslide re-election on Sunday. While his victory, in which he claimed 73.9 percent of the vote according to state-run exit polls, was a foregone conclusion, the Kremlin was reportedly anxious about turnout, and conducted an elaborate,...
Putin Will Win, But the Show Must Go On
MOSCOW—There are seven candidates challenging Vladimir Putin in Russia’s elections on Sunday, and yet the atmosphere here is something less than suspenseful. The incumbent president, at age 65, has been in power since 2000, and there’s no doubt that he will remain there for another term. The chief unknown concerns how many will...
Mike Pompeo, Counterpuncher
Donald Trump says he and his pick to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, “have a very similar thought process,” but what they seem to have most in common is a code of conduct for dealing with adversaries. Trump, drawing on the lessons he learned from his former lawyer Roy Cohn, often describes himself as a “counterpuncher.”...
The Words Trump Refuses to Speak
It’s as if the nation’s Russia policy is being made by the world’s balkiest teenager.Today, after a week of resistance, President Trump at least delivered something close to a definitive statement about Russian culpability for the March 4 nerve-agent attack on British soil. Asked by ABC’s Jonathan Karl whether he could now...
A New Generation Redefines What It Means to Be a Missionary
Christianity is shrinking and aging in the West, but it’s growing in the Global South, where most Christians are now located. With this demographic shift has come the beginning of another shift, in a practice some Christians from various denominations embrace as a theological requirement. There are hundreds of thousands of missionaries...
16 Years of Presidents Talking About the War in Afghanistan
President Trump said Tuesday the U.S. military would not be hamstrung by “artificial timelines” in Afghanistan, an acknowledgment of the deteriorating security situation there by a leader who previously called for a withdrawal of the American military from the country.“Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement,” Trump said in...
American Elections Remain Unprotected
Two weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the U.S. intelligence community released a declassified version of its report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. It detailed the activities of a network of hackers who infiltrated voting systems and stole documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary...
America and the Great Abdication
When great powers fade, as they inevitably must, it’s normally for one of two reasons. Some powers exhaust themselves through overreach abroad, underinvestment at home, or a mixture of the two. This was the case for the Soviet Union. Other powers lose their privileged position with the emergence of new, stronger powers. This describes what...
