Section: The Atlantic (USA)
How the Syria Strike Flipped the U.S.-Russia Power Dynamic
MOSCOW—The American airstrike on the Shayrat air base in Syria didn’t do all that much. A day and 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles later, Bashar al-Assad was still in power, his planes were still taking off from Shayrat, still flying and still dropping bombs and killing people in the same areas of Idlib Province where a sarin gas attack killed...
Trump’s Plan to End Europe
Within weeks of his inauguration, President Donald Trump had already wrought a strategic revolution in U.S. foreign policy. Russia, formerly an antagonist, has been promoted to preferred partner. In its place, Team Trump has identified a new enemy. With this enemy there can be no coexistence, no cooperation. It must be humbled and divided, not...
The Atlantic Politics & Policy Daily: Reverse, Reverse; Cha Cha Now Y’all
Today in 5 LinesIn a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Trump reversed his position on NATO, saying “it’s no longer obsolete.” In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump said he fears the U.S. dollar is “getting too strong,” and said he won’t label China a currency manipulator, as...
Trump’s Shifting Surveillance Claims
It’s now been more than a month since Donald Trump tweeted, without offering any evidence, that Barack Obama had Trump’s “wires tapped” (the scare quotes were his) at Trump Tower prior to the election.Related Story Susan Rice’s Careful Dance on Trump Surveillance Since then, the president has refused to back down from a claim...
The Brilliant Incoherence of Trump’s Foreign Policy
Every 20 years or so—the regularity is a little astonishing—Americans hold a serious debate about their place in the world. What, they ask, is going wrong? And how can it be fixed? The discussion, moreover, almost always starts the same way. Having extricated itself with some success from a costly war, the United States then embraces a...
Why the Russians Aren’t Likely to Break With Assad
By punishing Syria for its use of chemical weapons, President Donald Trump effectively broke with Barack Obama’s foreign policy toward the Middle East. In a bit of irony for a committed anti-interventionist, Trump enforced Obama’s red line in Syria against the use of chemical weapons, ending the U.S. prohibition on military strikes...
Lessons From the ‘Red Line’ Crisis
For many of us who were in the United States government in 2013, when the images of women and children writhing in pain in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta first brought the United States to the brink of airstrikes against the Syrian government, watching as 59 Tomahawk missiles were fired into a regime airbase in Homs was at once cathartic and not...
What Trump’s Foreign-Aid Budget Means to the Rest of the World
The Trump administration’s budget proposal for 2018 sent shockwaves across the country, but when it came to one slice of the funding, the international-affairs budget, those waves extended across the globe.The proposed 31 percent cut affects the U.S. bilateral foreign-aid accounts; funding for the United Nations, World Bank, and other...
In Putin’s Russia, 1917 is Taboo
Just over 100 years ago, Russian Emperor Nicholas II abdicated his throne and his vast empire ceased to exist, setting off decades of world-shaking change. Yet this year, not a single Russian television station marked the anniversary. The decision to ignore the centennial arose from a meeting at the Kremlin last year, in which Russian President...
The Atlantic Daily: Toxins and Immunity
What We’re FollowingWhite House Turmoil: Last night, Mike Flynn offered to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution in the investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, sparking speculation about what his testimony might reveal, and what his motives might be. Flynn’s denial that he spoke with the Russian...
