What Exactly Does It Stand For? Foreign policy, a nation’s collective conduct, best attains its interests if it correlates means to ends. To make the correlation, even to know its ends, a nation needs to know its identity. Attaining this knowledge raises great complexities. On May 8, a panel at the American Enterprise Institute on […]
On April 18, Foreign Affairs released an article by former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, or “P”, William Burns, on how to save the Department of State. That evening, the Foreign Policy Association hosted a lecture by his predecessor as “P”, Nicholas Burns entitled “The State of the Department of State.” The Burnses are unrelated except by […]
Marking the centennial Armistice Day, Emanuel Macron called nationalism the opposite of patriotism. Whatever his inspiration, his comment should spur Americans to consider what nationalism means to us. Macron may have been channeling historian Timothy Snyder, in his cite of novelist Danilo Kis: “… nationalism ‘has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.’” Snyder quoted […]
President Trump’s pronouncements always generate froth, by his words and in the reporting and recrimination that follows. But in Brussels, before his Helsinki meeting with Putin, he did, again, call NATO obsolete. Once any President raises it, the question takes on a life of its own. And if NATO’s value is in doubt, who should be […]
Whatever the impact of a new national security team, and whether or not President Trump actually meets with Kim Jong Un in the next few months, the fundamental problems with North Korea remain the same. Former U.S. negotiator Evans Revere notes that we have heard Kim’s line before. Still, the atmospherics around around the question are […]
North Korea’s July 4 launch of an ICBM pushes us to a full reckoning with our motives, values, and national existence. In columnist Charles Krauthammer’s words, for “25 years and five administrations, we have kicked the North Korean can down the road. We are now out of road.” North Korea has put enough “facts on […]
The State Department issued the report on an internal “listening survey” on July 5. The report is not public, but reports indicate that its first recommendation is to define a mission for the Department of State. It also addresses a host of other concerns, and current and past State personnel complain that the Department is […]
In their June 26 meeting President Trump and Prime Minister Modi voiced their mutual admiration as the nations grapple with a complex relationship.
Under the idea to “Make America Great Again” the plan is to extract concessions, country by country, wielding U.S. economic power to reduce trade deficits.
Trump’s proposed budget cuts 28% from the State Department’s funding, reducing foreign aid and de-funding a range of programs.
Trump’s election signals a “Jacksonian protest” of nativist sentiment and mistrust of elites—rejecting the liberal order that has kept peace and prosperity.
What could a passage on foreign policy in President Trump’s inaugural speech look like? We take a stab at it.
In foreign policy, a nation acts as a singular entity, with citizens’ identity reflected in its conduct. Today, our discourse projects our political dysfunction.
The global economy has been leaning on monetary policy—the printing of money by central banks —to avoid decline. But what are the spillover effects?
Trump is not alone in complaining about alliances. Others, for various reasons, dislike our relationship with Saudi Arabia or arrangements with Pakistan.
