Global Archive

Here are two excerpts from relatively recent remarks by U.S. officials on United Nations peacekeeping. One is from the Obama administration. One is from a Trump appointee. Can you work out which is which? Exhibit A: “If you look at the peace missions in Africa, it has been devastating to see the sexual exploitation, the fraud, the abuse that’s happening. And we have to acknowledge that some countries are contributing troops because they are making money off that.” Exhibit B: “Examples abound of peacekeepers not fulfilling their rudimentary responsibilities, such as not responding when citizens only five miles away from […]

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump, like all of his recent predecessors, thinks America’s NATO allies have been free-riding on Washington’s largesse and should contribute more to their own security. In the familiar terms of NATO alliance management, that is understood to mean meeting the target of budgeting 2 percent of GDP for national defense. Set in 2006, that benchmark is currently met by only four other alliance members—one of them being tiny Estonia—with a fifth, France, falling just short. But last week, at a news conference following his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump went further than […]

If you want to write about the United Nations these days, you need a thick skin. The Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to the U.N. in its first proposed federal budget, announced last week, has unleashed a vitriolic argument in the U.S. about the organization and its values. This is not new. The American left and right have long debated the U.N. in heated terms, often with little reference to what it really does. This debate last peaked a decade ago, after the Security Council refused to endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The darker corners of American bookstores […]

U.S. President Donald Trump campaigned as an outsider candidate, though under the banner of the Republican Party. His message was decidedly populist and continues to be: He alone can save the country from the challenges it faces; the elite and traditional establishment are dangerous and corrupt; the mainstream media cannot be trusted; and other tropes commonly used by populists. America’s election of a president promoting this type of message has led many experts on authoritarian politics to draw parallels between what’s happening in the United States, a country with well-established and robust democratic institutions, and developments seen in authoritarian settings. […]

Is China going to pass up an opportunity to reshape the international order? Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. appears to be distancing itself from its established role as leader of the global system. Many excitable pundits and even sober diplomats have speculated that Beijing could fill the vacuum America is creating. I have to confess to being one of the excitable ones. I argued in December that Chinese President Xi Jinping could counter Trump “by seizing the initiative on issues including climate change and free trade.” At the time, Trump—then the president-elect—threatened to punish the United Nations for a […]

Seventy years ago, a new world order emerged from the ashes of World War II. It never worked perfectly; there were still wars between and within nations. But the system did help prevent large-scale, great-power conflict and provide a rules-based process for interaction between nations. Now it may be dying. The United States was not the sole inventor of the post-WW II order, but Washington was its primary architect. But the new order did not take the shape that U.S. leaders expected. As WW II ended, Americans thought that the victorious allied powers would manage world order in concert. When […]

Classic ghost stories often begin with the discovery of a mysterious manuscript in an ancient mansion. The hero turns up some yellowing necromantic texts in the dusty library, reads too much of it out loud, and before you know it the undead are all over the place, rattling their chains and spreading bloodcurdling panic. Columns about foreign policy tend to have more prosaic origins. But last week, I found myself in a stately 16th-century home looking at a strange text that summoned up the ghosts of old debates about multilateral institutions. These ghosts might feel awfully distant, but they still […]

Waves of violence and economic hardship are changing patterns of migration around the world, at a moment when parties with nationalist and anti-immigrant platforms gain momentum in the West. World Politics Review compiled 15 articles that shed light on the drivers of today’s migrant crises and the forces underpinning an increasingly cold response to those seeking refuge. The Politics of Migration Understanding the Global Backlash Against Migration—and Its Costs U.S. President Donald Trump’s January entry ban for travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries focused attention on a looming shift in American immigration policy. But these developments are not occurring in a […]