Column Archive

2019 has not begun, but it is already getting bad reviews. Economists fret about a recession. American commentators worry that President Donald J. Trump is increasingly erratic and unconstrained. Their European counterparts are bracing for a very hard Brexit indeed. Is the outlook for multilateral institutions equally bleak, or even worse? The United Nations and other international organizations face two major strategic challenges, plus multiple subsidiary crises, over the next year. The main challenges are an intensification of competition between the U.S. and China in multilateral forums, and a rapid deterioration of the once-sturdy nuclear arms control framework. These twin […]

Among the security threats the United States is currently grappling with, potential Russian aggression against its neighbors in Eastern Europe draws the most attention, especially after last month’s standoff between Russia and Ukraine. This is unsurprising given Moscow’s continued improvements to its military and its 2007 cyberattack on Estonia, 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 seizure of Crimea, and its ongoing “gray zone” aggression against Ukraine, which the recent incident in the Sea of Azov was just the latest example of. As a result of all of this, Washington is concerned, perhaps even fixated on finding ways to deter possible Russian […]

Last week, the Maiquetia airport outside Caracas was the site of a remarkable event. On Monday, one after another, a series of Russian military aircraft landed in Venezuela. Most notably, the flock included two nuclear-capable, supersonic Tu-160 “White Swan” bombers, along with a passenger plane reportedly bringing about 100 Russian military personnel, and a large cargo plane possibly delivering military equipment. Just a few days earlier, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and received promises of a $6 billion aid package. Now, Putin was using Venezuela to send a powerful message to Washington. […]

Two and a half years ago, when I began writing this column, it was originally titled, Balance of Power. The idea was to analyze international affairs with an eye toward the hard edge of competition and rivalry—in short, the balance of power—that has increasingly characterized global politics in the past five years. Of course, no one can deny that values and human rights concerns can and often do play a role in limiting or redirecting power, with the backlash over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi being the latest stark example. Still, as a cold-hearted idealist, I consider that […]

Besides getting Mexico to pay for the wall, which continues to elude him, there were two things that U.S. President Donald Trump seemed to want most out of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. One was increased access to the Canadian market for American dairy farmers, and the other was an incentive to increase car production in the United States. He won on those things, though the latter could well turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. But he is undercutting any credit he might get for those victories with his fondness for tariffs. Indeed, if looking […]

What happened in the multilateral system in 2018? Looking back over the year, it is possible to identify three strategic trends and a last-minute political surprise that may resonate in the future. The big trends in multilateralism included a hardening of the Trump administration’s opposition to international cooperation, a concomitant increase in China’s efforts to influence bodies like the United Nations, and worrying signs of European splits over the value of internationalism. The surprise was an unexpected, and arguably almost accidental, revitalization of humanitarian politics over Yemen. Let’s start with the trends. By the end of 2017, it was clear […]

A new report argues U.S. adversaries may go beyond the "gray zone" aggression of fracturing American alliances and deploy a strategy of rapidly inflicting unacceptable losses on U.S. and partner military forces. Is this vision of future conflict based on false strategic and political assumptions? Last week the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command released a new report entitled, “The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028.” The title might seem to suggest that the document would only interest die-hard military geeks. But despite its complex and arcane phrasing, the report is actually a fascinating window into how the Army sees […]

After seven years of civil war, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad looks set to emerge victorious thanks to the support he received from Russia, from his patrons in Iran and from Iran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah. The war is not over, but the focus on what comes next is already underway, and one change is now plainly visible: Iran, Damascus and Hezbollah are pivoting their attention to Lebanon’s future—and so is Israel. In recent days, a flurry of military and political activity has shifted to Lebanon, confirming that the tiny country—which has for so long been caught in the vice of regional […]

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo caused a minor rumpus last week with a speech in Brussels attacking multilateral institutions. His list of complaints about entities such as the United Nations and European Union was long and often quite vague, but his core point was that too many diplomats and international officials have come to see “multilateralism as an end unto itself.” “The more treaties we sign, the safer we supposedly are,” Pompeo continued. “The more bureaucrats we have, the better the job gets done.” The secretary of state is hardly the first American politician to dismiss international organizations as […]

Her many shortcomings notwithstanding, British Prime Minister Theresa May has a singular ability to bear humiliations with dignity. Faced with sure defeat in Parliament over her Brexit transitional roadmap agreement with the European Union, May yesterday called off the vote at the 11th hour. She now heads to Brussels in an effort to gain some concessions from her EU counterparts, particularly over the Northern Ireland backstop arrangements, despite ironclad declarations from various EU officials that there would be no further negotiations. If May can take any consolation from this predictable and predicted turn of events, it’s that few if any […]

President Donald Trump has announced a number of trade deals this year, touting each one as the best, greatest, most wonderful agreement ever. Time after time, however, the reality fell far short of Trump’s hype, including the most recent announcement of an agreement with China. Indeed, the announced “agreements” with Europe, Japan and China merely began the process of negotiating. And far from replacing the “worst trade deal ever,” the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement mainly updates and tweaks the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. One thing none of these agreements accomplished was to get rid of the tit-for-tat tariffs […]

Last October, Washington announced that the U.S. Cyber Command was targeting individual Russian information warfare operatives to deter them from interfering in America’s midterm elections. The thinking seemed to be that if Moscow’s agents knew that the United States had identified them, they would think twice about undertaking hostile actions. Even though the Trump administration had been unable to make Russian President Vladimir Putin forego cyberwarfare all together, it might at least be able to weaken the effectiveness of the Russian offensive at the operator level. The story grabbed attention both because it indicated that the United States was shifting […]

In recent years, a combination of factors has converged to produce an unprecedented number of high-profile anti-corruption investigations around the world. From Brazil to South Korea, from the Panama Papers to the global FIFA scandals, publics across the globe have seen their worst suspicions confirmed, as daring investigative journalists and hard-charging prosecutors lay out case after case, revealing the details of pervasive malfeasance at the loftiest levels of power. At first glance, this is unquestionably a positive development for society as a whole, for the economies of the countries affected and for the global political environment. Corruption corrodes the moral […]

PARIS—What to make of the Yellow Vests? For a third week in a row, they continue to dominate the news. Televised scenes of pitched street battles between protesters and police on Saturday raised alarm about an “insurrectional atmosphere” unseen in France since May 1968. Reports suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron might declare a state of emergency in response. Instead, in his first sign of retreat since taking office in May 2017, Macron agreed yesterday to suspend the planned fuel tax hike that served as the catalyst for the popular mobilizations that have transfixed, if not exactly paralyzed, the country. […]

As widely expected, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping declared a truce in their trade war over dinner in Buenos Aires this past weekend. According to the White House statement after the meeting, Xi committed to increase imports of American agricultural and energy products to reduce the bilateral trade deficit and to immediately begin negotiations over China’s unfair trade policies. In exchange, Trump agreed that he would not increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese exports as scheduled on Jan. 1, but that he could do so later if there […]

George Herbert Walker Bush grasped the importance of the United Nations like no other American president before or since. The 41st occupant of the White House, who died last week, was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in the early 1970s. Yet his main contribution to the institution came at the end of the Cold War. Throughout his single term in office, Bush grappled with the dilemma of how to dismantle the Soviet Union’s empire without sparking a disastrous bust-up with Moscow. He relied on the U.N. to pull off this geopolitical conjuring trick, turning to the Security Council to resolve […]