Column Archive

All the interruptions, taunts and empty bombast from President Donald Trump during his first debate with Joe Biden left little room for actual discussion of major issues, from the coronavirus pandemic to U.S. foreign policy. Lost especially amid all the noise was climate change, which looms as an existential threat to life in this century. Climate change was only briefly mentioned in last month’s debate, when it was peculiarly framed. For a challenge this important, the battle lines were oddly drawn around questions of extremism. Trump, as unserious as ever, boasted vaguely about the quality of America’s “beautiful” and “crystal […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott, who will return next week. The latest opinion polls in the United States show former Vice President Joe Biden with what looks like a commanding lead over a COVID-stricken President Donald Trump, less than a month away from the presidential election on Nov. 3. If Biden can sustain that lead and win a decisive victory, the country would avoid the damage of a long and contested ballot count that would leave America even more internally divided. For much of the rest of the world, it would rekindle […]

Documenting the demise of the liberal international order has become a growth industry in the foreign policy sector. In a terrific new book, “A World Safe for Democracy,” G. John Ikenberry, the premier analyst of liberal internationalism, contends that reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. The rules-based, international system may be in crisis, but its strategic and normative logic is as compelling as ever. Ikenberry, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, has written extensively on this topic before, but his new book is his most impressive work to date. He refutes the critiques of both […]

If Donald Trump had his way, you might not be reading these words and I might not be writing them. Unless I and the other 40 percent of Americans who are not white accept the ludicrous notion that we are less deserving of our Constitutional rights than the white supremacist Proud Boys who Trump told to “stand back and stand by” during Tuesday’s presidential debate, then hell hath no fury like an American racist scorned. Intimidation, fear, violence, chaos—we all better get ready, the so-called leader of the free world has warned. What Trump and his followers don’t seem to […]

Did anyone really believe that the catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port in August that devastated large sections of the city would compel Lebanon’s politicians to end their disastrous political stalemate? French President Emmanuel Macron apparently did, as he made it his personal project to help pull Lebanon out of its tragedy. He has now come face to face with the intrigue and venality that brought Lebanon to its knees. On Sunday, Macron lashed out with barely contained anger at Lebanon’s ruling class. But he reserved his most scathing attack for Hezbollah, the Iran-allied militant group and political party. “Hezbollah can’t […]