Intervention in Haiti Is Still the Wrong Answer

The Washington Post is still banging the drum for foreign intervention in Haiti:Those who called for international intervention following Mr. Moïse’s killing, including this page, have been criticized for overlooking the checkered history of such attempts in the past,...

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Misjudging the Balance of Interests in Taiwan

Matthew Kroenig cannot make a case that Taiwan matters more to the U.S. than it does to China, so he tries to make a war over Taiwan into being about something much broader than it would be:I wouldn’t be so quick to cede the balance of interests to Beijing. The United...

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Breaking the Nation-Building Habit

Hal Brands makes a dubious assertion:America may say that it’s done with nation-building, but don’t believe it.Following a disillusioning war in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden declared an end to “an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”...

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A Win for Antiwar Activists on Yemen

Annelle Sheline comments on the passage of Rep. Ro Khanna’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would cut off all assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war on Yemen:The House voted today to pass Rep. Ro Khanna’s amendment to end US support for Saudi...

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A ‘Blob’ By Any Other Name

Last week, The New York Times published an article about Afghanistan and the foreign policy “Blob,” and it was written in a way that mocked the term and the critics that use it. The funny thing is that the article reproduced exactly the sort of groupthink and...

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Looking for Responsible Realism on China

Ross Douthat sums up the thesis of Elbridge Colby’s book, Strategy of Denial:Only China threatens American interests in a profound way, through a consolidation of economic power in Asia that imperils our prosperity and a military defeat that could shatter our alliance...

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A Dangerous Fixation on Denuclearization

A new Chicago Council survey finds that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of negotiating a peace agreement with North Korea, but only if North Korea disarms:For example, 76 percent of Americans support negotiating a formal peace agreement with North Korea to...

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Watch Out for ‘Blobaganda’

Ross Douthat suggests that defeat in Afghanistan will have adverse consequences for the U.S. elsewhere in the world:Mattathias Schwartz has written an interesting account of his experience in the foreign policy “Blob” and how “blobaganda” gets produced:To understand...

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Reject the Myths of Empire

Ross Douthat suggests that defeat in Afghanistan will have adverse consequences for the U.S. elsewhere in the world:That said, defeats on distant frontiers can also have consequences closer to the imperial core. The American imperium can’t be toppled by the Taliban....

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