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....
Max Boot joins Richard Haass in touting the great success of the U.S. foreign policy establishment:Yes, post-1945 policymakers got it catastrophically wrong in Vietnam. But they got it right by containing the Soviet Union while building security alliances and...
Kori Schake wants Congress to take more responsibility in foreign policy, but this proposal would effectively block almost all diplomatic agreements and make it practically impossible for the US to negotiate with almost anyone:Agreements with foreign powers, whether...
The president delivered a good speech yesterday defending his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and end the U.S. war there. Here was the key point:So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and...
Stephen Wertheim makes a good case that Congress needs to take up its responsibilities in matters of war:Mr. Biden inherited this situation, but he need not perpetuate either the ongoing wars or the legal evasions that enable them. He could tell Congress this: It has...
Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, reminded us this week just how blinkered the opponents of withdrawing from Afghanistan are:The alternative to withdrawal from Afghanistan was not “endless occupation” but open-ended presence. Occupation...
Benjamin Wallace-Wells profiles Elbridge Colby and discusses his hawkishness on China in a recent New Yorker article. This section was probably the most telling part of the entire piece:Colby’s response is to try to sever the transformational vision of the forever...
There is a lot of chatter from the usual suspects about how Biden will need to “reassure” allies and clients following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but that seems like a serious mistake. First, it’s not at all obvious that allies and clients genuinely need any...
The forever war has now apparently expanded to the Congo:US special operations forces have arrived in the east of the DR Congo to help in the fight against a feared jihadist militia enjoying "sanctuary" in the region's nature parks, US and Congolese sources said...
Anatol Lieven explains how the failure to anticipate the collapse of Afghan government forces illustrates how little the US understands Afghanistan even after twenty years:I remembered this episode three years later, when the Communist state eventually fell to the...
