The Realist

The Myth of a Moderate Obama

The president is no pragmatic centrist. In fact, he has the most expansive and leftist vision in the history of the presidency.

A Sadly Simplistic Afghan Debate

Nixon's handling of Vietnam and China could offer insights for Obama in Afghanistan.

Leading Blindly across a Minefield

The international system is at a transformative moment. Yet President Obama has failed to set a direction for America.

American Interest, American Blood

The price America pays in blood for its overseas initiatives rarely gets mentioned in political debates surrounding such policies, but it deserves more attention.

Morality Play Instead of Policy

International trends have become less favorable to the United States. This national vacation from serious foreign-policy analysis in the political arena is both ill timed and dangerous.

The False Neocon View of Reagan

There's a dangerous illusion in the  legend that Reagan changed course in Cold War policy and set the country on a path to expansive overseas adventurism. Beware of false lessons about his stewardship.

Why We Exist

The National Interest stands for realism in U.S. international relations, a conviction that foreign policy should be based upon real-world considerations—forces, pressures and passions emanating from factors of culture and geography.

Foreign-Policy Failure

Obama’s foreign-policy decisions—from provoking Islamabad to two-timing Beijing to alienating Moscow—lack the strategic long-term thinking the U.S. needs. Hypocrisy and incoherence rule.

All the President's Dreams

President Obama came to office promising a new era in international affairs. So far, he’s been big on rhetoric and has accomplished little. Obama’s inability to prioritize foreign policy risks destroying his presidency.

Nuclear Abolition, A Reverie

The hope that we might one day rid the world of nuclear weapons is as old as the technology itself. Atomic destruction has always seemed too great a risk to bear. Yet a nuclear-free world is nothing but a dream—world government, a Praetorian Guard

Republican Reckoning

Mismanaged for eight years by the Bush administration, the Republican Party is in peril. Neoconservative table scraps are neither appropriate nor wise. But the GOP has another foreign-policy tradition to which it can turn. Presidents from Eisenhow

The Road to Moscow

Since the end of the cold war, American foreign policy toward Russia has been dismissive of Russian interests. Acknowledging that a country has separate aims does not mean we cannot work toward common goals.

A Sit-Down with Brent Scowcroft

The principles of transformationalism—idealism spread by the barrel of a gun—have been central to America’s foreign-policy failings over the last eight years. With a new leadership in power, Washington has a chance to right past wrongs. But that w

Russian Roulette

The current conversations of the American political class are frighteningly similar to past black-and-white misinterpretations of fundamental foreign-policy decisions.

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May 21, 2013