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.
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.
Declarations of conservatism's demise after the 2008 election were greatly exaggerated. As the opposition, American conservatives are in their element—can they draw upon their intellectual tradition to solve what ails America?
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
America and the Continent may find themselves once again a united force to be reckoned with by the rest of the world. But the odds are grim.
The United States is in unprecedented decline. Future generations will look back at the past decade as the beginning of the end of American hegemony.
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
John McCain and Barack Obama are busily offering foreign-policy platitudes on the campaign trail, mostly about spreading freedom, working with allies and hunting down terrorists. But what exactly would they do if elected? Digging ourselves out of
Partisanship used to stop at the water’s edge. But times have changed; the U.S. electorate is now deeply divided—and not just on domestic-policy prescriptions. Facing a rift among the masses greater than that spawned by either the war in Korea or
It’s time to rein in America’s crusading zeal and move toward a policy of restraint. We’re suffering from a bad case of foreign-policy overextension, and the only cure is taking a step back to reexamine our global role.