America’s strategic response to a nuclear Iran must assume the worst, and prepare for prevention while envisioning a regime of containment and deterrence.
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.
U.S.-Pakistani relations are in crisis. Strategic fear of India prevents Pakistan from bending to U.S. demands. Easing India-Pakistan tensions could change the dynamics of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance.
Obama has emerged as champion of securing vulnerable nuclear materials. Two years after his Washington summit on this arcane but important matter, national leaders will descend on South Korea to track progress and fashion goals for the future.
Obama can take credit for several foreign-policy triumphs, but he has failed to revive the moribund Mideast peace process. Arguments for why it can’t be done crumble against the imperative of American presidential leadership.
“I do not need to prove anything to anyone,” declared Vladimir Putin. Convinced he is the steward of his country’s future, Putin masters Russia’s history—and seeks to manipulate it.
No national interest was cited as a rationale for America's Libya campaign; the action was justified solely on humanitarian grounds. This marks a fundamental break with past U.S. policy prescriptions for such military interventions.
The English-language news channel of Al Jazeera consistently is first on the scene of Mideastern developments, and its journalists provide smart analysis of global events. It may be today’s most influential television-news operation.
After WWI, Britain and France made the Arab world the object of history, not its subject. James Barr’s new book shows that the Middle East was born crazy. Later misunderstandings and manipulations were laid atop well-worn grooves.
George Kennan presents a study in paradox. With penetrating scholarship, John Lewis Gaddis explores Kennan’s complex psychology and provides an intellectual history of the Cold War in his comprehensive and wonderfully written biography.
