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.
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.
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.
The prophet armed, Samantha Power, has now drafted Obama into her crusade against mass slaughter. Liberal hawks and neocons, reunited. Make way for a profound foreign-policy transformation.
To write America’s great-power obituary is beyond premature. Herein lies a grand strategy for maintaining US power—from the Anglosphere to the Middle East.
John Ikenberry's latest—Liberal Leviathan—offers a relentless mantra on the merits of the global liberal order while painting over the inherent tension between U.S. power and multilateral cooperation.
Lawrence of Arabia, that romantic, kaffiyeh-wearing, desert-dwelling symbol of Arab nationalism, was nothing more than the ringleader in a sideshow of a sideshow.
Awash in Wilsonian hubris, the State Department’s meandering and militaristic QDDR will ensure Foggy Bottom remains second-rate—both inside the Beltway and overseas.