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Political Theory

Commentary

Understanding America's Fall

U.S. decline may be inevitable. But that doesn't mean there's nothing Washington can do about it.

Kaplan and Mearsheimer: The Power of Realism

Robert Kaplan's new piece on John Mearsheimer is a testament to realism and a manifesto on lively political discourse.

2011: Year of the Pragmatists?

Merriam-Webster named "pragmatic" its Top Word for 2011. Why the dictionary got it wrong.

Essays

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.

Prayers of Our Fathers

Why American politicians eagerly adopt evangelical platforms, while British leaders avoid even mentioning God.

All Gandhi's Children

With the most diverse society in the world, India can serve as a model to the West in its struggles to reconcile liberal democracy with Islam.

Finding Forster

The antiliberal defenders of civilization—resisting the Ground Zero mosque—are wrong. Liberalism still offers the best hope for combating extremism.

Conservative Nation

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?

Blogs

Jeffersonian Exceptionalism

The man who understood how American values can be exceptional but not necessarily universal.

America Is Not a Military Unit

Obama used his State of the Union address to suggest civilians emulate the military. Why this idea is a dangerous—and authoritarian—one.

Hungary and the Reversibility of Liberal Democracy

Hungary is steadily backing away from its democratic principles. Is the United States next?

Books & Reviews

Death by Irrelevance

Rockefeller, Lindsay, Scranton—just three of the “moderates” who failed to keep the GOP from the clutches of Goldwater and Nixon. Geoffrey Kabaservice laments their defeat with a wistfulness that obscures from him their true frustration.

What Rawls Hath Wrought

The human-rights movement is nothing more than an unattainable utopian dream used to justify moral ends through ruinous wars of intervention.

Experts All the Way Down

Whether it's global warming, racism or deficit spending, beware of the experts you're listening to. They know far less than they claim.

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February 13, 2012