United States Archive

The 2016 presidential campaign has not yet reached peak intensity, but one thing is already clear: The American public is angry and dissatisfied. As Marc Thiessen wrote in the Washington Post, the big loser in this week’s Iowa caucuses was the political establishment. But although signs of unease in the electorate are stark, it is not yet clear how far this will go. While most of the anger and dissatisfaction focuses on domestic issues, it is also spilling over to national security policy. Support is weakening for the foundational ideas of American strategy that emerged after the 9/11 attacks. As […]

It’s sometimes said that in the United States, Democrats are from Venus and Republicans are from Mars. Rarely has that seemed truer than this presidential cycle, an election in which both parties seem to be operating in completely different realities when it comes to foreign policy and national security. Consider the recent polls asking voters of each party what issue is most important to them this election season. According to the most recent NBC poll, a third of GOP voters pick terrorism as their biggest concern. Next is jobs and the economy. A New York Times poll of Republican voters […]

Since November, the U.S. government, with a big assist from Congress, has been narrowing the eligibility for citizens of 38 countries to enter the U.S. without visas. The constant adjustments to the rules say a lot about the U.S. government’s preoccupation with terrorism over other policy interests, its inability to anticipate secondary effects of new policies, and America’s deep ambivalence about dual citizenship. In a rare instance of executive and congressional cooperation, both branches of the U.S. government have been working to prevent any misuse of the established visa-waiver program by terrorists. Congress created the program nearly 30 years ago, […]