Column Archive

Is Russia’s lucky streak in Syria and Libya finally running out? The Kremlin has gambled big on proxy warfare in both countries, deploying thousands of private military contractors with the so-called Wagner Group to back its favorite strongmen. But after a recent run of misfortunes for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the head of the breakaway Libyan National Army, it is starting to look like Russia may not be able to cash in real wins in the Middle East and North Africa anytime soon. The most significant sign that Russia’s support for private paramilitaries in Libya may […]

Few governments acted more decisively to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic than Peru, whose president, Martin Vizcarra, mobilized the country’s resources even before the World Health Organization formally declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By most objective measures, Vizcarra did almost everything right. Most importantly, and in contrast to other leaders, he took action early, something that epidemiological models confirm is vital for preventing widespread contagion. And yet, tragically, Peru still stands as one of the world’s COVID-19 hotspots today, with the second-highest number of confirmed cases in South America. Only Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro has put on a […]

Six months after the emergence of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, and four months after it became a global outbreak, its political and economic fallout continue to take shape. As government policies adapt and evolve in real time to the changing features of the pandemic, so too do the geopolitical implications. So far, three scenarios have been advanced with regard to COVID-19’s potential impact on the international order. They can be broadly characterized as a change at the top, in which a triumphant and capable China replaces the bungling U.S. as the world’s dominant power; a descent into multipolar […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott this week. During the Cold War, the United States created and led two quite different international trading systems. The first, and by far the better known, was the open, multilateral trading system. Its aim was to expand free trade and market principles around the world, and it culminated after the Cold War in the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995. What began with just 23 nations in the aftermath of World War II, with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, today includes 164 countries […]

Whether the world knows it now or not, how the U.S. Congress handles the White House’s abrupt firing of the State Department’s top watchdog could be more than a make or break moment for the future of “America First” diplomacy. It could also determine the trajectory of American presidential politics for years to come. If Secretary of State Mike Pompeo survives the escalating scandal surrounding President Donald Trump’s decision last week to force out State Department Inspector General Steve Linick—at Pompeo’s request—Pompeo’s much-anticipated run for the presidency in 2024 is all but assured. On Wednesday, Pompeo bluntly stated in a […]

From the moment Chinese leaders belatedly recognized that a deadly new pathogen was spreading rapidly in the city of Wuhan and beyond, it became apparent that the coronavirus would play a defining role in shaping the image and power of China and its regime for years to come. Beijing has been working overtime ever since not just to contain the virus at home, but to shape the narrative of the pandemic there and abroad, seeking to portray China and its rulers as wise, efficient, powerful and generous. China’s ultimate goal is to emerge from this crisis as a more powerful […]

From the moment the novel coronavirus burst out of China and began to spread around the world, many commentators quickly took for granted that Africa would become the pandemic’s biggest and deadliest target. Yet the continent has so far dodged those dire predictions. In retrospect, few things were more predictable. For decades, the convention in Western media coverage has been to treat Africa with a casual scorn that plays up its problems—pretending wrongly, for example, that its wars are unusually brutal by the standards of our times, or that its politicians, sneeringly dismissed as “Big Men,” are uniquely power hungry […]

On the heels of Sen. Josh Hawley’s call in an op-ed to abolish the World Trade Organization, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also took to the opinion pages of The New York Times to declare the end of “the era of offshoring.” President Donald Trump’s aggressively unilateral trade policies, naturally, got most of the credit. As with Hawley’s fuzzy plan for a club of “free nations” aligned against China, it’s not quite clear whether Lighthizer thinks protectionism should still be part of the plan to “Bring the jobs back to America.” But with the United States potentially on the brink […]

The twin global emergencies of COVID-19 and climate change are forcing the U.S. foreign policy establishment to reassess its traditional conceptions of national security. According to a still dominant paradigm, the gravest dangers the United States faces emanate from adversaries with sufficient military capabilities to attack the nation and its allies or, at a minimum, thwart its political and economic objectives. These threat perceptions expanded dramatically following 9/11. After a handful of jihadists armed with boxcutters inflicted a grievous wound on the U.S. homeland, transnational terrorists joined geopolitical rivals and rogue states in the pantheon of security threats. But the […]

What happens when a superpower is not so super anymore? If you accept the premise that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating economic impact, most Americans on both the left and the right will come to view U.S. global leadership as “a luxury rather than a necessity,” as Steven Metz put it last week, then what would the post-Pax Americana world order look like? Most observers think America will step back after COVID-19, and that sounds about right—although it is far from clear whether that would be a few years on the bench, until the U.S. […]

When economies around the world started grinding to a halt in an effort to stop the carnage inflicted by the coronavirus, Sweden stood out with an approach that appeared to defy the prescription of most experts. Instead of shutting down, the Swedish government opted for much milder measures. The idea looked appealing. It suggested the possibility of containing the pandemic at a much lower economic cost. The final judgment on Sweden’s unorthodox approach cannot be rendered until the crisis moves into the history books. So far, however, the statistics suggest that the Swedish model is more disaster than panacea. If […]

On the several occasions that I’ve stayed in the town of Boulouris, on the Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Nice, I would take my morning run along a road that overlooks the beaches where Allied forces landed in August 1944 to liberate southern France. At the garage that marked the midpoint of my run, where I would turn and head back home, the road’s name changes from the Route de la Corniche to the Boulevard de la 36eme Division du Texas, a tribute to the U.S. Army division that took part in the landings. Every time I saw the street […]

In an op-ed last week, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, called for the abolition of the World Trade Organization and the restoration of “America’s economic sovereignty.” A few days later, the Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate had surged to almost 15 percent since the coronavirus pandemic hit—the highest level since the Great Depression. The timing of Hawley’s article could not help but bring to mind the Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Hawley-Smoot tariff after its sponsors Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon (no relation to the senator) and Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah. […]

Since reports of a novel coronavirus outbreak in China emerged around the new year, the lion’s share of attention has focused on immediate efforts to contain and respond to the pathogen that has now infected millions around the world and killed nearly 300,000 people, according to official counts. As the initial wave crests in many countries, observers are debating how the pandemic might reshape the world order, including prospects for international cooperation. Some anticipate accelerated U.S. decline and the advent of a more multipolar world. Others predict a deepening authoritarian turn worldwide, with an emboldened China atop the global standings. […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Steven Metz is filling in for Candace Rondeaux this week. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, the United States could have decided that its great fight against totalitarianism was finally over. America could have downsized its involvement in all but the most vital parts of the world, lessened its dependence on imported energy supplies, demilitarized its global strategy and abandoned the quest for primacy. But it did not. By then, Americans had become addicted to primacy, convinced that a militarized form of global leadership was both vital and sustainable. All of this no […]

When the coronavirus hit Italy with a fury early along its path around the world, few politicians seemed better positioned to benefit from the crisis than Matteo Salvini. The populist leader of Italy’s far-right League party, who stood at the top of the polls, immediately pounced on the opportunity to promote his core nationalist ideas while disparaging the government, hoping to trigger the elections that he hoped would make him prime minister. But in an unexpected twist, Salvini’s dream of capitalizing on COVID-19 is being thwarted. It’s early yet, but Salvini could turn into one of the most prominent political […]

For most of the past three years, many close observers of American politics shuddered at the thought of what would happen to the United States if it faced a genuine crisis during Donald Trump’s presidency. Even many of his elite supporters in the Republican Party, in the media and in business cannot have failed to wonder how a man who struggles to organize his thoughts into clear and linear sentences would be able to marshal the full resources and unified will of the United States to deal with a national emergency. It is no longer speculation after the initial months […]