According to the world’s great powers, sovereignty – the right to impose law and make war and peace – remains the exclusive privilege of the territorial nation-state. Even amid the troubles of post-colonial and post-imperial rule, states assert that they alone may order the space within their borders — whether on land or in the...
The term restrainer calls to mind many different images: on one hand, a group of anti-war activists disillusioned by American failures in Iraq and Afghanistan; on the other, a cohort of ivory tower academics with years of experience immersing themselves in the study of international relations. Most restrainers are usually somewhere in between these archetypes....
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed directly to his imperial ambitions as the purpose of the war in Ukraine. The question of what caused the war is vital, because any answer would include a claim about who Putin really is, which is necessary to understand the path to success. In assessing the nature of their...
In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the liberal democratic world has become complacent. Challenges from both the political Left and Right have brought infighting and disunity to adrift Western societies. However, this directionlessness was shattered by Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine again in early 2022. The Eastern European resistance to...
Global politics has always been a dangerous and uncertain arena. In our increasingly imperiled world, the United States has an indispensable role as the diplomatic, military, and moral leader of the West and the free world at large. This country also has a deep and abiding obligation to its own people, who not only have...
On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy boasted, “All — All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.” This extraordinary line in his Ich bin ein Berliner speech rested on a conviction that the American people “take the greatest pride, that they have been able to share … the story of...
On December 9, 2021, the United Kingdom signed a groundbreaking Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) with Singapore, marking the first-ever digital trade agreement signed by a European nation. British International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan boasted that the DEA would “slash red tape, cut costs and support well-paid jobs across the whole UK.” In effect, this agreement...
The internationally-recognized terrorist organization ‘ISIL-Libya’ (ISIL-L) presents a legitimate security threat in 2022 as the group reorients towards guerilla-warfare style fighting and maintains its ideological resilience, exploiting the tense political situation in Libya through coordination with criminal organizations. Libya currently exists in a state of political and socioeconomic unrest, as it struggles to establish a...
Review of The Strategy of Denial by Elbridge A. Colby (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021) The age of Washington’s post Cold-War global hegemony has come to an end, as the United States enters a new era of great power competition with China. Many key American allies are exposed to Chinese military power and...
With the rise of an authoritarian and aggressive People’s Republic of China (PRC), the security of the United States – and that of the liberal international order – is increasingly under threat. The greatest potential flash point in this new rivalry is the island-nation of Taiwan, formally the Republic of China. How the United States...
