We have seen coups of sorts in Washington before, not that anyone one calls them that. (Remember JFK, Nixon.) The one against Trump is of a different order of magnitude. It had been plotted by the Deep State even before he was inaugurated. Significant power nodes had always refused . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
A country’s rising economic strength tends to be reflected in her geopolitical clout. In the late 1880’s the United States overtook Great Britain as the world’s largest economy; a decade later, having defeated Spain, America took over the remnants of her empire. During the same period . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Knowing what is going on in the Hobbesian world of international politics is an essential function of the state apparatus. Detecting, assessing, and countering external threats, real and potential, helped the Byzantine empire survive a thousand years longer than its Western counterpart—well beyond its strictly geopolitical potential for . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
History never repeats itself, but we may compare certain pivotal events in the quest for meaning and order in an apparently chaotic world. Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 and Donald Trump’s unexpected triumph in 2016 differ in countless, relatively insignificant ways, but they share one key characteristic . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
In terms of any traditionally understood calculus of national security, the United States is the most invulnerable country in the world. America is armed to the teeth, sheltered on two sides by oceans, and supremely capable of projecting her power to the distant shores. Unlike Russia, China, and India . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
There are two important lessons of history for an imperial strategist who wants to avoid the trap of overreach. The first is not to risk engagement in a new theater while an old crisis remains unresolved. Philip II of Spain sent the Armada to her doom while . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Combining elements of the Reichstag fire, the Night of the Long Knives, and Stalin’s Great Purge, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan took full advantage of the failed coup of July 15—a “gift from Allah,” as he put it—to execute a countercoup that has enabled him . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Paris (twice in ten months), San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando, Nice, Ansbach, Munich, Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray: Hundreds of people blown up, pulverized, shot, knifed. Who is next? That such attacks will continue is certain. That the political class has no strategic blueprint for dealing with the scourge . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full...
The Brexit referendum of June 23 was a momentous event, comparable in long-term implications to the fall of the Berlin Wall a generation ago. It laid bare the yawning gap between the London-based political machine and the alienated and angry majority of “left-behind” citizens. Thanks to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
The aftermath of the Cold War has seen the emergence of what Robert Kagan and William Kristol have called “benevolent global hegemony.” The leaders of both major U.S. political parties have asserted that America’s unchallengeable military might is essential to the maintenance of global order. This period . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
On April 27, Donald Trump gave a long speech on foreign policy. It was his first attempt to present his views on world affairs in detail. Refreshingly, it contained no reference to promoting freedom, democracy, and “human rights”; confronting tyranny and evil; or making the world a better place . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
The two jihadist attacks in Brussels on March 22, which killed 32 people and injured 300 others, have changed the tenor of European media commentary. While many editorialists have routinely bewailed “alienation” among Muslim youths and warned against “Islamophobia” and “intolerance,” a significant minority are considering the causes of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
A successful strategist is able to balance costs and benefits in the attainment of clearly defined objectives. This task demands prioritizing: Primary and secondary political goals need to be articulated, and military resources allocated accordingly. The Obama administration’s strategy for defeating the Islamic State (aka ISIS . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
“The Third Muslim Invasion of Europe is entering its mature stage by sea,” I observed in these pages in June, as thousands of Middle Eastern and African illegal immigrants sailed from . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign in...
On July 14, in Vienna, the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, and the European Union signed a 109-page Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. The Islamic republic has accepted a comprehensive set of international, legally mandated, and (by implication) militarily enforceable safeguards that “will ensure . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Until a year ago it had seemed that BRICS, the association of five emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—was morphing from a loose economic alliance into a geopolitical force willing and able to challenge the global order. Its members’ potential to do so appeared impressive . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
A few years after he was removed from office in 1890, Otto von Bismarck remarked that “Europe today is a powder keg, and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal.” At present, the Iron Chancellor’s dictum is applicable to the entire planet. The most . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
They came in the early eighth century across the Straits of Gibraltar, unleashing terror and carnage across Iberia “like a desolating storm.” They were stopped deep inside today’s France, at Tours, by Charles Martel in 732. They kept attacking Europe throughout the Middle Ages, but their next sustained . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
In the aftermath of Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral victory last March, the “two-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict is off the table for the foreseeable future. Netanyahu’s public disavowal of the two-state formula (despite his subsequent denials) was not a last-minute campaign ploy. It . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article...
On April 1, 1815, Otto Eduard Leo pold von Bismarck was born on the family estate at Schönhausen near Berlin, in what used to be Prussia. He came into this world at the end of a quarter-century of pan-European crisis, which started with the French Revolution . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
The claim propagated in the Western corporate media that the “March for Unity” in Paris on January 11 symbolized a victory of “freedom of speech” over “extremism” is wrong. The attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, and particularly the aftermath of those attacks, were a . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
“Putin, the master of the game, controls all the pieces on the chessboard and carefully divides up the areas of power,” writes influential French columnist Christine Ockrent in her most recent book, Les Oligarques. Her view is shared by most Western analysts and media commentators, regardless of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Chuck Hagel’s abrupt departure from the Pentagon on November 24 became inevitable after weeks of disagreement with the White House over strategy against the Islamic State (IS). The split had become public a month earlier, when Hagel’s blunt two-page memorandum on Middle East policy was leaked . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Two months after the beginning of the U.S. bombing campaign against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and one month after President Obama announced his strategy for fighting the group, the area under jihadist control continues to expand. In the east, IS forces have advanced to the outskirts . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
In the final days of August the stage seemed set for a major escalation of America’s air war against the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL). The operation, which started with limited tactical strikes between Mosul and Erbil—initially to save stranded refugees, then to . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
It has been a summer of major strategic blunders by the United States and Russia over Ukraine and by the United States in the Middle East, where the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, now renamed simply the Islamic Caliphate) has emerged as a major player, threatening what . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
The Great War started 100 years ago this August. The most tragic event in human history, that war destroyed a vibrant, magnificently creative civilization. A prosperous and well-ordered world was shattered forever. New killing machines that only a generation earlier did not exist were deployed on a massive . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
“This is the biggest contract in the history of the gas sector of the former USSR,” Vladimir Putin said after the $400 billion agreement to supply Russian natural gas to China was signed in Shanghai on May 21. It is much more than that, Putin went on: It is . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
To a casual observer it might seem that President Barack Obama’s four-nation tour of East Asia, which took him to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines, came at a time of America’s undisputed global predominance. The visit strengthened existing U.S. military commitments to the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Spending the first three days of spring in snowy Moscow, especially after being in balmy Yalta and Sevastopol, is not my idea of fun. It is useful, however, when you write on foreign affairs and there’s a first-rate crisis under way between “Putin’s Russia” and the . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
In April 1904, Scottish geographer Halford Mackinder gave a lecture at the Royal Geographical Society. His paper, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” caused a sensation and marked the birth of geopolitics as an autonomous discipline. According to Mackinder, control over the Eurasian “World-Island” is the key to global . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
The noun geopolitics and the adjective geopolitical are increasingly present in media discourse on world affairs. In principle, this is a good thing. Relating political power to the immutable imperatives of space and resources is essential to an analysis of world affairs that is free . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Uit die blou van onse hemel uit die diepte van ons see, Oor ons ewige gebergtes, waar die kranse antwoord gee. When in 1918 Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven wrote “Die Stem” (“The Voice”), the poem that became South Africa’s pre-1995 national anthem, by . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and...
The year ahead is likely to bring unforeseen foreign-policy challenges. Two years ago nobody anticipated the “Arab Spring,” and that phenomenon’s causes, significance, and future developments are still a matter of dispute. The North Korean regime is fundamentally less stable than at any time since the 1950 . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to...
Nicholas Spykman died 70 years ago, more than two years before Japan’s defeat, but his analysis of America’s role in the world, and the challenges she will face in the Far East, sounds almost prophetic today. The Dutch-born Yale professor caused a scandal when he wrote . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
To paraphrase Camus, he who despairs of the condition of the Middle East is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. In a permanent disaster zone, the best one can hope for is that things will not get worse—not too soon, anyway. Things . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
“Al Qaeda is on the run, Osama bin Laden is dead,” President Obama announced at a rally in Des Moines on the eve of last year’s presidential election. Less than a year later it is evident that, contrary to Obama’s assurances, Al Qaeda is alive . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Two waves of popular protests against Islamist regimes, one in Turkey and the other in Egypt, have produced notably different outcomes. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has weathered the storm, while President Mohamed Morsi was removed from office by the military. In view of the similarities between Erdogan’s . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned of the potential consequences of U.S. military involvement in the Syrian conflict. It could hinder humanitarian relief operations, he said, embroil the United States in a significant, lengthy, and uncertain military commitment, and strain . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
“Unfortunately you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems,” President Barack Obama told students at Ohio State on May 5. Some of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain...
The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, and did it very well. W.S. Gilbert’s lines from Iolanthe seem applicable to President Barack Obama’s four-day Middle East trip, which . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the full article and gain access to other exclusive features. Already a subscriber? Sign...
Much nonsense has been spewed following North Korea’s third nuclear test on February 12. Outgoing Pentagon chief Leon Panetta declared that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions are a “serious threat” to the United States. “I don’t know how you come up with a more dangerous scenario than . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Second-term U.S. presidents tend to focus more on world affairs than on domestic issues, for good or for ill. In January 1957, Dwight Eisenhower authorized the commitment of U.S. forces “to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence” of any nation that requested help . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Twenty years ago Leon Hadar published Quagmire: America in the Middle East, an eloquent plea for U.S. disengagement from the region. He warned that American leaders had neither the knowledge nor the power to manage long-standing disputes involving faraway people of whom we know little . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access the...
Barack Obama’s re-election, while socially, culturally, and morally disastrous for the country, may prove the lesser of two evils when it comes to foreign policy, according to some pundits. Perhaps, but only because Obama’s primary focus is on irreversibly changing the character and ethnic composition of . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
On September 24 I embarked on a week-long tour of Tunisia, hoping to learn more on the aftermath of last year’s revolution and the state of political play ahead of the elections, which are due before the year’s end. The findings are surprising. The country looks . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
In an election campaign dominated by domestic issues, foreign themes have appeared as isolated snippets. Questions regarding what to do about Syria or Iran, or how to manage relations with China and Russia, produce stock responses unrelated to the broad picture. These are among the most important questions facing . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe...
Attending a “holiday party” at the State Department in December 2010, President Obama congratulated himself on appointing Hillary Clinton and declared that “there’s a consensus building that [she] may be one of the best secretaries of state we’ve ever had in this country’s history.” She is . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now to access...
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. The ongoing enthusiasm of the Western elites for Islam, in general, and for the misnamed Arab Spring, in particular, is a case in point. The bitter fruits of the latter—simultaneously visible but differently manifested in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...
NATO leaders concluded a two-day summit in Chicago on May 21, with the pending withdrawal from Afghanistan dominating the proceedings. According to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, two other items dominated the agenda: The alliance will continue to expand its capabilities in spite of economic austerity, and . . . Subscribers Only Subscribe now...