Governance

Joseph Nye argues that episodes of "declinism" say more about popular psychology than geo-political analysis, but they also show how the idea of decline touches a raw nerve in American politics. China is not an existential threat to the United States unless U.S. leaders make it one by blundering into a major war.

Stephen Walt argues that the tragic irony is that the individuals and organizations in the United States that have been the most ardent in shielding Israel from criticism and pushing one administration after another to back Israel, no matter what it does, have in fact done enormous damage to the country that they were trying to help.

Juliette Kayyem argues that the Biden administration should lay out transparent plans to safeguard the electoral process no matter who is ultimately sworn in.

Stephen Walt analyzes the foundations of U.S. influence over Israel—and the lack of it.

David Kearn argues that even in the absence of restrictive resource and budgetary constraints, a focus on identifying and achieving concrete objectives that will position the United States and its allies to effectively deter aggression in critical regional flashpoints should be the priority given the stressed nature of the defense industrial base and the nuclear enterprise.

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

Joseph S. Nye warns that populist nationalism at home is by far the greatest threat to U.S. power.

Stephen Walt writes that the differences in foreign policy will be less significant than one may think. Consider how Trump and Biden would each likely deal with the three most important items on the current foreign-policy agenda: Ukraine, China, and the Middle East.

Stephen Walt elaborates his top five reasons why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to take innocent lives, destabilize the region, consume disproportionate amounts of Washington's political bandwidth, and perpetuate fear, suffering, and injustice.

Stephen Walt elaborates on what he is expecting for 2024:  the Israel-Gaza conflict widening, the 75th anniversary of NATO, the possible re-election of Donald Trump, and the election results from other populous democracies, to name a few.