International Relations

Americans have long seen their country as morally exceptional, but their exceptionalism actually comprises three distinct views. Whichever prevails in next year's presidential election will have significant implications for ongoing conflicts in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Joseph S. Nye writes that following the first Republican debate of the U.S. presidential primary season, there is good reason to worry about what a Republican victory in 2024 would mean for the U.S.-led global order. History suggests that when Americans embrace retrenchment, much more than just liberal internationalist principles suffer for it.

Stephen Walt compares the Saudi Arabian buyout of the PGA to the Biden administration's foreign policy towards Saudia Arabia.

Stephen Walt, having just returned from the Munich Security Conference, writes that what government officials are saying about the Ukraine War in public, and private, is fascinating—and full of contradictions.

Stephen Walt explains why Putin understood that Ukraine's fate was more important to Russia than it was to the West.

Following the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, Robert Stavins said in an interview with the Harvard Gazette that the talks were both frustrating and hopeful: frustrating because they did little to accelerate the slow pace of action to reduce carbon emissions, and hopeful because of a reawakened dialogue between the world’s biggest emitters—the U.S. and China—and movement to address climate-related damage to the world’s most vulnerable nations.

Charli Carpenter comments on  U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order, issued in February 2022, releasing $7 billion in frozen, U.S.-held Afghan central bank reserves. It has been proposed to use half of the funds to pay reparations to the families of 9/11 victims.

Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, the U.S. government expelled 13 Russian diplomats working at the United Nations (UN). It did so on the grounds they were Russian intelligence officers or operatives working under diplomatic cover. We do not know details about their alleged activities, but we do know something for certain: the Kremlin has a long history of using the UN for espionage.

Stephen Walt offers a tentative and far-from-comprehensive survey of what scholars have to say about the war in Ukraine.

Abolghasem Bayyenat argues that rather than insisting that the JCPOA be restored strictly in its original form and implemented per its letter, the parties should seek to redress the agreement's imbalance in regard to its enforcement mechanisms and delivery of its economic benefits.