After the big bang of the Singapore summit in June, with its showy but vague North Korean commitment to denuclearization, many analysts doubted that the deal had any real substance. But we’re beginning to see the first signs of what a serious accord would look like.

This is indeed “Crazytown,” as a quote from Bob Woodward’s new book describes it, and we are watching a “nervous breakdown.” The problem is that it afflicts the country as a whole and not just our narcissistic chief executive.

Imagine a bully who’s pounding your head against a wall. When you complain that it hurts and threaten to punch back, he offers to sign an international agreement against bullying. Meanwhile, he keeps pounding your head.

As the Syrian tragedy lurches toward a bloody final showdown in Idlib province, the Trump administration is struggling to check Russia and the Assad regime from an assault there that U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warns would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

John McCain’s death offers a moment to think about the insurgency in the GOP that vexed him during his final decade as a politician, and that produced in Donald Trump a man he seemed to loathe, but couldn’t figure out how to stop.

For foreign countries that have made big bets on Donald Trump’s presidency — such as Russia, China, North Korea and Saudi Arabia — the U.S. midterm elections pose a significant problem: Trump’s maneuvering room may be sharply limited if Democrats win control of the House.

Looking at Russia’s competing spy services, their overlapping operations against the United States and their sometimes careless tradecraft, some CIA veterans are wondering if the Russian spooks actually want to get caught.

Belfer senior fellow David Ignatius reflects on what went right—and wrong—at the Helsinki summit.

The Helsinki summit will be a culmination of Trump’s often-proclaimed eagerness for better relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He’s not my enemy. And hopefully someday maybe he’ll be a friend,” Trump said Thursday during a news conference in Brussels. Critics ask: At what cost, and for what reason?

The catastrophic war in Syria is nearing what could be a diplomatic endgame, as the United States , Russia and Israel shape a deal that would preserve power for Syrian President Bashar al -Assad in exchange for Russian pledges to restrain Iranian influence.