Asia & the Pacific

 Stephen Walt decided to look back to see if 2022 had gone according to his expectations. In his last column of 2021, he had described "Biden’s 2022 Foreign-Policy To-Do List." What did he get right, what did he get wrong, and how well did the Biden administration perform?

As the United States emerges from the era of so-called forever wars, it should abandon the regime change business for good. Then, Washington must understand why it failed, writes Stephen Walt.

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Stephen Walt writes that political institutions are not permanent phenomena: they are artificial human creations and only as enduring, adaptive, and effective as people make them. He hopes for a serious and sustained process of democratic change, one that respects the nobler features of the U.S. constitutional order yet addresses all the ways in which The United States has failed to live up to its own professed ideals. The alternative, he fears, will be something much more dangerous. 

Stephen Walt writes that several important events occurred in 2019, but few did anything to significantly alter global trends.

Stephen Walt's Top 10 Reasons to Give Thanks This Thanksgiving includes Greta Thunberg, Emmanuel Macron—and the fact that things aren't as bad as they could be.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered his take on global leaders and hotspots, from Iran and Saudi Arabia to North Korea and Syria. He was joined by Professor Nicholas Burns, Professor James Sebenius and Professor Robert Mnookin.