North America

Calder Walton writes that autocratic regimes — China, Russia and Iran — have been using social media to try to influence U.S. public opinion. History reveals how and why a one-party regime used disinformation to salvage its reputation following a disaster — the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, whose history also reveals how such disinformation can be countered.

Congress is weighing a big idea as it bargains over the next stimulus package: a bipartisan proposal to expand national-service programs to create jobs, help contain the coronavirus pandemic and begin to unify a divided country.

This plan would be a powerful tonic for some of what’s ailing the United States. It’s evocative of the New Deal programs that helped the United States through the Great Depression. And it’s supported by a star-studded group of Republicans and Democrats, including many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans from both parties who are backed by the bipartisan political action group With Honor.

The authors write that the demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd represent the largest sustained mobilization in the United States in their lifetimes. They detail the new geography of activism.

If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November, the question he will face is not whether to restore the liberal international order. It is whether the United States can work with an inner core of allies to promote democracy and human rights while cooperating with a broader set of states to manage the rules-based international institutions needed to face transnational threats.

“We are in the foothills of a Cold War.” Those were the words of Henry Kissinger when I interviewed him at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing last November, writes Niall Ferguson.

Joseph Nye, Jr.'s Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump skillfully examines modern American presidents and ethics.

The intelligence finding that Russia was most likely paying a bounty for the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan has evoked a strange silence from President Trump and his top national security officials on the question of what to do about the Kremlin’s wave of aggression.

Mr. Trump insists he never saw the intelligence, though it was part of the President’s Daily Brief just days before a peace deal was signed with the Taliban in February.

Stephen Walt explains the current state of U.S.-Sino relations: Each country is trying—with varying degrees of skill and success—to avoid being in a position where the other can threaten its security, prosperity, or domestic way of life. And because neither can be completely sure what the other might do in the future—a reality amply demonstrated by the erratic course of U.S. foreign policy in recent years—both are actively competing for power and influence in a variety of domains.

Bruce Schneier writes that efficient systems have limited ability to deal with system-wide economic shocks: shocks that have been coming with increased frequency. These shocks are caused by global pandemics, climate change, financial crises, and political crises. In order to be secure against these crises and more, redundancy, diversity, and overcapacity need to be added back into certain systems.

Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft Fellow William James submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee for its inquiry into the government's forthcoming Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.