Governance

Stephen Walt argues that the true value of more diverse decision-making teams and more open political systems is not that they never make mistakes but rather that they make it more likely that policy blunders will be corrected once it is clear they are not working.

Ivan Arreguin-Toft argues that non-material considerations like cyber power matter just as much as material ones in debates about U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East.

Nathaniel L. Moir writes of historical cases in which a U.S. tendency to over-rely on military capabilities and American economic strength proved unwise and how such power eventually proved to be irrelevant. In addition to the Vietnam War as an example, the rapid collapse of the Republic of China and its large military forces in late 1948 and 1949 offers some parallels with the collapse of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Government, despite the United States investment of trillions of U.S. dollars.

Stephen Walt argues that what 9/11 means to future generations depends less on what actually occurred on that day or on how the United States and others responded and more on what the United States and others do from this day forward. 

The U.S. government has rejected the chance to study this year’s insurrection. They’ll soon regret the decision.

Stephen Walt details how the benefits of U.S. support for Israel no longer outweigh the costs.

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.

Reforming the Authorization for Use of Military Force isn’t as altruistic as it seems. Stephen Waly elaborates on three reasons why President Joe Biden would find this beneficial.

The United States' present dysfunction—and the hyper-securitized physical apparatus in Washington—is the natural outgrowth of its reckless, militaristic conduct abroad, Stephen M. Walt writes.

On November 17, Ambassadors Nicholas Burns, Marc Grossman, and Marcie Ries officially launched their report, “A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century,”published as part of the American Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.  These distinguished career Foreign Service Officers, and report co-authors, shared their recommendations on how to rebuild, reform, and reimagine the U.S. Foreign Service so that America can have the strongest and most effective diplomatic service to defend our country and advance its interests.