Science & Technology

The entanglement and feedback loops among the domestic and the geopolitical cycles of distrust have resulted in a cohesive threat to democracy: a downward political spiral that is pulling societies towards enmity. This spiral feeds on and generates destructive human emotions at massive scale, such as outrage and hatred, that lead to violence, war, and autocracy, so it can be better understood as a dangerous global maelstrom of distrust, which could sink democracy worldwide. As showcased by historical evidence, domestic and international forces do not act in isolation from each other. Democratic backsliding, the rise of authoritarianism and totalitarianism, and the politics of aggression generated feedback loops in the 1930s, that resulted in WWII. Similar forces are again working in the 2020s. If massive distrust can wreck democracy worldwide, it follows that the regeneration of trust is the path to democratic revitalization.

Stephen Walt analyzes the priority that the United States should place on competing with China by asking and answering five questions.

Stephen Walt offers some brief foreign-policy advice for the newest members of the U.S. legislature.

Joseph Nye writes: From an American perspective, it is just as dangerous to underestimate Chinese power as it is to overestimate it. While hysteria creates fear, discounting China's recent progress and future ambitions could lead the United States to squander its own long-term advantages.

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.

For now, China's increasing nationalism and assertive government mean that the United States will probably have to spend more time managing its superpower rivalry. But by avoiding ideological demonization, shunning misleading Cold War analogies, and maintaining its alliances, America can rise to the challenge, argues Joseph S. Nye.

Joseph Nye writes that even at this early stage, there are at least eight lessons— some old, some new— that the world is learning (or relearning) from the war in Ukraine.

Joseph Nye argues hat the major threat to U.S. power comes from its internal divisions. These are serious liabilities but they were not created by the invasion of Ukraine.

Calder Walton recounts the history of Cold War intelligence and explains the role of intelligence in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Will China succeed in what some call its grand strategy of displacing American power? Whichever scenario emerges also depends on the strategy the US chooses in response, rites Joseph Nye.