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.

Calder Walton says both seek to topple the United States from atop world stage, with China's blend of money, influence, all-hands-on-deck approach posing the greater threat.

After viewing the movie Oppenheimer, Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, Mariana Budjeryn, Matthew J. Parent, Calder Walton, Sylvia Mishra, and Julie George offer their thoughts on its relevance to the world today. 

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

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.

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.

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.

It seems unlikely that Russia will again possess the resources to balance U.S. power in the same way that the Soviet Union did during the four decades after World War II. But declining powers merit as much diplomatic attention as rising ones do. Joseph S. Nye worries that the United States lacks a strategy to prevent Russia from becoming an international spoiler.