History

President Roosevelt first enunciated the Four Freedoms in an evening session with his speechwriters. He made them the peroration of his message to Congress and wove them into the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations Charter. They have constituted the basis of American foreign policy ever since. Now is the time to reaffirm them.

Have we any hope and faith for export? In this time of apprehension and pessimism, here as well as over there, have we any hope and faith to spare?

We are told that a policy of firmness must inevitably lead to war, while conciliation could guarantee peace. In the Nazi days this was called appeasement.

The prophet Václav Havel wants Americans to know that there is an important connection between remembering God and living in freedom.

How should controversial leaders, after the passing of time, be remembered? With ceremonial execration, a prominent statue, or, perhaps, eventually, both? And what about the victims of history, those who were often forgotten and not publicly memorialized in bronze or stone?

How should democratic governments, as well as Christian citizens, respond to an Olympics held in an authoritarian regime that holds a million Muslim Uighurs in forced labor camps, represses Christians and other religious minorities, and has clamped down on the once-free inhabitants of Hong Kong?

“Prevention of war lies primarily in cultivation of the bases of peace.” This sentence taken from the report of the preparatory commission of UNESCO.

In the case of Taiwan, however, disproportionate focus on the Cold War can obscure other historical cases, such as Britain’s commitment to Belgium, that provide useful lessons for preventing geopolitical catastrophe.

This week the editors discuss the Ukraine-Russia crisis, an article by Mark Royce comparing the Soviet threat during the Cold War and the current China challenge, and a book review of Tracy McKenzie’s We the Fallen People.