Barack Obama

As we continue to sift through the shrapnel of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria and green-light Turkey’s long-planned operations against Syria’s Kurds and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, we need to keep in mind that what transpired in October represents only the short-term consequences.

Talks between the Trump administration and the Taliban have broken down. We should be happy they did not reach a deal, in part because an Iraq-style drawdown would leave a vacuum, and terrorists abhor a vacuum.

They came from Egypt and Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Some were trained in bomb-making, some in…

“The Hong Kong thing is a very tough situation. Very tough,” Donald Trump said on Tuesday. “We’ll see what happens….

As we look out at the world today, Americans need to recount the lessons of the Cold War that Gaddis helpfully brings to our attention.

Recently, Robert Nicholson sat down with Ambassador Frederic C. Hof to discuss the tragedy of Syria and American foreign policy in regards to the ongoing crisis.

Americans fought a revolution over the exercise of absolute power. We should think long and hard about resurrecting absolutist tendencies in the modern presidency and how we can put the genie back in the bottle.

Just war theorists should agree that war must be waged according to the rule of law if it is to be considered an exercise of “legitimate authority.” The American system, with its marbling of war powers between the executive and legislative branches, usually requires authorization based on the deliberative consent of the popular will expressed through the people’s representatives in Congress.

When it comes to democracy promotion, it seems the Obama-Trump era is the aberration.