George W. Bush

The fact that Americans have shifted their focus back to domestic concerns isn’t abnormal or un-American. It is the predictable resurgence of the two domestically focused schools of the American foreign policy tradition.

In the almost-19 years since they dispatched their military to Afghanistan, US policymakers and the people they represent have learned, relearned, and unlearned several lessons.

Much of Carter Malkesian’s narrative about the Afghan war is spot-on, but he gets several key events wrong.

In the wake of the Washington Post’s big document dump of secret government and military communications about the war in Afghanistan, a fresh wave of calls for pulling out of Afghanistan is sounding across the media.

What is the role of moral values in the conduct of foreign relations? Although many answers have been given, three major traditions predominate: realism, idealism, and principled realism.

If history is any guide, we will regret abandoning Afghanistan (again), trusting the Taliban and disengaging from the world around us.

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

We need a return to a sober Christian Realism that appreciates our fallenness, the fallenness of the world, and our limits in shaping world events.

In fact, this finger-in-the-dam strategy is the best available option given America’s de facto preference to enjoy relative freedom from jihadist violence without the expense of solving the root problems from which jihadism springs. This style of frontier warfare is the price America pays for regional order on the cheap.