Diplomacy & Crisis News

Among the debates that have swept the U.S. foreign policy community since the beginning of the Trump administration, alarm about the fate of the liberal international rules-based order has emerged as one of the few fixed points. From the international relations scholar G. John Ikenberry’s claim that “for seven decades the world has been dominated by a western liberal order” to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s call in the final days of the Obama administration to “act urgently to defend the liberal international order,” this banner waves atop most discussions of the United States’ role in the world. 

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Experts from both the United States and China weigh in on Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner’s March/April article about U.S. China policy.

As long as Putin remains in power, changing Russia will be close to impossible. Washington needs a new grand strategy to deal with the fact that Putin is here to stay and won’t end his assault on Western democracy and multilateral institutions anytime soon.

In theory, carbon pricing makes sense, but in practice, it isn’t doing much about climate change.

The United States has weathered a number of challenges in its progress toward social democracy, and the trials of the present era will likely prove a brief detour rather than a dead end.

Rather than seeking to return to an imagined past in which the United States molded the world in its image, Washington should limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad and concentrate on reconstructing a viable liberal democracy at home.

In too many places, governments are failing to invest in their populations. This is a problem because neglecting investments in human capital can dramatically weaken a country’s competitiveness in a rapidly changing world.

Marx’s theory remains one of the most perceptive critiques of capitalism ever offered. Far from being outdated, Marxism is crucial for making sense of the world today.

The Marshall Plan worked because its designers had clear objectives and were willing to accept tradeoffs, such as a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

The world is at the dawn of a second Industrial Revolution, this time, a digital revolution. And its impact will be, if anything, even greater than that of the first.

Many observers of contemporary Russia focus on the state’s grip on society. What they miss is that society itself has a grip on the state.

The disruption to the earth’s climate will ultimately command more attention and resources and have a greater influence on the global economy and international relations than any other force.

The abil­ity of major countries and international organizations to convince separatists that good behavior leads to success may be eroding. And if secessionists conclude that abiding by the rules generates few rewards, the consequences could be ugly.

An excessive focus on counterterrorism disfigures American politics, distorts U.S. policies, and in the long run will undermine national security.

Today, as ever, great-power politics will drive world events. That means the course of the coming century will largely be determined by the relationship between China and the United States.

Chrystia Freeland said Trump was putting his thumb on the scales with tariffs.

The secretary of state now has to deal with the fallout of the rushed agreement with North Korea.

The firms profiting from China's rights abuses are often backed by Western investors.

Koreans deserve the credit for peace on the peninsula, not Trump.

Quelque deux ans après le démembrement de l'Union soviétique, l'Ukraine se prépare à élire son nouveau Parlement. Mais les illusions des premiers temps de l'indépendance se sont évanouies sous le coup des difficultés économiques. Les mouvements sociaux se multiplient, notamment dans l'Est, dans le (...) / Ukraine - 1994/03