An odd couple of two Americans, each powerful in his own way, throws into relief the ambiguous, portentous and often tortuous relationship between the United States and the world. Whose vision will wi...

The American attack on Venezuela to snatch-and-grab its dictator was many things: militarily masterful, legally cynical, strategically and morally warped, and entirely uncertain in its ultimate outcom...

Possibly, just possibly, Donald Trump just scored a foreign-policy success that could define his legacy. By striking Venezuela and whisking away Nicolás Maduro (along with Maduro’s wife), the US presi...

We’re once again approaching the annual resetting of the Doomsday Clock. Last January, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a group of very smart people, moved the hand...

As of this week, the United States has bombed and sunk 25 boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the waters near Venezuela, killing at least 95 civilians onboard — almost certainly unlawfully. It has a...

As I re-read the frightening section on Europe in the new National Security Strategy of the United States, I couldn’t help but recall, with a rueful chuckle, a book titled The Postnational Constellati...

It was long overdue and published discreetly, unaccompanied by the usual presidential speechifying so far. And yet America’s new National Security Strategy — the document that in theory will guide for...

He “could count by twos and tie his shoes.” That’s the opening line in episodes of Franklin, a children’s TV series about an eponymous turtle that goes on to do a lot of learning. The same thing, minu...

“Stauffenberg pointed the way: if your obedience requires you to do criminal, unhuman things, you are no longer bound by your oath. A soldier’s final benchmark must always, in the last instance, be hi...

When the captain has no compass, the crew starts fighting over nautical charts and the rudder. So it is with the United States, which now has several foreign policies rather than one, as factions insi...

Say that Donald Trump has by now realized that attacking, or even invading, Venezuela might turn into a disaster. He wants to back down and redeploy the mighty American armada in the Caribbean to do s...

Donald Trump is about to repeat a mistake he has been making with America’s partners all over the world: He keeps confusing the proper uses of clarity and ambiguity in foreign policy, using one when t...

Thank goodness that Donald Trump did not — despite speculation that he might — meet the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, while the American president was visiting the Korean peninsula last month ...

First, South Africans were the ones baffled by the bizarre sounds coming out of the White House. Now it’s Nigerians’ turn. And other Africans may be next.

Just as nuclear war, in all its sheer insanity, has returned to Hollywood and public attention, the leaders of the world’s two atomic superpowers seem to be doing their best to make the jitters worse.

Late in the new movie A House of Dynamite, the American president, evacuating in his helicopter and having to decide whether to launch nuclear weapons at no one in particular, in retaliation for an in...

If you’re still not sure whether the United States is at risk of sliding into authoritarianism, talk to some Americans who know all about the proper and improper uses of violence. They are the men and...

One of the many puzzles in current American foreign policy concerns the Western Hemisphere, and specifically the Caribbean near Venezuela and Colombia. At huge cost, the administration of President Do...

As the presidents of the United States and China prepare to meet on the sidelines of an economic summit in South Korea — an encounter that may not actually happen — some foreign-policy strategists in ...

Huzzah, hosanna and hallelujah: To US President Donald Trump for brokering a ceasefire that could, possibly, mark the beginnings of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. To the hostages and their f...

Once again, five otherwise obscure individuals on the Nobel committee in Oslo, chosen by the Norwegian parliament, made controversial news today in giving out their Peace Prize, the world’s most sough...

As the world (including the self-styled peacemaker-in-chief in the White House) holds its breath for the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, spare a moment to ponder the growing risk of war...

As the Trump administration contemplates attacking Venezuela and ousting its regime, a pattern that began with Greenland and Canada in the north and Panama in the middle takes on more detailed contour...

By confusing friends and foes, strategy and personal chemistry, posturing and resolve, the American president has made everyone less safe.

The Trump administration views the UN as a useless, woke cesspool. Instead, it reflects the world as it is, assembled to “save humanity from hell.”

Remember the Communist International? The Trump administration is trying to forge a “Popintern” — Populist International — with right-wing parties in democracies.

Trump keeps treating the nation’s allies with such contempt that the consequences will be lasting and ugly.

Sure, rename the Department of Defense. But then remember that war is hell and obliges leaders to have a strategy.

Bird’s-eye and worm’s-eye views suggest that the Trump administration has no plan for the Palestinians, except to let Netanyahu do whatever he wants.

In an ideal world, the US would back Ukraine to the hilt. In this world, it could at least help Ukraine as it has for decades supported Taiwan.

China, Russia and America's other foes must be happy about the Trump administration’s national-security purge.

The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan predicted and the US president internalized. For Ukrainians, that spells tragedy.

After long efforts to woo New Delhi as an ally against China, Washington has abruptly veered toward hostility.

As the late George Shultz learned young and often told Ronald Reagan, never point your rifle if you’re not willing to pull the trigger.

Russia, China and North Korea failed to help Iran when it was getting bombed by the US. And yet their four-way coalition lives on and will become more ominous.

Who would have thought strategists would be almost nostalgic for the Cold War?

Any American “national defense strategy” is better than none at all. Too bad the one being drafted will seem naïve and won’t be read in the Oval Office.

Not making much peace abroad isn’t stopping Donald Trump from boasting that he is.

Never before has a country forfeited so much soft power with so little justification amid such intense competition with a rival.

With his new stance toward the Kremlin, the US president just demonstrated the positive role that frustration, embarrassment and vanity can play in world affairs.

When even spy agencies have to put loyalty to the leader above objectivity and truth, the whole nation loses, and becomes less safe.