President Obama is now passing through what one must hope for both his sake and ours are the worst moments of a presidency no longer young. Abroad, the intervention in Libya has not had the quick and clear results he had hoped.  While things may still go well, and one devoutly hopes that they do, […]

I had to fly over to London last week for a meeting and to see some old friends; I lucked into one of those rare spring days when the English weather was perfect.  The sky was blue, the sun was warm, and the flowers and fountains in St. James Park were at their absolute best.  […]

The long-brewing crisis in Syria has entered a critical phase and it is changing the rules of the Middle East.  If the people keep marching and the regime keeps shooting, the Obama administration could face its toughest Middle East choices yet.  Will Samantha Power bomb yet another country in the region, or will she try […]

I’ve been blogging enthusiastically about Brazil and the potential for a new kind of relationship between the two most populous and dynamic republics in the western hemisphere.  And I’d add a little more: for young Americans wondering what country and language they can study that will give them an edge in life, let me suggest […]

Last year I posted a series on the top ten trends that would shape the new decade and introduced it with a piece on the core reality driving events in our time: the accelerating pace of change.  Driven by forces hardwired into science and capitalism, history is speeding up, societies around the world are being […]

Most of what people write and say about international relations is sheer claptrap.  That is especially true when diplomats and distinguished journalists convene.  Get yourself on the international rubber chicken circuit and you will soon discover a world of pompous gasbags relentlessly pounding their audiences with barrages of platitudes.  Worse, you may start flapping your […]

Brazil is ground zero for global greens.  Home of the largest and richest rainforest system in the world, Brazil is where the fight for biodiversity and the fight against deforestation will be either won or lost.  At the Copenhagen Summit, Brazil played a key role in failed negotiations that killed the Green Dream of a […]

For regular readers wondering why there haven’t been many posts for the last week, I have been on a lecture tour in Brazil, participating with American Interest colleague and longtime friend Dr. Josef Joffe of the Hoover Institution and Die Zeit, in a series of conversations, seminars and exchanges with Brazilian thinkers, businesspeople, journalists and […]

There are two big mistakes most Americans make about our inner city problems:  we believe that the troubles of the inner city are mostly about race, and we believe that they can be solved without God.The failure of the blue social model to solve the problems of the underclass in America’s inner cities was one […]

Niccolo Machiavelli is one of those rare writers so well known that his name has become an adjective; ‘Machiavellian’ means crafty and ruthless.  And over the centuries, Machiavelli’s most famous book, The Prince, has vexed moralists for its seeming defiance of all moral laws. The ruler, Machiavelli tells us, must not just learn to do […]