US Foreign Policy

Patriots Eat Nuclear War for Breakfast

by Van Jackson | May 19, 2022 | Security, US Foreign Policy

I am not supposed to be worried about nuclear war with Russia. With North Korea maybe. I am told Kim Jong Un isn’t rational and can’t be trusted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps China. It’s ten feet tall, after all. Never mind that our nuclear arsenal vastly exceeds theirs. But Russia? Nah. Mutually assured destruction, baby. We both have enough nuclear warheads to destroy each other (and the world) several times over. Nuclear war would be MAD. Plus, I...

Ukraine, Progressive Internationalism, and the Restraint Coalition

by Dan Nexon | May 13, 2022 | Security, US Foreign Policy

The US needs a more restrained approach to its national security, but not all arguments for restraint – and not all policies of restraint – rest on solid foundations.

Japan’s Strange Golf-Buddy Theory of Deterrence

by Van Jackson | Apr 20, 2022 | Security, US Foreign Policy

So Japan’s former Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was very friendly with Donald Trump while he was president. The two leaders even played several rounds of golf when they were both in power, despite...

Do Realists and Leftists Want the Same Thing?

by Van Jackson | Mar 30, 2022 | Theory & Methods, US Foreign Policy

Most versions of the left gain little and sacrifice much in accepting a realist epistemology. Theories of international relations are just tools for making sense of patterns and puzzles in the world; they don’t need groupies.

More US Foreign Policy Posts

The Korea Analogy

by Dan Nexon | Mar 15, 2022 | Security, States & Regions, US Foreign Policy

Recent chatter about David Remnick's interview of Stephen Kotkin reminds me of another interview that Kotkin recorded in February. Kotkin draws an analogy between Putin's decision to invade Ukraine and Stalin's decision to give Kim Il-sung the "green light" to invade South Korea in 1950. The comparison not only highlights the dysfunctions of personalist regimes, but the (potential) effects of the Russo-Ukraine War on U.S. foreign policy. Back in January, Gregory Mitrovich published an excellent piece about that in The Washington Post. Though the Cold War had begun several years before the...

The Invasion of Ukraine is Russia’s Fault

by J. Patrick Rhamey Jr. | Mar 7, 2022 | Academia, Security, States & Regions, Theory & Methods, US Foreign Policy

For Mearsheimer “freedom” and “prosperity” are simply weapons of great power politics rather than aspirations sought by the Ukrainian people.

The Threat to Economic Hegemony is Economic Hegemony: Part II

by Van Jackson | Feb 12, 2022 | Political Economy, US Foreign Policy

This piece is the second in a three-part series grappling with the role of political economy in making a just, sustainable international order. Writing about America’s economic strategy deficit got me pondering why the United States had such a stunted economic imagination. How could the government that many consider to be the global economic hegemon be inept at economic statecraft? For one thing, I think the popular impression of America as the world’s economic hegemon is overstated. Yes, the United States has many economic advantages. Its domestic market is still the destination of choice...

Phill Scott demonstrates what’s wrong with Biden’s Democracy Summit

by Peter Henne | Dec 13, 2021 | US Foreign Policy

Joe Biden's "Summit for Democracy" was held last week. This summit meant to bring together the world's democracies, strengthening them and pro-democratic global norms. The hope is that this would reverse the growing trend of authoritarianism around the world. Some were hopeful. In his opening address, President Biden called on the "global community for democracy" to "stand up for the values that unite us." Some agree this gathering may be beneficial. Max Bergman of the Center for American Progress argues the United States should be gathering democracies, even if the "what next" aspect of the...

NOW The White House Wants To Fight Kleptocracy

by Van Jackson | Dec 10, 2021 | Political Economy, US Foreign Policy

The Biden administration just issued the government’s first ever anti-corruption strategy. The upshot: It’s needed. It’s analytically informed. It raises the prioritization of fighting kleptocracy. The downside: It’s not all that realistic. It defines corruption so widely that it makes prioritization fanciful. And it defers most of the real work to some to-be-determined imaginary future on the other side of Republican authoritarianism. Eons ago, during the 2020 presidential campaign cycle, anti-corruption was a major theme in the progressive foreign...

What’s Left of Liberal Internationalism without military intervention? …A lot

by Peter Henne | Dec 7, 2021 | US Foreign Policy

Canadian scholar and politician Michael Ignatieff had a piece in Persuasion recently on the "collapse of liberal internationalism." For Ignatieff to admit this (as one of the strongest proponents of this foreign policy orientation) says a lot. However, he inadvertently gives too much of the argument away. Liberal internationalism is more than military interventions, something both its critics and proponents seem to have forgotten. The fall of liberal internationalism Liberal internationalism is the claim that state interests are best served by engaging with the world to advance liberal...

Did Biden Really Abandon Nigerian Christians?

by Peter Henne | Nov 24, 2021 | US Foreign Policy

The US State Department recently released the lists of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) on religious freedom, part of its responsibilities under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRF). The list now includes Russia alongside countries like Burma and China. But one change angered many religious freedom advocates: the removal of Nigeria from the list. IRF advocates claim this is tantamount to abandoning Nigerian Christians, who are often the target of violence in that country. I think the situation is more complicated than that: Nigeria's addition to the list was the result of the...

Who’s Afraid of China’s Nukes?

by Van Jackson | Nov 22, 2021 | Academia, Security, US Foreign Policy

In 1932, John Chamberlain lamented “the unwillingness of the liberal to continue with analysis once the process of analysis had become uncomfortable.” He was critiquing the way Wilsonian liberals drifted into World War One. Socialists and reformist progressives had thought seriously about both the causes of the war and the realistic consequences for American democracy if the nation opted in. Liberals, he charged, couldn’t stomach such analysis and instead idealized the upside of succumbing to war fever. I think about Chamberlain’s quote...

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