Governance

Stephen Walt argues that when states are in trouble and worried that they might suffer a setback, they toss their principles aside and do what they think it takes to win.

From July 11-12, 2023, NATO leaders gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania for one of the most significant NATO summits in history. This timely brief by Eric Rosenbach, Grace Jones, and Olivia Leiwant serves as a background piece on Ukraine’s history with NATO, potential future pathways for accession, and the operational impact Ukraine’s NATO membership could have on the alliance. 

Fredrik Logevall describes the legacy of the Paris Peace Accords, which effectively put an end to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, as the 50th anniversary of the accords nears.

Stephen Walt analyzes why China's foreign-policy reset will—or won't—work out.

Stephen Walt offers some brief foreign-policy advice for the newest members of the U.S. legislature.

Many accounts of the formation of American and British grand strategy during World War II between the fall of France and the Pearl Harbor attacks stress the differences between the two sides’ strategic thinking. These accounts argue that while the Americans favored a 'direct' Germany-first approach to defeating the Axis powers, the British preferred the 'indirect' or 'peripheral' method. However, a review of Anglo-American strategic planning in this period shows that before official U.S. wartime entry, both sides largely agreed the British 'peripheral' approach was the wisest grand strategy for winning the war.

 Stephen Walt decided to look back to see if 2022 had gone according to his expectations. In his last column of 2021, he had described "Biden’s 2022 Foreign-Policy To-Do List." What did he get right, what did he get wrong, and how well did the Biden administration perform?

Stephen Walt provides A realist POV on the war in Ukraine, competition with China, COVID, and more in the second part of an interview with Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal.

Stephen Walt argues the war in Ukraine continues to be discussed in ways that are self-serving—and self-defeating. A narrowing of debate is typical of most wars—at least for a long time—with governments encouraging patriotic groupthink and marginalizing dissident views. And this war has been no exception thus far.

Ivan Arreguin-Toft analyzes the West's information technology asymmetry of capability, which has given way to asymmetry of vulnerability. While democracies worldwide remain threatened, they also contain the means to restore themselves.