Not every threat to America's national interests can be addressed with military power.
Good people cannot fully compensate for bad process, but they can mitigate some of its worst tendencies.
America must reduce its fiscal deficit, modernize its infrastructure, and improve its schools.
Wars of necessity are essentially unavoidable. They involve the most important national interests, a lack of promising alternatives to the use of force, and a certain and considerable price to be paid if the status quo is allowed to stand. Examples include World War II and the Korean War.
There is no way to know for certain what accounts for North Korean decisionmaking, given how closed a country it is.
The political world is defined by relationships rather than transactions, and by numerous actors at home and abroad with independent power. Navigating such a world is difficult and precarious.
Donald Trump's United States is not isolationist. He has authorized the use of limited military force against the Syrian government in a manner his predecessor rejected.
Living with a nuclear North Korea could give its leaders the confidence to act more aggressively versus South Korea. It could also, over time, drive both South Korea and Japan, as well as countries farther afield such as Vietnam, to reconsider their non-nuclear postures. The stability of a critical region of the world would suddenly be in doubt.
Middle East history is replete with examples of missed and lost chances to make peace.
Our inability to govern ourselves at home, to deal with everything from infrastructure to our debt to tax policy, is reducing the appeal of the American model.
Russian membership in the World Trade Organization has the potential to strengthen the rule of law, combat corruption, and give Russia a stake in better relations with the outside world.
What countries must do to join the World Trade Organization is precisely what they must do to become productive and democratic: accept the rule of law, reduce corruption, and become open, accountable, and transparent.
The abolition of the presidential term limit and President Xi Jinping's concentration of power have come as an unwelcome surprise to many.
The United States, working closely with the United Kingdom and others, established the liberal world order in the wake of World War II. The goal was to ensure that the conditions that had led to two world wars in 30 years would never again arise.