The World

The technological and political context has changed in important ways too. Globalization has had destabilizing effects, ranging from climate change to the spread of technology into far more hands than ever before, including a…

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More succinctly, NATO’s purpose (according to one clever official at the time) was to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” It succeeded in achieving these goals and more.

Sovereignty is widely considered near but not quite absolute. An ongoing debate is tied to the question of whether there ought to be legitimate grounds for intervening (including with military force) in the internal affairs of other countries, for example, to prevent genocide, defined as the purposeful destruction of a group of people based on thei

Covert help in one form or another was also provided when open assistance was judged counterproductive. In Western Europe (under the NATO umbrella) and in Asia, the United States stationed troops and provided security guarantees to its allies.

One critical factor in determining the region’s future will be the role that the United States chooses to play going forward. As already noted, one reason for the region’s phenomenal success over the past seventy years is the presence of the United States. Yes, the United States badly overreached by trying to unite all of the Korean Peninsula by fo

The war’s cost was immense and horrific: some nine million soldiers lost their lives. Another twenty-one million were wounded. Civilian deaths numbered in the millions or even tens of millions if those who succumbed to infectious disease made worse by the war are counted.

Germans resented not only the terms of the treaty but also the clause that placed the responsibility for World War I on its shoulders. It was seen as an affront to the German people that needed to be rectified, and this resentment, born out of the requirement that Germany pay harsh reparations, forfeit territory it judged to be its own, and accept

On the economic side, Maastricht introduced a common currency, the euro, which was launched in 1999, with banknotes and coins entering circulation in 2002. By 1993, a single EU market came into being, one that ensured the free movement of goods, services, and people across national lines. Years earlier, the so-called Schengen Area (named for the ci

Russia has violated several of the most basic elements of the liberal world order, including respect for the borders of others and the rights of noncombatants in a war zone, while China is ignoring international legal rulings regarding the South China Sea and implementing economic and trade policies that are inconsistent with what was expected of i