Sublime

State weakness and failure along with civil wars will remain relatively common given the many factors that bring about intrastate conflict and violence. Somalia remains a failed state thirty years after it collapsed, while over the past decade Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have all

Wars between countries have become less common in recent decades. There are no great-power conflicts at the moment, something that marks a welcome departure from previous centuries, in particular the last one. But there are a good many wars (or conflicts as they are often called) all the same, including those going on in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan,

The title of The Anarchical Society captures the essence of the book, namely, that at any moment in history there are forces promoting anarchy in the world and forces promoting society. The words “chaos” and “disorder” could be substituted for “anarchy,” and “order” for “society,” but whatever the choice of words, the idea could not be clearer.

Most of us still want our democracy. This is one lesson from the nightmare we’ve been through. We learned how fragile it all is—how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone or written on parchment in permanent ink turn out to depend on flimsy traditions and disposable norms, and how much these depend on public opinion. One

As is the case with the Middle East and the Israel-Arab and Israel-Palestinian disputes, it is possible to speak of the region’s modern history in a shorthand of wars—1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999—and periodic near wars. Kashmir was at the center of many of these, although the 1971 conflict was triggered by widespread repression in East Pakistan that

What the world needs is a comprehensive strategy based on the recognition that countries will not suppress their security and economic interests to join an international agreement. Proposals must have broad commercial and political appeal not only in prosperous nations, but also in developing economies.25 And those solutions must avoid focusing on

Today, potential enemies proliferate not because of anything the United States does but because of who the United States is. This changes not only U.S. foreign policy but the institutional structure of the United States. The entire world is a potential antagonist and requires constant management.

What are the forces that a postliberal politics will have to contend with after the pandemic? Besides hostile foreign powers and tech totalitarianism, there are the forces of hyper-capitalism and extreme identity politics that disrupt the lives we assumed were solid.