For Yoram Hazony, governments are either nations or empires. This is a more superficial distinction than Aristotle’s, for whom a regime’s purpose is paramount, whether ruled by one, few, or many. Despite its limitations, however, Hazony’s new book, The Virtue of Nationalism, is worth reading because it focuses so succinctly on what nations
Donald Trump bought a Korean lemon in 2018. Last week, he made some lemonade. By walking out on his second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, Trump stepped out of the policy trap that he had entered the previous year. By showing seriousness in a negotiation that seemed likely to continue along
In the October 15, 2018 edition of Strategika I wrote: “Three cheers for President Trump’s decision to add a Space Force to the Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard.” I was enthusiastic because, “though the logic of war and technology has long counseled establishing a U.S Space Force, the logic of
On January 28 I wrote here that Donald Trump had always known that some of his promises, “e.g. opposition to abortion, stopping alien migration—were so integral to his identification with his supporters that any blatant infidelity to them would finish him,” and that his signing a "government funding bill without any money for
When President Donald Trump on Friday agreed to sign a government funding bill without any money for a wall or barrier along the southern border, reversing oaths including one in which he proclaimed “so help me God,” we likely witnessed the beginning of the end of the Trump era. Prior to the 2016
Europe’s most powerful personages on Tuesday signed a treaty for the “unification,” of Western Europe’s biggest countries. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel inked the deal at Aachen/Aix la Chapelle. It was there in the chapel that Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer had knelt at Holy Mass to celebrate
Official Washington has refused to defend America against ballistic missiles, especially from Russia and China, while spending some $300 billion pretending to be trying. For a half century, it has dissembled its intention with techno-speak. On January 17, however, President Trump released the Pentagon’s long internally disputed Missile Defense Review (MDR) with words
Our civilization, and especially our country, is based on “the laws of nature and nature’s God,”—standards of right and wrong independent of earthly power—preached by the Christian churches. But clerics, including popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests have always flirted with the temptation to swap God’s laws for the rulers’ causes and prejudices. When
Whether pulling the remaining U.S. troops from Syria turns out to be a bold and beneficial move or a stupid, harmful one depends on what Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will do. That, in turn, depends in no small part on what constraints he senses from President Trump—as well as from Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
It seems that Saudi Arabia’s rulers murdered an opponent. The U.S. media and political class is shocked, shocked, to find that murder is going on in such precincts. Who did they imagine the Muslim world’s leaders are? Moreover, our chattering class demands that President Trump do whatever it takes to make sure that they
