The Politics of America’s Impending Transition from Majority White to Majority Minority

Recently released US Census data confirms the trajectory of long-known American demographic trends:  Whites are declining as a percentage of the total US population, Hispanics and Asians are rising, and Blacks are remaining roughly the same.  By about 2045, it is expected that the US will be a “majority minority” country. This is already true for the population under …

Turning on Each Other: How the Downfall of U.S. Allies Is Often Followed by Conflict between U.S. Adversaries

There is something that often—even if not always—happens after a regime allied to the United States is replaced by a regime that is hostile toward it: serious conflict takes place between America’s adversaries. Read the full article at https://nationalinterest.org/feature/collapse-afghanistan-could-mean-trouble-americas-enemies-191685?fbclid=IwAR3cCVySD-Uy-EQyW4mZPnMkePDxRx8teS-KkBGWY_sREVaog1NJ0pdfW4o

Competing Visions of the Emerging Multipolar World

At the end of the bipolar Cold War era that was dominated by the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, many people either hoped or feared that a new unipolar world dominated by the United States had come into being. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, though, the ability of the …

What U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Talks Reveal About the Iran Nuclear Deal

The United States and its allies are far better off with the JCPOA than without it—especially since reviving the JCPOA does not prevent the United States and its allies from acting to counter Iran’s regional policies that they find threatening. Read the full article at: https://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/what-us-soviet-strategic-arms-talks-reveal-about-iran-nuclear-deal-187163

Russia’s Competing Policy Interests in Syria and the Middle East

As we near presidential “elections” in Syria, it is worth exploring what interests continue to drive Russia’s ongoing military intervention in that country, which has helped the Assad regime to not just avoid being overthrown (as it seemed on the verge of being in mid-2015), but also to regain control over much of the territory …

Taliban Rule in Afghanistan Is Worse for Its Neighbors Than America

President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year, and the troops from America’s NATO allies that are still there will undoubtedly be gone by then too. It is possible that the weak Kabul government we have been supporting will somehow manage to stay in power and …

What Would Be the Impact of Democratic Decline in America on International Relations?

Fortunately, the January 6, 2021 storming of Congress by Trump supporters seeking to disrupt the counting of the Electoral College vote certifying Joe Biden’s election as president failed.  But the fact that the Capitol could be stormed at all—combined with the initial reticence of certain government officials to halt it and the continued, unrepentant support …

Russian-American Relations: From Trump to Biden

The incoming Biden Administration will inherit the same concerns about Russia that the Trump Administration had with it.  These include arms control issues; Russian activity in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics; Russian involvement in conflicts in Syria and Libya; increasing European energy dependence on Russia despite European security concerns about it; Russia’s close …

What Should the Biden Administration’s Iran Strategy Be?

President-elect Biden has signaled that he wants the U.S. to rejoin the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord which the Trump Administration withdrew from in 2018.  But while this goal is laudable, continuing differences between Iran on the one hand and the U.S. and some of its Middle Eastern allies on the other may not only limit …

Foreign Policy Challenges Facing the Biden Administration

The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States allows American foreign policy the opportunity to return to its pre-Trump norm that held from FDR to Obama of supporting America’s allies against their common authoritarian adversaries, working cooperatively with other countries to deal with common problems through multilateral agreements and institutions, regarding the …