The friendly words exchanged between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping this month softened the edge of a Chinese economic and military buildup that a recent study commissioned by the Pentagon described as “perhaps the most ambitious grand strategy undertaken by a single nation-state in modern times.”At the Beijing summit on Nov. 9, Xi repeated his usual congenial injunction for “win-win cooperation,” and Trump responded in kind, calling Xi “a very special man.” Trump also complained about the Chin

Viewpoints Nov. 29, 2017

Amid the slithering mess of problems that emerged in 2017, the one that bothers me most is that people don’t seem to know what’s true anymore. “Facts” this year got put in quotation marks.　All the other political difficulties of the Donald Trump era are subsumed in this one. If we aren’t sure what’s true, how can we act to make things better? If we don’t know where we are on the map, how do we know which way to move? Democracy assumes a well-informed citizenry that argues about solutions -- not

Viewpoints Nov. 26, 2017

Nearly two weeks after the double political explosion that rocked Riyadh, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appears to be doing damage control in ways that may help stabilize Saudi Arabia and the region.　The first bombshell was the Nov. 4 arrest on corruption charges of 201 prominent Saudis, including princes and government ministers. Now MBS, as the 32-year-old crown prince is known, is beginning a resolution process that may settle many of these cases out of court.　A senior Saudi official told

Viewpoints Nov. 20, 2017

Has there ever been a covert action that backfired as disastrously as Russia’s attempt to meddle in the 2016 US presidential campaign?Granted, we know all the reasons Moscow is gloating: Donald Trump is president; America is divided and confused; Russia’s propagandization of “fake news” is now repeated by people around the world as evidence that nothing is believable and all information is (as in Russia) manipulated and mendacious.　But against this cynical strategy there now stands a process emb

Viewpoints Nov. 2, 2017

Russia’s cybermeddling in the 2016 US presidential election has been accompanied by what US and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to rewrite the rules for global cyberspace.　A draft of a Russian proposal for a new “United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Information Crimes” was recently shown to me by a security expert who obtained a copy. The 54-page document includes 72 proposed articles, covering collection of internet traffic by authorities, “codes of co

Viewpoints Oct. 26, 2017

Looking at photographs of the ruined, desolate streets of what was once the Islamic State group’s capital of Raqqa is a reminder of the overwhelming, pitilessly effective military power of the United States.Perhaps it’s a tribute to the inevitable nature of American force, once it‘s engaged, that the fall of Raqqa this week provoked so little public discussion. Commentators focused on whether President Trump had dissed the parents of America’s fallen warriors, but they barely seemed to notice th

Viewpoints Oct. 22, 2017

As President Trump prepares to head to Asia next month for his most important overseas trip yet, foreign intelligence services are undoubtedly trying to assemble personality profiles to explain this unconventional, risk-taking, domineering president to the leaders he will meet. How will they describe Trump? Probably not with the same hyperbole we sometimes use in our daily news commentary. Foreign governments aren’t as easily shocked or offended as journalists. They‘re used to bullying autocrats

Viewpoints Oct. 19, 2017

Critics have complained about US President Trump’s bombast on foreign policy, but some GOP insiders worry about a less visible problem -- a hollowed-out bureaucracy that has been slow to develop and implement strategy.Skeptics say that on major issues -- Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Russia -- the Trump administration hasn’t explained clear, systematic plans for achieving results. Even where there seems to be a coherent diplomatic strategy, as on North Korea, the president often undercuts it w

Viewpoints Oct. 12, 2017

Various cultures have different phrases for expressing the idea of having it both ways at once. “To take a swim and not get wet” is an Albanian proverb. Poles talk about “having the cookie and eating it.” Iranians want “both God and the sugar dates.”The Trump administration has been weighing a contemporary geopolitical version of this straddle. Hard-liners have been urging the president next week to decertify the Iran nuclear agreement but insist that he wants to strengthen the deal, not break i

Viewpoints Oct. 10, 2017

Top US officials have said repeatedly that America is seeking a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis with North Korea. But President Trump‘s insulting comments toward North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appear to have made such a negotiated settlement more difficult.In the chaotic government-by-Twitter atmosphere of the Trump administration, no senior leader has publicly questioned whether the president’s trash talk about “Rocket Man” and his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea have undermi

Viewpoints Sept. 28, 2017

The Trump administration often talks about North Korea policy as if it’s an on-off switch. President Trump thundered Tuesday that the US will “totally destroy” North Korea to defend itself and its allies. But Defense Secretary James Mattis blandly insisted the next day that it’s “still a diplomatically led effort.”Somewhere in this maze of public statements-including Thursday’s announcement of new economic sanctions on North Korea -- there’s a nuanced American policy. But the seeming binary opti

Viewpoints Sept. 22, 2017