Michael Mandelbaum

NATO September/October 2017 Essay

Pay Up, Europe

Trump has a point about Europe and NATO: European members should spend more on their collective defense. But Europe has a point about Trump: the alliance cannot work...

Michael Mandelbaum

Commitment issues: NATO headquarters, Brussels, May 2017

Security November/December 2015 Comment

How to Prevent an Iranian Bomb

By itself, the Iran nuclear deal will not be enough to prevent Tehran’s eventual proliferation. To supplement the deal, Washington needs to update and adapt its Cold...

Michael Mandelbaum

An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to launch from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, September 2013. Preventing Iranian nuclearization will require a credible threat of force from the United States.

War & Military Strategy November/December 2014 Review Essay

Why They Fought

According to Ian Morris, the author of a sweeping history of conflict from prehistoric times to the present, war can sometimes produce safety. But his account runs...

Michael Mandelbaum

Military Budgets Aug 9, 2011 Postscript

America's Coming Retrenchment

The recent deal over the debt ceiling guarantees that the U.S. government will reduce its spending on foreign policy, which will force America to scale down its...

Michael Mandelbaum

Grand Strategy May/June 2010 Review Essay

Overpowered?

For the authors of three new books about power and U.S. foreign policy, the essence of "the power problem" is that the United States has too much of it. But the era in...

Michael Mandelbaum

Economic Development September/October 2007 Essay

Democracy Without America

Despite the failure of U.S. democracy-promotion efforts, democracy is spreading across the globe, bolstered by the free market. Although the Arab world, China, and...

Michael Mandelbaum

U.S. Foreign Policy September/October 2002 Essay

The Inadequacy of American Power

American supremacy --military, economic,and social--is so overwhelming it can no longer be denied. Nor can the supremacy of three ideas that have come to dominate the...

Michael Mandelbaum

Humanitarian Intervention July/August 2001 Review Essay

The Conscience of a Conservative: The Dangers of Dogmatism in U.S. Foreign Policy

Henry Kissinger's Does America Need a Foreign Policy? warns that Washington could become an overly dogmatic superpower. For the new century he recommends returning to...

Michael Mandelbaum

Security September/October 1999 Comment

The Failure of Intervention

In this 1999 article, Michael Mandelbaum explains why previous NATO interventions, such as that in Kosovo, had just the opposite effect of what NATO intended, leading...

Michael Mandelbaum

Political Development May/June 1997 Essay

Westernizing Russia and China

In one sense Russia and China pose the same problems. An international order of trade and cooperation has been established, and the two countries are in the process of...

Michael Mandelbaum

Security January/February 1996 Essay

Foreign Policy as Social Work

The Bill Clinton administration's early foreign interventions sought to make U.S. foreign policy into a kind of social work. Its attempts failed.

Michael Mandelbaum

Global Institutions May/June 1995 Comment

Preserving the New Peace

Expanding NATO east is unwise. It will not promote democracy or capitalism, and it is premature to assume Russian belligerence.

Michael Mandelbaum

Arms Control & Disarmament March/April 1995 Essay

Lessons of the Next Nuclear War

Nuclear weapons, as great enhancers of national power, are attractive to U.S. allies, orphan states left outside the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and hostile rogue states....

Michael Mandelbaum

Democratization America and the World 1991 Essay

Coup de Grace: The End of the Soviet Union

On August 24, 1991, three days after the collapse of an attempted coup by a group of high Soviet officials in Moscow, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev killed himself in his...

Michael Mandelbaum

U.S. Foreign Policy America and the World 1990 Essay

The Bush Foreign Policy

Appraises the admirable wisdom of detached watchfulness in reacting to the communist collapse, the end of the Cold War, and the onset of German unification; the...

Michael Mandelbaum

Inauguration of George H. W. Bush, 1989.

Defense Policy Fall 1989 Capsule Review

Paywall-Free

Territory Of Lies

Michael Mandelbaum

Defense Policy Fall 1989 Capsule Review

Paywall-Free

Strategic Intelligence For American National Security

Michael Mandelbaum

Defense Policy Fall 1989 Capsule Review

Paywall-Free

About Face: The Odyssey Of An American Warrior

Michael Mandelbaum

U.S. Foreign Policy Fall 1989 Capsule Review

Paywall-Free

General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword And The Pen

Michael Mandelbaum

Grand Strategy Spring 1989 Essay

Ending the Cold War

The West should not under-estimate the USSR's capacity to reform, and to accommodate the West on the issues of (1) regional claims on Eastern Europe; although the WP...

Michael Mandelbaum