The Best of 2017

Xi Jinping is now set to lead China for the next fifteen years or more.

The fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t stopped the anti-Matilda campaign reveals a paradox at the heart of his authoritarian rule.

Stephen Kotkin tells the story of the fateful night in 1941 when, after years of mutual nonaggression, Germany finally attacked the Soviet Union.

The North Korean nuclear threat is more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it is time for the U.S. government to pursue diplomatic options.

American patriotism is compatible with responsible global leadership. Figuring out how to reconcile the two is now the Trump administration’s central challenge.

Although the state of democracy around the world is indeed very troubled, it is not uniformly dire, especially outside the West.

The appointment of the Hindu nationalist Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh raises a question about Narendra Modi: Is he a reformer or a reactionary? The answer is...

The relationship between Trump and the intelligence community needs to be recalibrated. The president must understand that “alternative facts” have no place in the...

Trump’s erratic style and confrontational policies are often condemned as dangerous. Here’s how they could actually lead to conflict—with Iran, China, and North...

The Kurdistan Regional Government faces serious challenges as it seeks to identify security threats among the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis streaming across its...

Online communications give marginalized social and political groups a space to organize, mobilize, and ultimately challenge the status quo. Today, these dynamics...

Successful foreign policy is largely invisible. It often means paying up front for benefits that are hard to see until you lose them.

Recent Chinese policies have fueled concerns that the country seeks to overturn the post–Cold War geopolitical order. But China is not the only revisionist power in...

In many ways, the populist surge that brought Donald Trump to office represents a rejection of experts and all they represent. Americans today see ignorance as a...

Europe is unlikely to unify in response to Trump's challenges—despite the claims of some EU officials.

The populism that Trump espouses is rooted in the thought and culture of Andrew Jackson. Jacksonians are skeptical about the value of liberal order building, so the...

Although much of the establishment has been left wringing its hands about what to do about the problem of fake news—how to ferret out the content and those who...

Foreign media is trickling in to North Korea, revealing the gap between Pyongyang’s propaganda and reality. The regime is well able to repress subversion in the...

A father’s letters explore the challenges his son will face growing up Muslim, offering advice on how to be faithful to Islam's values while navigating today's...