Washington’s political infighting has blocked President Trump’s plans for a new détente with Russia but also has left the global playing field open for Russian – and Chinese – advances in expanding their influence, explains Gilbert Doctorow.
Donald Trump’s more pragmatic approach to foreign policy may be an improvement over the recent ideological obsessions but his own obsession with “winning” could cause trouble, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
As Official Washington obsesses about Russia, the Obama administration is mounting a similar strategy against China, surrounding it and then accusing it of “aggression,” as John Pilger explains.
Donald Trump’s unlikely election is a Brexit-like blow to the global elites who espoused an arrogant mix of neocon foreign policy and neoliberal economics that has hurt many common citizens, says ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
The U.S. acts as if its military has an inalienable right to operate close to the borders of other nations and those nations have no right to see these actions as provocative, writes Jonathan Marshall.
Exclusive: Official Washington is in a tizzy over Philippine President Duterte’s outreach to China and his estrangement from the U.S., but this realignment beats the alternative, a military showdown between the U.S. and China, writes Jonathan Marshall.
The circus-like U.S. political process, with a media that treasures trivia over substance, is giving democracy a bad name in the world and making alternative structures look good by comparison, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
President Obama’s U.N. speech looked critically at the U.S. role in world and admitted capitalism’s shortcomings, a contrast with Obama’s previous bluster about “indispensable” and “exceptional” America, notes Joe Lauria.
The G20 summit in China marked a possible tectonic shift in global economic power, with China’s President Xi pushing for a new model based on physical connectivity, like “One Belt, One Road,” writes ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.
Exclusive: The U.S. threat to launch a first-strike nuclear attack has little real strategic value – though it poses a real risk to human survival – but President Obama fears political criticism if he changes the policy, as Jonathan Marshall explains.