This second cold war, conducted on a teeming planet whose anxiety is intensified by the passions and rages of social media, is only in its beginning stages. The aim, like in the first Cold War, is negative victory: not defeating the Chinese, but waiting them out, just as we waited the Soviets out.
THE ECONOMIST’S first cover of 2019 compared the presidency of Donald Trump to a television series. That was apt. This year’s instalment of “The Trump Show” churned out more plot twists, sudden departures and cliffhangers than most primetime-drama writers would dare attempt in a single season. The year has culminated in a dramatic impeachment episode, in which the president is accused of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The House voted to impeach President Donald Trump on charges of abusing his power and obstructing congressional investigations, a historic rebuke in a political era that has threatened to upend the nation’s constitutional order. The nearly party-line vote to recommend Trump’s removal from office and label him a national security threat was met by a defiant president who vowed to prevail in a Senate trial overseen by his Republican allies — but whose presidency will be forever blemished by an impeachment.
Also Read: Impeachment Day For Trump: A Bruised Ego, A Twitter Eruption And A Winding Rally
For Trump the most significant lesson may have been that Johnson was able, not to crack, but to smash the Labour Party’s so-called “Red Wall” in northern England. Just as Trump won in the Rust Belt states in 2016, so Johnson cruised to victory in working-class areas that supported Brexit and want to see a rebirth of their traditional industries. For Trump, it’s a sign that his strength in the Rust Belt was no fluke.
That viral video of the leaders of Canada, France and the U.K. laughing about their U.S. counterpart at last week’s NATO summit was vivid yet anecdotal evidence of what the rest of the world thinks of President Donald Trump. Now comes some hard data showing America’s declining global reputation.
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where, he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente (“cooperation”) with Moscow. And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not share his views and indeed were opposed to them.
After 25 years of repeated failures, Americans want a foreign policy that preserves the security of the United States, enhances prosperity, and maintains the core U.S. commitment to individual liberty. They recognize that U.S. power can be a force for good, but only if it is employed judiciously and for realistic objectives. In short, a large and growing number of Americans want a foreign policy of restraint.
Last May, in the weeks leading up to his presidential inauguration, Volodymyr Zelensky learned that a man named Rudy Giuliani wanted to meet with him. The name was only distantly familiar. But the former mayor of New York City was the personal attorney of the president of the United States… Zelensky understood that it might be hard to say no.
In 2000 and 2001, candidate Bloomberg forged a path that seemed almost dauntingly difficult, but he pulled it off by recognizing an unusual opening and quickly moving to capitalise on it. It was a campaign that relied on a lot of things going right for him but also made sure that his candidacy was well-positioned to exploit his advantages whenever and wherever he could. It’s not crazy to think he could do it again.
Did the United States have a hand in assassinating Congolese and Dominican leaders in 1961? What did President Richard Nixon’s White House know about a successful plot to kill the head of the Chilean army in 1970? After the Cold War ended, did top U.S. military commanders retain the authority to strike back if a surprise nuclear attack put the president out of commission? The answers to these and other historical mysteries are likely knowable—but they are locked in presidential libraries and government archives and inaccessible to researchers. The reason: the U.S. government’s system for declassifying and processing historical records has reached a state of crisis.
