Why Chemical Weapons Matter
The realist case for punishing Syria is just as strong as the moral one
A top United Nations official has declared that Syria is now the worst humanitarian crisis the organization has ever faced. It is no surprise, therefore, that moral interventionists are calling for action. But President Barack Obama has consistently downplayed morality in his foreign policy calculus. He tends towards the realism associated with George H.W. Bush. READ MORE >>
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: "For all the talk about futility and perversity in interventions, it is well to remember that not all of them have failed." READ MORE >>
The Need to Lead
Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global PowerBy Zbigniew Brzezinski (Basic Books, 208 pp., $26) READ MORE >>
The Irony of Wikileaks
Indispensability
Red Herring
Why did Russia really invade Georgia? In late September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and offered a rather stunning explanation. Lavrov--who previously spent a decade as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, where he mastered the body of international precedents and U.N. Security Council resolutions that together make up the de facto law of nations--informed his audience that, by attacking Georgia, Moscow was implementing a principle endorsed by the Security Council in 2006: the "responsibility to protect." READ MORE >>
