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Daniel Bessner is the Anne H. H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American foreign policy in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.
Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term has led critics to describe him as a fascist in the mold of Adolf Hitler. But Trump’s reactionary politics are all-American — and the path to defeating him runs through reform of America’s antidemocratic institutions.
America’s belief that it can be militarily dominant in every major region appears to be wavering. But without challengers, the Republicans’ loss of conviction in liberal internationalism will harden into a more dangerous global authoritarianism.
After 15 months of bloodshed, news has emerged of a cease-fire deal in Gaza. The US always had the power to restrain Israel but refused to use it.
In response to the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency, Democrats are dusting off apocalyptic rhetoric of looming fascism and total democratic collapse. It’s a self-soothing deflection of responsibility more than anything else.
The ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine is the fruit of decades of increasingly right-wing Israeli policy, aided and abetted by the United States. To address the root causes, the US must end its support for Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government.
US imperialists’ post–Cold War directionlessness was solved by 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq — only for Iraq and the entire “war on terror” to lead to disaster. The imperialist liberal vision has been thoroughly discredited. So how is it still staggering on?
Breitbart’s movie about Hunter Biden, My Son Hunter, is neither entertaining, informative, competently made, nor politically persuasive. How do you screw this one up?
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a fierce debate over realism as an approach to thinking about foreign policy. Historian Daniel Bessner tells Jacobin what socialists can learn from realism and what they should reject.
The rapid collapse of Afghanistan to Taliban rule has created a chaotic, complicated situation. But here’s the fundamental point: the US has nothing to show for two decades of bloodshed and occupation.
Joe Biden hits his 100-day mark in office this week. His foreign policy has been as bad as expected, animated by the grotesque idea that now and forever, the US should call the shots around the world.
When it comes to foreign policy, Joe Biden represents a continuation of the imperialist status quo. We need a leftist alternative that weakens US empire and prizes democracy, rather than one that assumes the US is right to dominate the world.
Walter LaFeber, a giant in the field of American diplomatic history, died this week at 87. His work refused to prettify the destructive record of US foreign policy and emphasized the unacknowledged economic motives behind American statesmen’s high-flying rhetoric.
Ghostbusters’ Slimer embodied the hedonistic greed of the Reagan era. But the reboot’s Muncher is a reflection of our sad and depressed 2020s.
From his new memoir, it’s clear that Barack Obama believes process is politics. But no amount of “process” will solve the problems that plague us — for that, we need the political will he could never muster as president.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the media coverage of the Capitol Hill rally was how little of it focused on the visible presence of QAnon. What’s behind the Q cult, and how can we confront it?
The violent attempt to stop the certification of the electoral vote shouldn’t be ignored. But fascism isn’t on the brink in America. Pretending we’re on the precipice of losing our democracy plays into the hands of those who want to give new, repressive powers to the security state.
In 2002, the Pentagon staged a $250 million war game known as the “Millennium Challenge.” It was supposed to be a fixed fight — until a retired Marine lieutenant general, playing the role of a Middle Eastern country, brought the US military to its knees.
It looks like Biden won a narrow victory. But when Democratic candidates lose elections, is there any accountability for the Democratic Party operatives responsible? They don’t lose their jobs; they don’t even seem to take a pay cut.
A new study finds that America’s “war on terror” has displaced at least 37 million people around the globe. The US left has a responsibility to push an internationalism that aids the victims of American imperialism — and acts in solidarity with workers no matter their country of origin.
We talked to Bernie Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss about the internationalism that animated the Vermont senator’s 2020 campaign.