George Will Comes Out as a Judicial Liberal

George Will apparently wants the Supreme Court to overturn the individual mandate—the requirement that Americans purchase health insurance. As Jonathan Chait points out, Will is faced with the unenviable task of reconciling belief in judicial minimalism, which he and other conservatives have spent decades extolling, with the impulse to take advantage of their narrow Supreme … Read more

Freedom from Fear

A European’s take on Islam in Western democracies The Fear of Barbarians, by Tzvetan Todorov. Translated by Andrew Brown. University of Chicago Press, 2010. $27.50, 200 pp. On Nov. 1, gunmen affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda umbrella group, massacred over 58 worshipers and police in an attack on a Catholic … Read more

The Winter 2010 HPR is Now Online!

COVERS SECTION: The Obama Doctrine: Does America Have a Foreign Policy? The Reset with Russia: Two years of “da” to a new partnership. By Joshua Lipson. Obama’s Blank Check: The tone of America’s national security policy has changed, but the substance is similar. By Peter Bozzo and Henry Shull. Remaking America’s Image: Leveraging Obama’s popularity … Read more

The Obama Doctrine

Newt Gingrich calls it “a fantasy” which “cannot be serious.” Ed Koch considers it “a foul whiff of Munich and appeasement.” According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, it is a “truly ambitious effort to redefine the United States’ view of the world.” They’re all talking about President Obama’s foreign policy. For most of the first hundred years … Read more

Strategic Disengagement

Non-interventionism makes a comeback “I will not talk of non-intervention,” Lord Palmerston once said, “for it is not an English word.” What applied to Britain 150 years ago might well apply to America today. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains troops in over 150  countries around the world … Read more

Remaking America’s Image

Leveraging Obama’s popularity abroad In the wake of President Obama’s 2008 election, approval of the United States in the rest of the world shot through the roof. Americans and foreigners alike hailed the beginning of a new era for the United States on the international stage. Yet, two years later, while Obama himself remains popular … Read more

Old Neighbors in a New World

The United States and Latin America need more high-level engagement In early October of last year, thousands of Brazilians who were gathered at the Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro suddenly erupted, cheering, hugging, and waving flags. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge had read the result of the Committee’s final vote and named Rio the … Read more

Obama’s Blank Check

The tone of America’s national security policy has changed, but the substance is similar In the 2004 Supreme Court decision Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the plurality: “A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.” Justice O’Connor’s … Read more

Obama in the Peace Process

The improbability of comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine For decades peace between Israel and the Palestinians has been an elusive goal of American foreign policy. Every president since Truman has pledged resolution of the conflict, and all have failed. At his inauguration, President Obama proclaimed his hope to “usher in a new era of … Read more