Robert Kagan’s The Jungle Grows Back might be one of the most revealing foreign policy books of 2018. Its greatest value isn’t in its prescriptions, however, but rather in the fact that it stumbles upon a deeper truth about our current moment.

A Royal Marine, a diplomat, a politician: Paddy Ashdown knew how to be tough to get things done. But he never forgot the importance of legitimacy in every measure he pushed through.

At half-time, Donald Trump has demolished a lot and rebuilt nothing. Even his short-term foreign policy successes have proven brittle. And in the longer term, his not-so-grand strategy—aka “America First”—may well prove costly, as it always has for America.

In a competitive world, with antagonistic external powers and growing internal imbalances, the dream is failing.

The tug of war between social expectations and individual desire that drives the Baby It’s Cold Outside controversy is rapidly becoming as anachronistic as the social rituals of France’s ancien regime.

A weak president with a talent for creating a spectacle finishes the year more free to be himself, for better and for worse.

Neither the delisting of Rusal nor the allowing of sanctioned Russian persons to attend Davos is a capitulation.

It is often assumed that more democratic contestation means better democracy. But too much of a good thing can be bad.

As a high-profile Russian suspect prepares to plead guilty to conspiracy charges, Putin appears to clean house at home.

Protecting one of the most important ways Americans express themselves: the vote.