Michael Mandelbaum’s The Case for Goliath likens America’s global role to that of a government. A distinguished French observer, astonishingly agrees.

When Americans eat at Baja Fresh or Panda Express, they're digesting more than they think.

A lunch in Berlin (nearly) gets out of hand.

I just got back, an hour or so ago, from the first political demonstration I’ve participated in for some decades. (No, I’m not proud of that, but a fact is a fact.) This demonstration was the brainchild of Christopher Hitchens, that old Trotskyite menace become semi-neocon gadfly. In a September 21 Slate article called “Stand […]

Yesterday’s Washington Post caught my editor’s eye in a special way.First, Nell Henderson’s front-page feature, “As Economy Thrived Under Greenspan, So Did Debt” gives readers of The American Interest a decidedly “been there, done that better” feel. The current (Winter 2005) issue’s essay by Peter Hartcher, “The Amazing Bubble-Man”, covers the story in much greater […]

The verdict continues to strengthen about Spielberg’s “Munich.” Check out Holocaust Museum director Walter Reich’s piece in the January 1 Washington Post “Outlook” section, p. B5, under the title “Something Missing in Spielberg’s `Munich’.” Reich’s critique is similar in spirit to Edward Rothstein’s, noted here a few days ago. It’s the “spiral” theory of violence […]

Well, the AI office is officially closed in the week between Xmas and New Year’s, and I, AI editor, elected to just mainly hang around the house for most of the period, with my wife and my three kids coming and going seemingly at random. There was just too much movement to plan anything serious, […]

Preemption against 21st-century threats is justified and necessary. It may be time, therefore, to move beyond the UN Charter.

A French-born observer examines two new books on immigration and the challenges of American civic nationalism.

The Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt authored a political philosophy that retains appeal in some surprising places.