Closing borders is a grievous offense against liberalism that is supposedly rooted in the sin of xenophobia. But what governments in Europe are saying by closing their borders, what Americans are saying by banning travel from Europe, is that while all men may be created equal, we will always put our own people first, ahead [...]
It may one day be said that the coronavirus delivered the deathblow to the New World Order, to a half-century of globalization, and to the era of interdependence of the world’s great nations. Which rings truer today? We are all part of mankind, all citizens of the world. Or that it’s time to put America [...]
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has just given us notice he will be terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement that governs U.S. military personnel in the islands. His notification starts the clock running on a six-month deadline. If no new agreement is negotiated, the VFA is dissolved. What triggered the decision? Duterte was offended that one of [...]
If we would like to build up sovereign nation states we have to resist the attempts to build an empire. The reason why we think that Christian democracy is a good description for us is that the universal Catholic approach is the only one which appreciates and accepts national sovereignty. It is a global idea [...]
Two months ago, crowds were in the streets of Iran cursing that regime for squandering the nation’s resources on imperial adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. Things were going America’s way. Now it is the Americans who are the targets of protests. Fifteen years after the U.S. invaded Iraq to turn Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship into a [...]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary links the persecution of Christians in other parts of the globe to the increasing hostility towards mainstream Christianity in Europe. A “mysterious force seals the lips,” he asserts, not only of politicians in the West to this persecution, but also of most of those in the media. Is there, [...]
The rise of populist movements across Europe is seen most potently in the success of the Hungarian Civic Alliance, which, under the tenacious leadership of Viktor Orbán, has been the ruling party in Hungary since 2010. A recent speech by Mr. Orbán, given on September 21 in Rome, will be music to the ears of [...]
Today, China has entered a period of general crisis. It was brought about not merely by slow economic growth and its attendant problems, but by a total upheaval touching every aspect of life in the Middle Kingdom: economic and political, intellectual and religious. Mark this date on your calendar: November 19, 2023. This date would [...]
Editor's Note: President Trump delivered the following remarks to the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2019. Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders: Seven decades of history have passed through this hall, in all of their richness and drama. Where I stand, [...]
George Kennan was—and remains—an important, even compelling, figure in the early history of the Cold War. But these selections from his diaries reveal him to have been something other than what this honest and calm, but not always detached and cool, professional diplomat took himself to be. The Kennan Diaries, edited by Frank Costigliola (768 [...]
America would be a more wholesome, more unified, and more decent place if liberals stopped thinking they have a monopoly on compassion and intelligence and conservatives stopped thinking they have a monopoly on patriotism and God. Warning: This is not a twenty-years-too-late movie review of a loosely-adapted romantic-comedy of The Taming of the Shrew. Instead, [...]
Consequentialism falls short because it blurs the distinction between murder and killing in war, the latter of which—while not always adhering to Gospel truth—is a grim necessity in the defense of the state. The misapplication of consequentialism to the atomic missions does a severe disservice to history. I. One need not be an aficionado of [...]
Images certainly can be much more compelling than mere words. But like words, how images are used and when they are used are opportunities for manipulation. The photograph is unnerving. One cannot look at it without it breaking your heart. It is the sort of image that sticks in your mind forever and haunts you [...]
When World War I ended in disillusionment, with much of Europe in chaos and ruin, many Progressives blamed Woodrow Wilson. It was he, in the end, who betrayed the cause of democracy. Only after the war did John Dewey and other Progressives admit that the Allies had never championed democratic values at all, but had [...]