At first glance, Washington’s informal but very real commitment to defend Taiwan and preserve its de facto independence seems quite secure. Over the past decade, Taipei’s security relationship with the United States grew steadily closer—with strong bipartisan approval in the United States. Not only was that development apparent during Donald Trump’s first administration, but also, to the surprise of many experts on East Asian affairs, the trend persisted throughout Joe Biden’s presidency. The prevailing assumption was that Trump’s return to the White House would be very good news for...

Today, April 30, 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the final, definitive defeat of the U.S. military crusade in Vietnam. The images of U.S. helicopters desperately flying American diplomats and Washington’s high-level South Vietnamese collaborators from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon effectively captured not only the chaotic environment, but also the extent of Washington’s overall policy debacle. The outcome of the war was a humiliating defeat for the United States in every respect. Vietnam’s reunification under a communist government was now an indisputable reality. Indeed, the...

The commitment of Washington’s European allies to democracy is increasingly fragile, if not hypocritical, as Vice President J D Vance highlighted in his speech to the Munich Security Conference last month. That problem is most acute in Romania. In the first round of the country’s presidential election on November 24, 2024, Calin Georgescu, the candidate of a right-wing populist party, unexpectedly led the field. In addition to having populist social views, Georgescu is an outspoken critic of NATO. His “apostasy” on that issue makes him especially unacceptable to Romania’s political...

U.S. officials have a long history of portraying Washington’s allies and clients as democratic, even when their behavior is blatantly authoritarian. Such cynical hypocrisy was at its zenith during the Cold War, but it is surging again. A similar trend is evident with respect to U.S. interference in the internal political affairs of other countries through such mechanisms as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Such agencies fund regimes and political movements that are deemed obedient to Washington’s wishes and...

One of the earliest points to become apparent about Donald Trump’s second term as president is that there is a significant difference in foreign policy priorities and a vast change in style from his predecessors over the past eight or nine decades. Blather about the United States promoting or defending democracy around the world has already faded with the onset of the new administration. That change is just as well, since more often than not, such rhetoric merely served as a cover for U.S. power politics and an attempt to prolong Washington’s fading global hegemony. If one truly wants to...

Donald Trump’s political adversaries have long contended that he is a danger to democracy both at home and abroad. The alleged threat that he poses domestically is symbolized by the riot his supporters waged at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Opponents denounce Trump’s foreign policy views both for being “isolationist” and overly sympathetic to autocrats around the world. Trump’s mere willingness to interact with the latter individuals is deemed to be sufficient evidence of his own evil inclinations. Aside from the internally contradictory aspects of the two criticisms, a key problem with...