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Can the Left Save Liberalism From Trump?

In an essay for The New York Times Sunday Review, Non-Resident Fellow James Traub asks whether liberalism has a future in a United States beset by populist politics.

Traub argues that "forty years of swelling illiberalism on the right—and some reciprocal illiberalism on the left—have deeply corroded" public faith in political institutions, and a Democratic victory in 2020 will be insufficient to restore that faith without a new commitment to liberal values.

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Oct 17, 2019
James Traub
United States

All eyes on Trump's United Nations debut

President Trump’s first visit to the UN General Assembly this week will indicate whether he intends to promote America’s global engagement or double down on America first.

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Sep 18, 2017
United States
Prevention and Peacebuilding
United Nations

Trump locks America into its forever war

There is surely no greater sign of the bankruptcy of U.S. foreign policy than its Afghanistan policy. After more than 15 years of war and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, a new president entered the Oval Office poised to fundamentally change that policy. Within months he presented, with great fanfare, a continuation of the same.

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Aug 24, 2017
Barnett Rubin
United States, South Asia, Afghanistan
Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project
Afghanistan, South Asia

For Help in America’s Longest War, Trump Tilts Political Balance Toward India Over Pakistan

Three American presidents have spent nearly 16 years alternately cajoling, coaxing, threatening and bombing Pakistan, all with a goal of trying to change the Pakistani government’s decisions about the factions it supports in Afghanistan’s desperate civil war.

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Aug 23, 2017
Barnett Rubin
United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan
Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Transnational Threats

Nikki Haley and the Trump administration’s UN policy

The Trump administration’s evolving UN policy is a case study in how policymaking in the administration remains a work in progress amid competing worldviews, absent or unclear guidance, and an idiosyncratic president. There are deep ideological divisions within the White House about America’s role in the world.

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Aug 18, 2017
East Asia, United States
Prevention and Peacebuilding
United Nations

Profile in Prominence: Ambassador Nikki Haley and the Trump administration's UN policy

Nikki Haley, Elsina Wainwright

A new brief produced by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney looks at the role of UN Ambassador Nikki R. Haley in helping shape President Trump's views on the usefulness of the United Nations and the need for its reform, as well as the implications for Australia before it begins its important new role.

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Aug 02, 2017
United States
United Nations
Prevention and Peacebuilding

Is Treason Still Punishable in America Today?

Donald Trump Jr.’s actions might rise to the level of criminal conspiracy against the republic, but it probably wouldn't even matter.

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Jul 14, 2017
James Traub
United States
Prevention and Peacebuilding

In Afghanistan, U.S. Still Needs a Plan to Win the Peace

As the Trump administration completes its review of policy on Afghanistan and South Asia, public debate is focused on the war’s military component, including President Trump’s decision to delegate decisions on troop levels to the Pentagon. Yet a few thousand more troops alone will be insufficient to end the war. A security plan, including the anticipated troop increase, must be combined with a political strategy that addresses Afghan domestic and regional factors fueling the war.

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Jul 13, 2017
Barnett Rubin
United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan
Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project
Afghanistan, Humanitarian Crises

Afghanistan and Considerations of Supply

Carl von Clausewitz observed, “There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.”

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Jul 11, 2017
Barnett Rubin
Central Asia, United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan
Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project
Afghanistan, Crises, Humanitarian Crises, Pakistan, South Asia

Trump ponders crackdown on Pakistan over terror ties despite experts' warnings

As US mulls strategy over country’s support for terrorist groups in Afghanistan, experts say tougher stance could drive Pakistan toward China and Russia

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Jun 27, 2017
Sune Engel Rasmussen, Julian Borger, Barnett Rubin
United States, South Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan
Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Project
Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Asia

Related Publications

  • The Strategic Chain: Linking Pakistan, India, China, and the United States

    ©Brookings Institution

    Considerable policy analysis has been devoted to bilateral strategic relationships between Pakistan and India, India and China, and China and the United States. But the strategic dynamics among these four nuclear powers cannot be understood or effectively addressed on a strictly bilateral basis. While Pakistan responds strategically to India, India responds both to Pakistan and China, which in turn responds both to India and the United States.

    Read more
    Mar 02, 2017
    Robert Einhorn, WPS Sidhu
    China, United States, South Asia, India, Pakistan
    India, Pakistan, South Asia

  • What could the US election results mean for the UN?

    Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks by phone with Donald J. Trump, President-elect of the United States, on 11 November. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

    © UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

    The election of Donald Trump as US president was a seismic event for Americans – those who celebrated and those who wept – and for the rest of the world.   The currents that underpinned the result are neither new nor confined to the US: discontent with politics and economics as usual, lack of trust in elites and populist nationalism have been on the rise in many parts of the world. These were clearly expressed through the Brexit vote but also in social protests and electoral upsets worldwide, from the Philippines to South Africa to the Colombia referendum. For the United Nations, an organization that is in some ways both the elite club to end all elite clubs and the global voice of “we the peoples”, the new administration is likely to bring significant change. 

    Read more
    Nov 14, 2016
    Sarah Cliffe
    United States
    United Nations

  • Australia and the US Asian Alliance Network

    Executive Summary

    • The United States’ presence in the Indo-Asia-Pacific is transforming from a traditional alliance network (of Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand) into a web of strengthened alliances, new partnerships and creative linkages.
    • Washington must manage this transformation carefully, so its alliance network maintains a deterrent function and reassures allies, but does not exacerbate USChina tensions.
    Read more
    Mar 14, 2016
    China, East Asia, United States
    Prevention and Peacebuilding

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