Stephen Walt

Simple: War with Iran is mostly about Israel. As long as Israel remains expansionist, its project will be regionally rejected, leading it to define its security as regional hegemony - a state of 10 million dominating a region of half a billion. That’s impossible without the USA – thus forever war.

Pete Hegseth's decision to end all military education and fellowships at Harvard is bad for the military, as well as bad for Harvard. I'm proud to say many of my former fellows are making big contributions to the U.S. military -- helped by their time at Harvard.

Opinion | ICE and Minnesota Have Pushed the U.S. Closer to Autocracy Measuring America’s slide toward democratic erosion.

Read this and check out the index across all 12 dimensions www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

could we please retire the word "testing"? you mean "violating

NATO’s Leader Is Totally Lost What does Mark Rutte think he’s doing?

"Appeasing Trump isn’t working. Rutte has gone to enormous lengths to appease and flatter Trump (at one point likening him to a benevolent “daddy”), and what did it get him?" foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/04/n...

💯

Silver lining: #Trump's remarks at the #NationalPrayerBreakfast will make even non-believers start praying for a miracle that stops him from doing even more damage to a once-great nation.

“Theory is the basis for all explanation and prediction.” - Chief, Methods and Forecasting Division, Office of Regional & Political Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency, 1978

apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA...

NATO’s Leader Is Totally Lost What does Mark Rutte think he’s doing?

Trying to preserve NATO’s old formula of U.S. dominance and European submission is an increasingly bad bet, writes columnist @stephenwalt.bsky.social.

US higher ed is under attack. Harvard refusing Trump's unreasonable, lie-based, often illegal demands is making a difference.

I especially appreciate how @ryanenos.bsky.social explains that research grants aren't favors, they're competitive contracts serving national priorities as set by Congress.

Have any members of what’s left of the editorial board resigned over this?

The Predatory Hegemon Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political...

The grand strategy of Trump's 2nd term is perhaps best described as “predatory hegemony.” Its central aim is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute and displays of deference from allies and adversaries.
@stephenwalt.bsky.social
www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

This is nonetheless more favorable terrain for Trump than for the American system. As New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once wrote (here in The Post), “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Trump has for years stoked the idea that actually, having your own facts is fine. And even as his base chooses facts that he finds inconvenient in the moment, he’s still pushing toward the next phase: Everyone is entitled to the facts that Trump presents. What institutions of power will be left to disagree?

These are the last words in the last column I wrote for The Washington Post, titled "When institutions crumble, strongmen step in". www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Stop asking if they’re “rigging the election.”
They. Already. Are.
But the most dangerous part isn’t the mechanics. It’s the message.
They’re doing it in public to make you swallow the real lie:
That voting is pointless.
If they can get you to quit before Election Day… they don’t even have to win.

The Predatory Hegemon Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political...

“The Trump administration appears to believe it can prey on other states forever, and that doing so will make the United States even stronger,” writes @stephenwalt.bsky.social. But “predatory hegemony contains the seeds of its own destruction.”

The Predatory Hegemon Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political...

In the current @foreignaffairs.com there's a an important article by @stephenwalt.bsky.social which frames Trump's "foreign policy" as "predatory hegemony." It also notes that this "mafia boss"-like policy is doomed to fail and weaken the U.S. Truth. Must read. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

The Predatory Hegemon Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political...

Yep.

"The bottom line is that acting as a predatory hegemon will weaken the networks of power and influence on which the United States has long relied and which created the leverage that Trump is now trying to exploit."

by @stephenwalt.bsky.social

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

If #Trump does a nuclear deal with Iran, I hope it is better than the phony peace deal he claimed to have reached in Israel-Palestine.

The United States under Trump has become a predatory hegemon. It is a strategy that contains the seeds of its own destruction. I explain why in this forthcoming essay of mine in FOREIGN AFFAIRS (no paywall but you do have to register). www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...

This.

Please pay attention to decimal places as you read this post. He paid $750.00 in income taxes [I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer so will make no further comment on that] and wants $10,000,000,000.00 because somebody leaked that fact.

Maryland Senator Van Hollen reacts to Israel’s ongoing killings in Gaza. “Where the hell is the Board of Peace?” he asks.

At least 32 killed in multiple attacks on civilian targets across the Strip.

Great work from the FT's John Burn-Murdoch www.ft.com/content/b474...

Performative public lying is a hallmark of far right authoritarian parties

He's in the Epstein files, mailing Jeff about "pussy being low-cal" and how much he wishes he could tell people about how wild Epstein's life is.

@cbsnews.com @bariweiss.skystack.xyz All the best people, huh?

Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, who studies democracy backsliding, on Don Lemon's arrest:

“This is a new dimension. In democracies, journalists don't get arrested. In authoritarian regimes, journalists get arrested."

More in @status.news: www.status.news/p/don-lemon-...

This this this …

Its a big club and youre not in it!

EU Trade agreements Current state of play on trade agreements.

policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-rel...