Faculty Publications

It was a week when worlds collided: race, politics, the pandemic and sports. Our Week In Review breaks down the Republican National Convention, local reaction to the shooting in Wisconsin and the NBA's response, and local politics. Our panelists include Tom Nichols, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Harvard Extension School. He's also a senior advisor to The Lincoln Project.

For a lot of insiders, the “virtual” conventions weren’t a second-best—they were a breath of fresh air. Here are the tricks the parties should learn from the past two weeks, according to experts.

For many Americans right now, the scale of the coronavirus crisis calls to mind 9/11 or the 2008 financial crisis—events that reshaped society in lasting ways, from how we travel and buy homes, to the level of security and surveillance we’re accustomed to, and even to the language we use.

Politico Magazine surveyed more than thirty smart, macro thinkers this week, and they have some news for you: Buckle in. This could be bigger.

If you add up the obvious changes from 2016 to 2020—the outsized presence of social media, the rise of Russian information operations and the decline of the importance of traditional media—you arrive at an ominous conclusion: American elections are no longer solely decided by American voters.

Interview with Thomas M. Nichols.

The immediate crisis with Iran is over. The United States acted against an Iranian general, Iran responded, and both sides have stepped back from further open hostilities. Now the argument is under way about who won this round in a 40-year conflict.

Thankfully it never happened.

Interview with Thomas M. Nichols.

The HBO series Chernobyl is not only majestic television, but also a reminder that the world is a better place than it used to be. This seems counterintuitive to people who have become accustomed to declaring that we are living in bad times, the worst times, or even the End Times.

Interview with Thomas M. Nichols.

I was walking with my wife here in a cold, intermittent rain. I had just visited the Soviet War Memorial in the Tiergarten, not far from the Brandenburg Gate. We were quiet after standing before the final resting place of thousands of men who had once been our allies in the fight against the Nazis.

On February 1, the Trump administration made official what had been in the offing for some time: the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Signed in 1987, the treaty banned the United States and Russia from developing or deploying any ground-launched missiles that could travel between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, or about 300 to 3,400 miles.