Foreign Policy Archives - Public Seminar

History

The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

From “periphery doctrine” to open domination

April 28, 2025 • by Emmanuel Guerisoli

Over a long twentieth century of regional tussles, Israel’s local foreign policy focus has shifted from preventing the emergence of a regional hegemon toward a campaign for outright domination. The strategy has shattered the Middle East’s fragile and imperfect status quo, the stability of which was closely connected to the ...

The Vision of Hegemony Driving Israel’s Regional Policy

Uncategorized

Drone Strikes and Civilian Casualties

Will admitting a “tragic mistake” change the way we wage war?

September 21, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Last Friday, Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie of U.S. Central Command admitted that the August 29 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that the U.S. had claimed hit ISIS-K fighters had instead killed 10 civilians, including seven children. This “tragic mistake,” as he called it, at the very end of the ...

Democracy

Donald Trump’s Lies

Why presidential falsehoods are part of United States political history

December 8, 2020 • by Eric Alterman and Claire Potter

Do Americans think presidential lying no longer matters? Perhaps a better question, journalist and historian Eric Alterman asks in his new book, Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie—and Why Trump is Worse (Basic Books, 2020), is whether it ever mattered to voters. Following in the tradition of Isadore F. “Izzy” ...

Democracy

Mini-Trumps in the Wilderness

Trump’s loss of the presidency in 2020 may spell disaster for his fellow populists in Eastern Europe

November 18, 2020 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States has seriously weakened authoritarian and populist governments around the world. For independent global powers like Russia, Brazil, and Turkey, Donald Trump’s departure need not amount to a complete tragedy. But for the current governments of Poland, Hungary, and Serbia -- and ...

Multi Media

#PSLiveDebate 3

October 28, 2016 • by Zeyno Ustun

[<a href="//storify.com/PublicSeminar/pslivedebate-3" target="_blank">View the story "#PSLiveDebate 3" on Storify</a>]

Feature

Are Mexico’s Actions as Loud as Trump’s Words?

Rethinking bilateral cooperation on migration

February 2, 2016 • by Alexandra Délano Alonso

At the center of the battle for the Republican nomination is the Donald Trump phenomenon and the implausible advantage he carries in the polls despite the discriminatory, misinformed, insulting statements that have always marked his style -- only now he launches them from the platform of a possible United States ...

Are Mexico’s Actions as Loud as Trump’s Words?

Uncategorized

ISIS Slaughters, Iranians Get Punished

A threat to democratic efforts in Iran

December 16, 2015 • by Rezvaneh Ganji

Last Tuesday, December 8, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill, supported by the White House, which, if signed into law this week, would punish Iranians for crimes they have never committed. Moreover, it would provoke the hardliners in Iran, only a few months after ...