The Foreign Affairs Interview
Episodes
Are Europe and the United States Finally Heading For Divorce?
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Just a few weeks after its opening salvos, the war in Iran is already going global. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, stranding oil ta...
How Strong Are Iran’s Strongmen?
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When the United States and Israel launched a joint war on Iran two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iranians to rise up and rid themselves...
Iran’s Tenacious Regime and the Future of the Gulf
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For about two weeks, U.S. and Israeli forces have bombarded Iran. They have targeted Iranian military and nuclear sites. They have slain Supreme Leade...
America's War of Choice on Iran
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Over the weekend, U.S. and Israeli forces struck hundreds of sites across Iran and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Large crowds of ...
America the Predatory Hegemon
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump wields American power like few leaders in U.S. history ever have. By imposing tariffs, threatening territorial conquest, and or...
Bonus: Is There an Endgame in Ukraine?
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
February 24 marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After Moscow’s initial onslaught, Ukrainian counteroffensives...
Can America’s Allies Survive the Transatlantic Rupture?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A year into Donald Trump’s second term, the United States’ allies on both sides of the Atlantic seem to have recognized that they need a new strat...
The Myths and Realities of Global Migration
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 2024, there were more than 300 million migrants across the world—double the number there were in 1990. Many of those had been displaced by confli...
How to Navigate the Shifting International Order
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney may have made headlines when he described a “rupture” in global order in a speech at Davos last month. But lon...
Is China Leaving the United States Behind?
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One of the big surprises of Donald Trump’s second term has been the change in his approach to China. His first term marked the start of what seemed ...
The Erosion of the Sources of American Economic Power
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the past year, Donald Trump has upended the global trading system and used American economic power like no president in recent memory. He’s impos...
What Kind of Change Is Coming to Iran?
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of December, protests erupted across Iran. The government has since cracked down hard with potentially thousands of Iranians killed. It now...
What Comes Next in Venezuela
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It was just a few days ago that, after months of saber-rattling by the Trump administration, U.S. forces raided Venezuela and captured its leader, Nic...
How the Past Shadows China’s Future
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The biggest questions in U.S. foreign policy today tend to be about China. Policymakers and analysts argue over the implications of China’s rise, th...
How Liberal Democracy Can Survive an Age of Spiraling Crises
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world has reached various inflection points, or so we are often told. Advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence, promises to transform ...
The Fear and Weakness at the Heart of Trump’s Strategy
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy. Such documents are usually fairly staid exercises in lofty rhetoric. Not ...
America Can’t Escape the Multipolar Order
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the last decade, American foreign policymakers have been forced to reckon with a shifting global balance of power. Theorists have long argued over ...
The Limits of the American Way of AI
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the last few years, artificial intelligence has become a central focus of geopolitical competition, and especially of U.S.-Chinese rivalry. For muc...
The Age-Old Contest Between Land and Sea
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Members of the foreign policy world have talked a lot about great-power competition over the last decade. But no one can entirely agree on the contour...
The Strength of Trump’s Foreign Policy
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Robert O’Brien served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser from 2019 to 2021. O’Brien’s predecessors in that position left the administ...
Xi Jinping’s World of Treachery and Sacrifice
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week’s meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping may have brought a respite in the trade war. But it hardly touched the more fundamental driv...
The Crack-Up of American Democracy
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If one thing can be said to characterize the first months of Donald Trump’s second term, it is his expansive and often norm-breaking use of presiden...
America’s Two-State Delusion
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With a cease-fire in place in Gaza after two years of war, Donald Trump has proclaimed the arrival of peace in the Middle East. At the moment, however...
Will the War in Gaza Really End?
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world has watched as a cease-fire has tentatively taken effect in Gaza. All the surviving Israeli hostages are home and many Palestinian prisoners...
The Reeducation of Russia’s Military
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since Russia started its war in Ukraine, assessments of its military power have vacillated wildly. First, Russian forces were supposed to overrun...
Xi Jinping's Successor and the Future of China
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Xi Jinping took over the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he began a new chapter in China’s history—one that would come to be defined above a...
Poland’s View From the Frontline of Europe
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In early September, around 20 Russian drones entered Poland’s airspace. NATO and Polish forces scrambled fighter jets to shoot them down, but not be...
Is America Ready for the Age of Cyber Warfare?
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2024, the U.S. government discovered that Chinese hackers had penetrated a huge swath of the American telecommunications system—and remained ther...
The World That Tariffs Will Make
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump has been railing against the global economic order from the start of his political career. But in his second term as president, he has tu...
Can Israel Save Itself?
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It has been almost two years since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza. Those many months of combat have left Hamas...
The Rise of the Economic Security State
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the United States has used its position at the center of global financial, commercial, and technological networks to punish adversaries a...
Why Is America Going It Alone?
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During his second term, Donald Trump has railed against the United States’ closest allies. He has imposed tariffs, threatened to upend security comm...
Best of: Is the World Ready for the Population Bust?
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In an episode released in January 2025, Senior Editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke with the political economist Nicholas Eberstadt about the global crash in ...
Best Of: What Drives Putin and Xi
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2023, Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with the historians Stephen Kotkin and Orville Schell about what drives Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian Presi...
The Uncertain Future of U.S. Relations With India
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, the scholar and former U.S. official Ashley J. Tellis makes a provocative argument about India’s foreign polic...
Joseph Nye and the End of the American Century
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, Joseph Nye was one of the true giants of American foreign policy. His career, in government and in the academy, spanned epochs, and his b...
The Coming Nuclear Hurricane
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It wasn’t long ago that both heads of state and prominent policymakers could speak seriously about a world without nuclear weapons. But in the cours...
Preparing for the World After Trump
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For all its promise of disruption, Donald Trump’s first term as president transformed American foreign policy less than most critics feared and some...
What a Stronger Europe Means for America
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For years, U.S. presidents have complained that European governments spend far too little on their militaries, leaving the United States to pick up a ...
How Weak Is Iran?
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump pledged not to entangle the United States in wars in the Middle East. But last weekend, he joined Israel’s air campaign against Iran, b...
Iran, Israel, and the Middle East in Tumult
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Less than a week ago, on June 12, Israel launched a barrage of attacks against Iran, targeting nuclear sites, missile depots, and military and politic...
What Trump Gets Wrong About the Global Economy
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted during his first term, “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” But the record of the trade war that T...
Another China Is Possible
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It has become a trope to lament and lambast the wishful thinking that shaped U.S. policy toward China in the two decades after the Cold War. That poli...
Sudan’s Intractable War
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The war in Sudan gets only a fraction of the attention that conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and potential conflicts elsewhere get. But after two years o...
Can Trump Remake the Middle East?
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump just finished his first tour of the Middle East since returning to the White House. The region has changed a lot since he was last there ...
Has the United States Gone Rogue?
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a little more than 100 days, Donald Trump has set about dismantling much of the international order that has prevailed since World War II. That’s...
Understanding How Trump Sees the World
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump’s first National Security Strategy, released at the end of 2017, announced the start of a new era for American foreign policy—one tha...
Planning for a Post-American Future in Ukraine
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump famously promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of returning to the White House. But he is just over 100 days into his presid...
Why Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Fix Global Trade
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump’s embrace of tariffs should come as no surprise. For decades, he has claimed that other countries are ripping Americans off—and promi...
Why America Shouldn’t Underestimate Chinese Power
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For years in U.S. foreign policy circles, discussions of China focused on its growing wealth, power, and ambition, and the fear that it would supplant...
How Latin America Can Survive an Age of Turmoil
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, it has been a trope of foreign policy commentary in the United States that Washington does not pay enough attention to its own hemisphere...
Where Is the U.S.-China Relationship Headed?
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two months into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S.-Chinese relationship—the most consequential one in the world by a long stretch...
What Does Trump See in Putin?
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Not even two months into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump is reshaping U.S.-Russian relations at a critical juncture for the war in Ukrain...
Where Does Ukraine Go From Here?
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After three years of war, Ukraine is facing intense pressure from Donald Trump to reach a settlement with Russia. Trump has engaged directly with Russ...
Bonus: Is America on the Path to Authoritarianism?
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A month into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term in office, many are alarmed by what they see as emerging signs of democratic erosion. In a ne...
What Happened to Bidenomics?
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From record-low unemployment to strong GDP growth, the Biden administration presided over what appeared to be a strong economic recovery in the afterm...
Putin’s Fight Won’t End With Ukraine
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After nearly three years of war, the mood among many of Ukraine’s allies has turned grim. Russian forces are making steady gains; Kyiv is running lo...
How Will the World Navigate Trump’s Return?
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With Donald Trump about to return to the White House, leaders around the world are bracing for what could be a significant realignment in U.S. foreign...
Bonus: In the Room With Xi Jinping
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The United States’ relationship with China has scarcely been so contentious. Over the last several years, the two powers have butted heads over issu...
Is the World Ready for the Population Bust?
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past century, the world’s population has exploded—surging from around one and a half billion people in 1900 to roughly eight billion toda...
Antony Blinken on American Foreign Policy in a Turbulent Age
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the four years since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, the geopolitical landscape has radically changed. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought...
Total War Is Back. Can America Adapt?
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last few years, the world has seen the outbreak of a kind of war that had long seemed like a thing of the past. There was Russia’s invasion...
Trump and the Crisis of Liberalism
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election comes at a moment of turbulence for global democracy. It’s been a year marked by alm...
Bonus: The World of Trump 2.0
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this week, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, ushering in a new era of uncertainty at home and abroad. In ...
The Return of Political Violence
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If there’s a thread that connects unsettling trends across domestic and international affairs today, it’s the return of forms of violence that we ...
What Trump and the American Right See in Foreign Autocrats
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Donald Trump praises foreign dictators—from Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un to Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin—the typical reaction is shock and d...
The View From Israel One Year After October 7
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A year has passed since Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel sparked a brutal war in Gaza—one that is now spreading north into Lebanon and threaten...
The Middle East, China, and the Case Against American Isolationism
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The world Americans face today is more complicated—and dangerous—than it has been for decades. Yet there is a growing, and in many ways understand...
Can America Still Lead the Global Energy Transition?
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is grappling with two of the biggest challenges it has ever faced: the rise of China and the threat of catastrophic climate change. ...
Can India Change Course?
06 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In June, Narendra Modi was sworn in for a third consecutive term as India’s prime minister. But—in a surprise outcome—his party, the Bharatiya J...
What Republican Foreign Policy Gets Wrong
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the U.S. presidential election swings into high gear, speculation about a second-term Trump foreign policy is also becoming more intense. Would he ...
Bonus: The Middle East’s Dangerous Escalation
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As the war in Gaza grinds on, Israel’s endgame remains unclear. What does it mean to destroy Hamas? Who will provide security and govern Gaza when t...
China’s Vision for a New World Order
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has a very clear vision for a new world order. And although observers in the United States may disagree with that vision, Wa...
Searching for an Endgame With China
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In just a few short years, the United States’ China policy has undergone nothing short of a revolution. Few people have been more central to that sh...
Biden, Trump, and Washington’s Wishful Thinking
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The stakes of a second Trump term are very clear to Ben Rhodes, who served for eight years as one of Barack Obama’s closest advisers on national sec...
Populism’s Grip on Mexico
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, Claudia Sheinbaum won a sweeping victory in Mexico’s presidential election. Although a lot of the coverage framed the results as...
Iran, Israel, and America’s Future in the Middle East
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For months, Iran and Israel have seemed to be on the brink of outright war. Although tensions are lower than in April—when the countries exchanged d...
Gaza and the Breakdown of International Law
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no question that Hamas violated international law when it attacked Israel on October 7, and as it continues to hold hostages in Gaza. But mo...
Russia’s Murky Future
02 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Russia botched its invasion of Ukraine and the West quickly came together in support of Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power ...
Can Israel and Iran Step Back From the Brink?
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On April 13, Iran did something it had never done before: it launched a direct attack on Israel from Iranian territory. As historic and spectacular as...
Who Still Believes in a Two-State Solution?
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Indyk has probably spent more time and energy than anyone else—certainly more than any other American—trying to find a path to peace among ...
Why Is Violent Conflict Reaching Record Levels?
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
More than any time in the last 75 years, we’re living in a world at war. Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine dominate headlines. But that’s just part of...
Bonus: India as It Is
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
India has enormous momentum. Its population has surpassed China’s, making it the most populous country in the world. Its economy is expected to beco...
Netanyahu’s Israel
29 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A year ago, protests began to rock Israel. For months, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin N...
The Deepening Disconnect Over Gaza
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Four months after Hamas’s October 7 attack, the war in Gaza continues with little reason to think that Israel is particularly close to achieving its...
Is Anyone Still Afraid of the United States?
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last fall, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates took to the pages of Foreign Affairs to issue a warning: with America facing the most dangerous ...
The Dangers of Defeatism for Ukraine
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ukraine may be facing the toughest chapter of its war since the first days of Russia’s invasion. The frontlines have changed little over the past ye...
Putin’s Fragile Compact With the Russian People
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a growing sense that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a pretty good position heading into 2024. Certainly that’s what Putin wants th...
Bonus: How the War in Gaza Is Reshaping the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hamas’s attack on October 7 shocked the world and upended the status quo in the Middle East. As Israel’s war in Gaza continues, the two-state solu...
America’s Dangerous Pessimism
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Most Americans think their country is in decline. So do their leaders. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have embraced foreign policies premised on the ...
Bonus: Who Killed the Chinese Economy?
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There is no doubt that China’s economy is struggling. After Chinese President Xi Jinping ended the country’s zero-COVID policy a year ago, most ec...
How Will Artificial Intelligence Transform the Military?
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From killer robots to smarter logistics, artificial intelligence promises to change the way the U.S. military fights and develops weapons. As this new...
The Missing Israeli Endgame
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There is no end in sight to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. But even as fighting rages, questions abound about what happens when it finally stop...
What Do Palestinians Think of Their Own Leaders?
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the war in Gaza continues, the question of Hamas’s future has become paramount. But it has also raised questions about the years of Hamas rule in...
Putin’s Cannon Fodder
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Ukraine, where war with Russia grinds on, the dominant question has become: can one side outlast the other? This is especially true as both sides f...
Turmoil in the Middle East
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Two weeks ago, there was reason to think that the Middle East was becoming more stable than it had been for years. Washington was pushing for normaliz...
An Expelled Journalist Returns to China
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2020, as COVID-19 spread across the globe, the Chinese government expelled a handful of U.S. journalists from China. The move came weeks afte...
Will India Take America’s Side Against China?
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Building closer ties with India has become a top priority for U.S. foreign policy. In June, the White House hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi...
How AI Could Upend Geopolitics
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the company OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT last year, there have been constant warnings about the effects of artificial intelligence on just about...
What the World Risks if It Abandons Globalization
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After World War II, an idea took hold: economic interdependence between countries would help prevent war. But lately, faith in this idea has wavered, ...