Free Republic

At 99, Henry Kissinger is a living demonstration that you’re never too old to learn new things — or to unlearn wrong old things. The former secretary of state has implicitly acknowledged that he dramatically misjudged Russia, its war against Ukraine, and the qualities of Ukraine’s leaders and population. After Vladimir Putin described the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its repressive empire as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” suggesting it should be reconstituted, Kissinger urged America to “show greater sensitivity to Russian complexities.” After Putin invaded Georgia, Kissinger stated that “isolating Russia is not a sustainable long-range...

The Richard Nixon Foundation, created to memorialize the achievements of the 37th president of the United States, recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of his historic opening to China. The program was entitled “Grand Strategy Summit Dedicated to Addressing America’s Geopolitical Challenges,” and began with a keynote address by Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s first national security adviser and second Secretary of State. It was moderated by Robert O’Brien, a successor of Kissinger’s at the National Security Council. Kissinger noted that Nixon came into office at a fraught moment for U.S. foreign policy, facing issues in Vietnam, the Middle East and the Soviet...

BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR Former President Trump seems determined to detract from the substantial accomplishments of his administration, especially its transformation of critical U.S.-Taiwan-China relations. His behavior since the 2020 election also has deeply damaged the reputation and prospects of the Republican Party, which honored him twice with its presidential nomination and defended him loyally against both partisan attacks and legitimate criticism. Most importantly, Trump’s actions have seriously undermined American democracy at home and its image abroad. On China and Taiwan, Trump’s no-nonsense approach startled China’s communist regime, which was accustomed to decades of bipartisan engagement that brought prosperity...

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Robert Kagan presented a chilling, but disturbingly accurate, portrayal of American politics today and its dire portents given the deep political divisions and dysfunctional state of our institutions. A premise of his thesis is that “party loyalty has superseded [executive-legislative-judicial] branch loyalty … in the Trump era.” A more descriptive statement of the Republican side of the ominous national problem — Democratic extremists deserve at least equal blame — would be that loyalty to Donald Trump has superseded party loyalty. Trump has proved himself to be the ultimate embodiment of a “Republican in...

Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress this week that Russia now is trying to interfere in the 2020 election. The question is whether, in concert or in parallel with China, it is trying to do to President Trump what it partially succeeded in doing to Clinton in 2016. This time it is using the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic to undermine public perception of the president’s basic competence and trustworthiness. Jani Vujica, director of analytics and research at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, addressed a George Washington University conference on countering...