Rebecca Patterson

3 weeks ago | foreignaffairs.com | Rebecca Patterson |Ivo Daalder |Andrei Soldatov |Daniel Byman

During its 76-year history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has faced its share of crises, but none have been as grave as what it confronts today. Since returning to office, U.S. President Donald Trump has questioned the two core principles of the alliance’s collective defense commitment: that there is a shared understanding of the threats to NATO members and that security among all those members is indivisible.

4 weeks ago | foreignaffairs.com | Rebecca Patterson |Joshua Kurlantzick |Jude Blanchette |Thomas J. Bollyky

In 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping argued that the world was undergoing “profound changes unseen in a century,” a concept that has since become central to Beijing’s geopolitical worldview. The phrase evoked parallels to the dramatic global shifts that followed World War I, including the collapse of European empires and the reordering of international politics.

4 weeks ago | foreignaffairs.com | Rebecca Patterson |Joshua Kurlantzick |Alexander Vindman |Andrei Soldatov

President Donald Trump’s approach to Russia and Ukraine—deferring to Moscow, bullying Kyiv—may seem like a radical departure from precedent. In fact, it is only Trump’s extreme style of diplomacy that is novel, as exemplified by the public scolding he meted out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February. No American president has ever so publicly taken Russia’s side against one of Washington’s European partners.

2 months ago | foreignaffairs.com | Elliott Abrams |Joshua Kurlantzick |Rebecca Patterson |Stephen Brooks

The geopolitical competition between China and the United States is the defining issue in international politics. It is a contest between the world’s largest economies. It pits two dramatically different political systems—one democratic, the other authoritarian—against each other. And it is taking place in almost every region. According to most American analysts, this competition will be close.

2 months ago | foreignaffairs.com | Elliott Abrams |Joshua Kurlantzick |Rebecca Patterson |Liana Fix

Germany’s once stable and drearily predictable politics are in disarray. At the end of last year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government collapsed, triggering the country’s first early elections in 20 years. Then, in late January, Friedrich Merz, the head of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the leading candidate for chancellor, pushed a hard-line motion tightening Germany’s immigration policies through parliament.