On September 13, the British public was startled when more than 110,000 people turned out for a raucous far-right rally in London featuring racist conspiracy theories, anti-Muslim hate speech, and violent assaults upon police. Whipping up the crowd, Tommy Robinson―a popular far-right agitator, march
Trump’s Assault Upon the United Nations is at Odds with U.S. Public Opinion
If one examines Donald Trump’s approach to world affairs since his entry into American politics, it should come as no surprise that he has worked to undermine the United Nations.
The United Nations is based on international cooperation, as well as on what the UN Charter calls “the equal rights . . . of nations large and small.” It seeks to end “the scourge of war” and to “promote social progress” for the people of the world.
By contrast, Trump has advocated a nationalist path for
Eighty Years of Nuclear Terror
Ever since the atomic bombings of Japanese cities in August 1945, the world has been living on borrowed time.
The indications, then and since, that the development of nuclear weapons did not bode well for human survival, were clear enough. The two small atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people and wounded many others, almost all of them civilians.
Can International Organizations Survive the Rightwing, Nationalist Onslaught?
At a time when international cooperation provides the key to preventing a variety of global calamities―including nuclear war, climate catastrophe, and massive starvation―it’s tragic that major nations, ruled by nationalist, rightwing parties, are on a collision course with the organizations that represent the international community.
Chief among these international organizations is the United Nations, with a Charter that bans
Scuttling International Humanitarian Assistance
Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House, he and his Republican allies have worked to destroy the U.S. government’s overseas humanitarian aid programs.
This action flies in the face of the U.S. government’s lengthy record of humanitarian assistance to people of other nations whose lives had been blighted by war, poverty, and illness. From the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-devastated Europe, to Senator George McGovern’s
Why Trump, the “Peacemaker,” Can’t Secure Peace
In recent years, Donald Trump has frequently billed himself as a bringer of peace. During 2023 and 2024, as he campaigned for re-election, he declared at least 53 times that he would end the Ukraine War within 24 hours of taking office or even before that. Referring to peace for Ukraine before a gathering in Council Bluffs, Iowa in July 2023, he insisted: “I’ll get that done within 24 hours. Everyone says, ‘Oh, no, you can’t.’ Absolutely, I can. Absolutely I can.”
Trump
The Limitations of Military Might
Although the statement that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” was made by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, it’s an idea that, in one form or another, has motivated a great many people, from the members of teenage street gangs to the statesmen of major nations.
The rising spiral of world military spending provides a striking example of how highly national governments value armed forces. In 2024, the
A Different Approach is Needed for Survival in the Nuclear Age
Amid growing international chaos, it should come as no surprise that nuclear dangers are increasing.
The latest indication is a rising interest among U.S. allies in enhancing their nuclear weapons capability. For many decades, remarkably few of them had been willing to build nuclear weapons―a result of popular
Global Chaos or Global Community?
Although the nations of the world have pledged to respect a system of international law and global responsibility, the recent behavior of several countries provides a sharp challenge to this arrangement.
For over three years, the Russian government has conducted a brutal military invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine―the largest and most devastating military operation in Europe since World War II. Defying Russia’s
Two Different American Approaches to the World
The recent whirlwind of Trump administration foreign policy measures―many reversing those of the Biden administration―illustrates the fact that Americans have sharply different opinions about their relationship to other nations.
The Trump approach―which he has labeled “America First”―is clear enough. He has blocked U.S. humanitarian assistance abroad by shutting down