A Dream Deferred, But Still Alive

On March 1, 1945, only six weeks before his death, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address to Congress that pointed toward a sweeping transformation of international relations.

With the Axis powers tottering toward defeat in World War II, Roosevelt reported that the recently concluded Yalta conference of Allied leaders had agreed upon “a common ground for peace.”  It would “spell read more

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 read more

The Law of Force or the Force of Law

Are the nations of the world doomed to go on fighting the brutal, horrifying wars that have long characterized human history?

We might well wonder about that as we watch, aghast, while Israeli armed forces slaughter thousands of Palestinian civilians, Russian military might relentlessly pounds Ukrainian towns and cities into rubble, and new, bloody wars erupt in numerous other lands.

Why does such widespread destruction and human suffering persist in the modern, ostensibly “civilized,” world?

A read more