For the first time since the 1940s, Americans have been asking: Can it happen here?　The question, which has been debated in the US for months, is meant to draw attention to the potential fragility of democratic self-government -- and to emphasize that in some periods, democracies are especially likely to turn in authoritarian directions.　It would be fair to pose that question in any case in light of China’s continued rise, Russia’s resurgent aggression and the disturbing developments in Turkey,

Before Wednesday evening, I’d never seen a single episode of “Roseanne.” But in the interest of cultural commentary, I cranked up my ABC.com app to see what all the fuss -- and the extraordinarily high ratings -- was about. Here’s what I learned.　1) It’s knowing. From the moment Dan Conner (John Goodman) wakes with a start, we’re in a familiar world rarely seen on TV. His face is covered by a plastic mask with a breathing tube. The show assumes the audience recognizes what it is: a CPAP (continu

The conventional wisdom in Washington these days says that Secretary of Defense James Mattis is the one man who can save the nation from war. The new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is a hawk’s hawk. And don’t get the foreign policy establishment started on incoming national security adviser, John Bolton. President Donald Trump himself pines for military parades and asserts that torturing terrorists “works.”　Like most conventional wisdom in the Trump era, however, this is all wrong -- for a num

Recent weeks have seen significant developments in the awkward three-way relationship between Taiwan, China and the US. First, President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which made it American policy to encourage greater high-level contacts — including defense and national security ones — with Taiwan, despite the displeasure those contacts will surely incur from China. Second, Taiwan’s spy chief warned that a more empowered and assertive Chinese government, under the leadership of Pres

As the People’s Republic of China continues its rise, Asia and the world are scrambling to keep their balance. Among China’s neighbors and rivals, few countries seem willing or ready to counter the challenge it poses. Japan is struggling with decades of diffidence internationally and the strictures of its postwar constitution. The countries of Southeast Asia are divided among themselves about the virtues of growing closer to China, while Australia is split internally over the same question. Euro

Explaining Japan’s economy to Western audiences is hard.One big reason for this is that explaining something as large and complex as a $5 trillion economy is an inherently difficult task. A second reason is that Japan tends to be somewhat out of sync with the US and Europe -- when the US was struggling in the early 1980s, Japan was powering ahead, and when the US recovered in the 1990s, Japan stagnated. A third reason is that the economic institutions that govern Japan -- the centralized but wea

The market creates income inequality; governments reduce it through taxes and social transfers. That’s the conventional picture -- only it doesn’t work as well as it used to, and new ways of fighting inequality are needed, likely focusing on moving more people into better-quality jobs.　In a recent paper (and a shorter blog post), two economists at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Orsetta Causa and Mikkel Hermansen, explored how traditional redistribution has worked to c

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced last week his government’s plan to “fight racism” to much fanfare. The cause is a worthy one (who can be against fighting racism?), but sadly the plan is a disaster.　The government wants to make it much easier to ban any online content deemed to be racist or to be “promoting hatred.” One might ask why the urgency when, according to the official figures, hate crimes are down 16 percent from last year. French President Emmanuel Macron clearly feels

When I served as Supreme Allied Commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, I developed a friendly relationship with the head of the Russian armed forces, Gen. Nikolai Makarov. He was a short, barrel-chested man with a congenial personal style, and given my own somewhat compact physique, I could at least tell my boss, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, that I literally saw things “eye to eye” with my Russian counterpart. Our meetings occurred both in Moscow and several times in Brussels at NATO headquarte

There’s a fundamental flaw in the Russian propaganda narrative about the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this month: It assumes that Western nations want to gang up on Russia and punish it regardless of whether there’s any evidence linking it to the assassination attempt. In reality, the Western response to the incident shows how reluctant European nations are to escalate tensions with Russia.　The diplomat expulsions announced on Monday we

Despite a propaganda blitz meant to shift the blame for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this month, Russia looks set to face bruising consequences. The newfound unity among European Union leaders on the matter and the appointment of fierce Russia hawk John Bolton as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser are potential precursors of collective Western action against Russia.　The difficulty lies in figuring out how far that ac

Kim Jong-un made a surprise visit to Beijing on his first known trip outside North Korea since taking power in 2011, three people with knowledge of the visit said.Further details of his trip, including how long Kim would stay and who he would meet, were not immediately available. The people asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information.Speculation about a possible visit by a high-ranking North Korean official circulated around the Chinese capital Monday, after Japan’s

Donald Trump is becoming the president he always envisioned himself being -- and that many of the foreign-policy hands who opposed his candidacy always feared.　Some critics view the removal of General H.R. McMaster as national security adviser, and his replacement by the longtime Republican hawk John Bolton, as proof that the president is looking for more “Trumpist” figures who will reinforce his inclination to deconstruct American global engagement. Actually, Bolton is not a full-throated suppo

The European Union’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has a reputation as something of an activist because of her willingness to take on US tech giants. And yet she has approved what is, from a leftist activist point of view, a particularly evil deal, Germany-based Bayer’s acquisition of US-based Monsanto.　The $66 billion deal creates an incredible concentration in the seed and pesticide markets. If it’s approved in the US, too, the three biggest companies in this market -- Bayer-Mo

You had to be there.　As Americans took to the streets Saturday, defying a political order that, in Washington and many state capitals, has allowed extremists to write gun laws, the bodies -- of both the dead and the living who marched in their honor -- mattered a lot. Hundreds of thousands in cities big and small showed up. It was an extraordinary coming-out party for a movement that is now, at long last, undeniably mass.　The marches against gun violence would not have been as big without the un

Predicting the course of technological progress is extremely difficult. Just because worries about human obsolescence ultimately turned out to be misplaced in the Industrial Revolution doesn’t mean that the same happy result must necessarily prevail this time around. So the persistent question about artificial intelligence -- or “robots” in common parlance -- is whether they will make human workers obsolete.Recent rapid progress in machine learning -- a very powerful and flexible statistical pre

US President Donald Trump has finally carried out his threats on trade with China, announcing Thursday the start of a process that will lead to sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports and restrictions on Chinese investments. Trump hopes to compel a recalcitrant China to end a range of unfair business practices and open its market wider to US companies, thus reducing the large US trade deficit.　In fact, Trump could be doing just the opposite -- taking the pressure off Chinese President Xi Jinping rat

From Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia, the US increasingly finds itself working with some illiberal regimes in order to contain others. Consider: Vietnam, an authoritarian, one-party state, recently hosted a US aircraft carrier for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, continuing a long-term expansion of defense ties between the two former enemies.Poland, a backsliding, illiberal democracy, has become one of the cornerstones of Washington’s efforts to shore up NATO’s deterrence agains

As US President Donald Trump prepares a wide-ranging package of tariffs and investment restrictions targeted at China, a trade war between the world’s two most important economies looks unavoidable. On the face of it, the US might seem to have the leverage it needs to win. Since it runs a huge trade deficit with China, the Chinese have a lot more to lose.　But, there’s a flaw in Trump’s logic. He appears to have an outdated and exaggerated view of how big a role the US plays in the global economy

In China, don’t forget the ones that got away.　This month’s session of the National People’s Congress, the legislature that typically rubber stamps the Communist Party’s wishes, made plenty of headlines on personnel and policies. Also telling is what didn’t happen and who didn’t get what job.　Notable omissions send important signals on what type of economy the incoming cabinet envisages and how much latitude the central bank, itself under new leadership, will have to steer it.The broader task fo