We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

I should not be judged by a standard that's not applied to everyone else.

But as the arms-control scholar Thomas Schelling once noted, two things are very expensive in international life: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail.

Conservatives used to believe in confronting hard truths, not succumbing to comforting fairy tales. Some still do.

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.

You know, when the cost of capital goes down, when credit becomes cheap, people start taking greater and greater risks.

In a world awash in debt, power shifts to creditors.