President Donald Trump wields American power like few leaders in U.S. history ever have. By imposing tariffs, threatening territorial conquest, and ordering military intervention, he deploys the United States’ strength to assert dominance over friends and foes alike.

Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard, describes this uniquely Trumpian grand strategy as “predatory hegemony” in a new essay in Foreign Affairs. The central aim of predatory hegemony, Walt writes, “is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.” Walt argues that this approach may appear to yield immediate wins, but that over time it will erode the real sources of American power, leaving the United States “poorer, less secure, and less influential.”

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

February 24 marks the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After Moscow’s initial onslaught, Ukrainian counteroffensives, and slow Russian gains since, the war has settled into a brutal pattern of attrition, adaptation, and endurance. Ukrainian cities are rationing electricity, as the Ukrainian military struggles to muster the manpower and munitions needed to gain a decisive edge. Meanwhile, the battlefield has become a hellscape of drones and artillery fire—with no clear breakthrough for either side in sight.

Michael Kofman has been one of the sharpest observers and analysts of the changing nature of the war, from Russia’s troop buildup in late 2021 to the present, in the pages of Foreign Affairs and elsewhere. He has also considered the geopolitical implications of each new phase of fighting—what the continued threat of a belligerent Russia means for the West, and how Ukraine’s allies can prepare it for sustained conflict. Now, as the war enters its fifth year, Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that “Russia retains battlefield advantages, but they have not proved decisive, and more and more, time is working against Moscow.” “Yet ending the conflict on terms acceptable to Ukraine,” he writes, “will not be an easy feat, either.”

In this special bonus episode, Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Kofman on Wednesday, February 18 about where the war stands four years in, and how it might change in the weeks and months ahead.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

A year into Donald Trump’s second term, the United States’ allies on both sides of the Atlantic seem to have recognized that they need a new strategy for this age of rupture, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called it. Trump’s grab for Greenland, his tit-for-tat tariffs on Canada, his approach in Ukraine—all have opened up rifts between the United States and many of its closest partners.

Chrystia Freeland has for years been on the frontlines of the battle for the future of the alliance as Canada’s foreign minister, deputy prime minister, and finance minister—roles in which she went head-to-head with the Trump administration on a host of fraught issues. She recently left the Canadian government to serve as a volunteer adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As much as Freeland sees the cracks in the relationship, she still stresses the imperative of making the alliance work despite them. Freeland and Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 15 about how to negotiate with Trump, what Ukraine can offer Europe and the United States, and why American allies must rethink their approach to this moment.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.