Comment archive

Monday, 8 May 2023
The Demand For US Leadership Outpaces Resentment Against It

President Joe Biden’s long-awaited announcement of decision to run for the second presidential term has brought into a sharper focus the new quality of US leadership in global affairs, which he has delivered, perhaps without any grand strategic design. The 2024 US elections will be run and determined primarily by ...

Sunday, 5 Jul 2020
Oppression and Regime Survival: Will Trump’s reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement bring about his exit?

Since George Floyd’s brutal killing by the police in May, demonstrations have spread to more than 2,000 major cities and villages in the United States. Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) is probably the most widespread movement in the country’s history. In addition, we have seen huge global support, with demonstrations in ...

Tuesday, 21 Mar 2017
Trump and Threats to Truth, Democracy and Peace

Stein Tønnesson delivered this year’s The Fjord Memorial Lecture  at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer. The lecture discusses Trump’s team of advisors, calls for fighting the increasing use of lies in political campaigning, sees Trump’s election as having weakened democracy worldwide, and perceives a major risk to world ...

Monday, 6 Feb 2017
Sleepless in the Age of Trump

What we know about how great power wars start should make us terrified of President Trump. I don’t sleep at night, because of Donald Trump. This is unusual. I wasn’t kept awake at night by George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Nor do I lose sleep over hot-blooded authoritarians such ...

Thursday, 26 Jan 2017
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

Many people are afraid of what faces us with Donald Trump as president. Nonetheless, I recommend keeping a cool head. My area of research should be useful for analyzing and understanding politics, namely political philosophy. This is the branch of philosophy that investigates political ideas and attempts to put them ...

Friday, 18 Nov 2016
Why Trump Is Bad News for Gender Equality in Foreign Policy

While 2015 was in many ways a year of celebration for women’s participation in international politics, 2016 on the other hand seems to be a year of disappointments. What will happen to women’s participation and gender equality in foreign policy when Donald Trump becomes the next President of the United ...

Tuesday, 15 Nov 2016
Democratic Intervention?

Donald Trump has made statements sceptical of military interventions in the Middle East. This is perhaps a rare piece of good news. Military intervention as a means of building democracy has once again become a hot topic. The Norwegian government has been criticized due to the consequences of the intervention ...

Friday, 11 Nov 2016
What This Election Means for US Foreign Policy

The resonance of this U.S. election campaign is truly enormous, in every corner of the world. But despite much disgust about the mudslinging, it is not necessarily all that negative. Observers everywhere may be astounded that a candidate so arrogantly ignorant in international affairs could gather so much support, but ...

Friday, 4 Nov 2016
To Tame a Hawk

Hillary Clinton is not seeking attention for her views on Syria. And she has her reasons for not doing so. One area that has been more or less devoid of attention is foreign policy We can safely say that the 2016 US election campaign has been one of a kind. ...