Tanner Greer shakes up the Pacific Century.

No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections.

Robert Service, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, noted Russian historian and political commentator, fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and coeditor of A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism, is interviewed by John J. Miller. Service states that “communism doesn't bring about a land of plenty for any peoples. It institutes all kinds of counterproductive and oppressive forms of government, forms of running the economy, that make it incapable of competing with the market economy and democracy.”

George Shultz on how to understand China’s future.

Pacific Century visits Foggy Bottom to talk with an architect of Trump’s China policy.

I grew up listening to stories of turn-of-the-century rural Central California from my grandfather Rees Alonzo Davis (1890-1976). He was the third generation of the Davis family to have lived in my present house—great nephew of Daniel Rhoades, who had walked into the High Sierra in early 1847 as part of a party sent to help save the Donner Party.

A discussion with General John Raymond, Chief of Space Operations.

The intent of this essay is to shed light upon why the United States is performing so poorly in twenty-first-century warfare. War is the act of relentlessly destroying and killing until the enemy is broken physically and morally, and no longer resists the advancement of our policy objectives. By that definition, President Obama eschews war. Plus, our generals have imposed rules of engagement that prevent the application of our relative advantages in air and precision firepower. Our enemies do not fear us and our friends do not trust us. Sensible steps can turn that around, but that depends upon the next commander in chief. Our beloved nation does not have a martial spirit, and perhaps does not need one. It does need a military inculcated with a warrior spirit.

An Interview with Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.