In just a few years, we have gone from being relatively secure in our democracy to being a few short steps, and a matter of months, away from the pos… - Robert Kagan

Nor is there sufficient reason to hope that the disordered and dysfunctional opposition to Trump today will suddenly become more unified and effective once Trump takes power. That is not how things work. In evolving dictatorships, the opposition is always weak and divided. That's what makes dictatorship possible in the first place. Opposition movements rarely get stronger and more unified under the pressures of persecution.

When President Dwight Eisenhower undermined and humiliated Britain and France at Suez in 1956, it was only the most blatant of many American efforts to cut Europe down to size and reduce its already weakening global influence.

The force de frappe was little more than symbolism; it relieved neither France nor Europe from strategic dependence on the United States...