Subscriber Exclusive: Stephen Walt Looks Back at 2023

After a decade as the secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg will step down from his job on Oct. 1. How has Russia’s aggression transformed the world’s largest military alliance? How is that alliance assessing challenges in the future, whether from China or artificial intelligence? Stoltenberg sat down with host Ravi Agrawal for an exit interview.

H.R. McMaster served as former President Donald Trump’s national security advisor for all of 13 months. In a new book, At War With Ourselves, he candidly describes his old boss’s foreign-policy foibles. But McMaster is also critical of the Biden administration, particularly how it has handled Afghanistan and Iran. McMaster joined FP Live to describe how he assesses global crises and what the White House needs to do to combat them.

The United States has undergone a dramatic change in its China policy in the last decade. How does that play out in day-to-day diplomacy? Nicholas Burns has served as the U.S. ambassador to China since 2022. He will sit down with FP’s Ravi Agrawal in a rare long-form interview to discuss the state of the U.S.-China relationship, encompassing trade, technology, Taiwan, and more.

From Northern Ireland to Syria, Barbara F. Walter has studied the genesis of civil wars around the world. The conditions that foment conflict are predictable, she says—and there are signs that those conditions are growing increasingly visible in the United States. Can citizens and institutions stave off violence? Walter joined FP Live to lay out lessons for the United States in a crucial election year.