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James Mann

James Mann is author-in-residence at Johns Hopkins’s School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of Rise of the Vulcans (Viking) and The Obamians (Viking), which is being published this month.

Recent Articles

The Romney Foreign-Policy Agenda

The next president will face critical challenges, but Mitt Romney has offered no clear vision of America's role in the world. What can we learn from his team of advisers?

James MannMay 22, 2012
(Victor Juhasz)

Imagine for a moment: It is two weeks after Election Day and President-elect Mitt Romney holds a press conference to announce his foreign-policy team, the officials who will guide his administration’s relations with the rest of the world. “Team of rivals!” proclaims Romney. He says he has decided to fill the top jobs in foreign policy with his competitors for the Republican presidential nomination. For secretary of state: Rick Santorum. For secretary of defense: Newt Gingrich. For CIA director: Rick Perry. For national security adviser: Michele Bachmann …

America's China Fantasy

James MannFeb 19, 2007

America has been operating with the wrong paradigm for China. Day after day, U.S. officials carry out policies based upon premises about China's future that are at best questionable and at worst downright false.

Think Globally

James MannNov 21, 2004

The 2004 election results carry especially profound implications for the Democrats on foreign policy. John Kerry's defeat means that the party must develop both new voices and a broader vision of America's role in the world.

It will not be sufficient to argue merely that the Republicans have bungled foreign policy. (If that message didn't work this time, amid the chaos of Iraq, will it ever?) Nor is it enough to claim that the Democrats have their own personnel with hands-on foreign-policy experience. How many presidential campaigns will the Democrats enter with the same old spokesmen, like Richard Holbrooke or Sandy Berger, arguing that if they were in office, they could manage things better than the Republicans?

Rules of Engagement

James MannAug 13, 2004

Arguing About War By Michael Walzer • Yale University Press •
225 pages • $25.00

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror
By Michael Ignatieff • Princeton University Press • 160 pages • $22.95

Not Your Father's Foreign Policy

James MannDec 19, 2001

In its first months, President George W. Bush's new foreign-policy team has
gotten the wrong rap--an inane one that deflects attention away from the serious
questions. Since November the press has been abuzz with the supposed insight that
Bush's appointees are "retreads" from previous Republican governments. Yet this
conceit has obscured the far more important issue of what Bush's new team intends
to do. What goals have they set? Are these goals prudent, affordable, and
achievable? What will the impact be upon America's role in the world?

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