In Foreign Policy, my colleague John Kennedy and I took stock of the war, with enormous thanks to @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social for commissioning and editing. foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/07/u...

I should develop a bot over every article that follows the "Turkey ascendant" line without taking the caveats seriously

Okay, hear me out: What if the folks upset Platners nazi tattoo wasn’t a red line, the folks upset his other sexual assault allegations weren’t a red line, and the folks upset his joining a mercenary group to kill brown people wasn’t a red line all joined forces in some kind of progressive coalition

Mainstream versions of American history downplay U.S. imperialism to tell a heroic story of the United States as a global champion of democracy.

American education has effectively incorporated imperialism into a narrative of U.S. virtue and redemption.

World Cup special! foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/12/f...

the ruins of old imperialism foreignpolicy.com/2025/08/22/b...

Here's one on the Vatican's postwar diplomacy and why it's never going to cooperate with Trumpian warmongering. foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/24/p...

For the 4th, @foreignpolicy.com has 7 fantastic essays from 7 fantastic historians. Here is US history retold from the perspective of prostitutes and prairie animals, not to mention mafiosos and Missourians. All free to read, complete with sex, crime and bison: foreignpolicy.com/projects/ame...

Western countries' prioritisation of interests over values in the case of TR is indeed disheartening at a time when the country's opposition is facing severe repression. Yet, Turkey is far from an isolated case.

Excited to share a piece I wrote with Graham Cornwell on how America deals with the legacy of empire. Rather than hide or ignore it, we argue, U.S. leaders co-opted the country's imperial history in a much more sophisticated way. And it's free to read this week! foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/01/t...

Wrote a short report for colleagues at @brookings.edu about Turkey defense industry: www.brookings.edu/articles/low...

Excited to share a piece I wrote with Graham Cornwell on how America deals with the legacy of empire. Rather than hide or ignore it, we argue, U.S. leaders co-opted the country's imperial history in a much more sophisticated way. And it's free to read this week! foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/01/t...

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social told me all @foreignpolicy.com content is free this week. So I’m sharing my work. “America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want” For this I embedded with Marine F-35 unit looking at the tyranny of distance in Asia. foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/16/u...

Terrific @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social piece on Trump’s “farcepolitik” and a credulous commentariat that buys it: “The result is an ecosystem where Trump’s most committed enablers declare victory after victory and a number of people who know better, or at least should, decline to call it a defeat.”

Readers will all undoubtedly have their own favorite example of historical farcepolitik. The Holy Roman Empire did not formally come to an end until 1806. British monarchs only dropped the title “King of France” in 1801. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/22/t...

A fantastic new piece by Ryan Gingeras: foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/23/u...

Readers will all undoubtedly have their own favorite example of historical farcepolitik. The Holy Roman Empire did not formally come to an end until 1806. British monarchs only dropped the title “King of France” in 1801. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/22/t...

My quick look at Trump, collective delusion, and, of course, Ottoman maps: foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/22/t...

Trump's shaky Iran deal isn't a peace treaty. It won't bring lasting peace or a new order. Six Century International fellows tell @orderfromashes.bsky.social what new problems and pathologies to expect from the MoU.

Finding various lefty people in the humanities kinda annoying but not thinking it is worth burning down every free institution in the west to prevent such people emerging nor allying with the fascists in the process of doing as much? This is a superpower.

Feels like these texts make for a pretty concise Republican campaign commercial:

Somewhere, there is an historian of the Ottoman empire looking at the United States and saying, "well, it's not really decline, so much as transformation to new structures."

well I'm sure *this* will be the last shady shit we hear about from Platner's past (set to autopost at 6 pm for the next three months)

man, I don't know. If you had told me in 2018 this many people on the left would go to the mat for a guy whose personal history includes a nazi tattoo, alleged violence against women, & mercenary work motivated by a desire to kill brown people..I'd have believed you, & still been bummed out about it

A timely piece from @ghoshworld.bsky.social about this: foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/05/m...

The Iran war sparked a discussion about Gulf middle powers. In a new essay for @foreignpolicy.com with @mikewoldemariam.bsky.social we explain how & why the US built Gulf states into middle powers & how they then exercised their nascent capabilities in Africa. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/03/a...

Fantastic Selim Koru review of two great books by Suzy Hansen and Alex Christie-Miller foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/29/t...

January 8, 2025. I would simply die of shame if I ever wrote something as wrong as this

Can't we just have Angus King as both of our Senators?

With Trump calling for more Muslim countries to join the Abraham Accords it’s essential to understand what the accords are & what they achieved. My recent essay with @mattduss.bsky.social for @foreignpolicy.com does just that. Thanks @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/07/t...

Man, this article about how Modi is nothing like Erdogan sure reads like the kind of thing people spent the last decade saying about Erdogan foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/22/m...

Register for our in-person event happening tomorrow at 5:00 PM EDT: From Life Itself, a book talk with author Suzy Hansen and Nick Danforth.

I think pt 1 is a good bit more than microscopic but no disagreement on 2.

I said having a prominent voice of pro-Palestine politics in the US be a guy who had a Nazi tattoo and appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast will make it harder for me to convince wavering family members that pro-Palestine politics are not all antisemitic, and I got, "Oh, so your family are all genocidal?"

The Stockholm Institute for Turkish Studies was nice enough to organize an interview/book launch for me with Howard Eissenstat (@heissenstat.bsky.social) and Paul Levin (@paultlevin.bsky.social). Check it out: www.su.se/english/divi...

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social and I are going live in 5 minutes. This week, we'll be talking about Turkey in Europe, Greece in the Middle East. open.substack.com/live-stream/...

This rhetorical move is called the Selective Anderson

I was lucky enough to have a conversation with @reubensilverman.bsky.social about his new volume on the Menderes Era in Turkey (1950 - 1960), hosted by @paultlevin.bsky.social at SUITS You can watch it here. www.su.se/english/divi...

Glad to finally see Robert Guiscard, Terror of the World, in the pages of Foreign Policy: foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/24/p...

So many solutions work if Trump stops being Trump: "addressing the most acute dangers that Iran poses against its neighbors, the United States and the world if the administration can prioritize, focus and overcome its addiction to quick fixes.”

my supposition is that the authors of such pieces have access to some kind of extra-dimensional technology, whereby our Trump-A can simply be swapped for a Trump-B, seemingly indistinguishable but completely different in character, ideology, and skill.

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social and I are going LIVE to talk about Hungary's elections, (and whether there are lessons in there), as well as the devastating school shootings in Turkey this week. open.substack.com/live-stream/...

By 1914, the Ottoman empire looked much more promising as a multiethnic society than a multireligious one. foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/10/o...

A growing number of historians argue that the Ottoman Empire’s decline was overstated and its collapse was not predestined.

📰 Sunday Extras: "What if the Ottomans Survived?" by @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social. [1/5]

For the weekend: my brief foray into the alternate history of the Ottoman Empire based on some excellent recent books foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/10/o...

Okay, but what if the Ottoman Empire somehow survived World War One?

"Agreeing or disagreeing with McGurk’s body of work is, in a sense, a Rorschach test for whether one thinks U.S. policy in the Middle East this century has been a success or failure. foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/09/b...

A term whose time has come