Stephen M. Walt
Scholars and political commentators should occasionally look back on their forecasts and consider what they got wrong. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Tom Friedman, Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Janan Ganesh, Fareed Zakaria, Glenn Greenwald, Anne Applebaum, and other prominent pundits did an annual retrospective on what they had misunderstood or misread over the previous year? None of us are infallible, and if you believe Philip Tetlock, even knowledgeable experts have trouble anticipating the future. Reflecting on our own errors is always instructive and doing so publicly helps everyone learn from our mistakes. I’ve performed this kind of self-criticism on several occasions in the past—see here or here—and it’s time for another round. Read on.
Back in January 2024, I wrote a piece here called “Another Trump Presidency Won’t Much Change U.S. Foreign Policy.” As of March 2025, that sounds pretty stupid. Part of the problem is the clickbait headline (which I didn’t write), and, in fact, some of what I wrote back then has proved correct. I said U.S. President Donald Trump was likely to get tough with NATO (and maybe even withdraw) and that he’d push for a peace deal in Ukraine. But I also thought a second Biden-Harris administration would have sought a peace deal, too, albeit in a more deliberate and responsible way. I still believe that’s what former Vice President Kamala Harris would have done had she been elected.
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