Deputy Editorial Page EditorWe have entered an era of power-hungry, reckless and delusional leaders. They are able to do all this in part because the power that used to restrain them, the United States, has retreated from global leadership. Xi and Putin clearly calculated that the United States would not stop them, and that any subsequent punishment would be bearable. For the most part, they have been proved right — which is why Erdogan, Mohammed, Sissi and others were encouraged to imitate them. But Trump understands something that Erdogan and a few other leaders have evidently forgotten: The United States remains capable of imposing crippling punishment on regimes that wantonly challenge it.

Source: Washington Post August 19, 2018 23:15 UTC