ROGER COHEN

Technology is a wonderful thing if you are putting it to use, less so if it is putting an end to your usefulness.

Saviors don’t have policies. They have energy.

When you’re reactive [in foreign policy] you often arrive on the scene too late.

Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.

Interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself ? a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom.

Modern power depends on money and guns. And we have the most of both.

Iraq and Afghanistan have exacted a toll on America - in lives, treasure and standing - that it will take a generation to work through.

Democracies need to be challenged, unlike dictatorships that fear broad challenge because it may cause them to buckle. Challenge in democracies is also rebirth.

The modern world’s tech-giddy control and facilitation makes us stupid. Awareness atrophies. Dumb gets dumber. Lists are everywhere – the five things you need to know about so-and-so; the eight essential qualities of such-and-such; the 11 delights of somewhere or other. We demand shortcuts, as if there are shortcuts to genuine experiences. These lists are meaningless.

When democracy creates wealth on a broad scale there is no tension between it and capitalism. But when that is not the case, the value of democracy becomes less clear to some. There are tremendous tensions between democratic national sovereignty, open global markets and mass migration.

Modern power depends on money and guns. And we have the most of both.

When you’re reactive [in foreign policy] you often arrive on the scene too late.

Technology is a wonderful thing if you are putting it to use, less so if it is putting an end to your usefulness.

When democracy creates wealth on a broad scale there is no tension between it and capitalism. But when that is not the case, the value of democracy becomes less clear to some. There are tremendous tensions between democratic national sovereignty, open global markets and mass migration.

Democracies need to be challenged, unlike dictatorships that fear broad challenge because it may cause them to buckle. Challenge in democracies is also rebirth.

Saviors don’t have policies. They have energy.

Israel is now a modern society. Its per capita income is higher than Spain’s. But behind the sheen of economic success, the shadow of undefined borders and violence always lurks.

Conspiracy theory is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world.

The modern world’s tech-giddy control and facilitation makes us stupid. Awareness atrophies. Dumb gets dumber. Lists are everywhere – the five things you need to know about so-and-so; the eight essential qualities of such-and-such; the 11 delights of somewhere or other. We demand shortcuts, as if there are shortcuts to genuine experiences. These lists are meaningless.

Iraq and Afghanistan have exacted a toll on America - in lives, treasure and standing - that it will take a generation to work through.

The riveting moral power of the Arab Spring comes from its homegrown quality. This is about Arabs overcoming fear to become agents of their own transformation and liberation.

Interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself ? a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom.