Seeing lots of talk about whether the US can even do democracy promotion abroad now that our own shortcomings are laid so bare. It's a fair question but also sometimes being talked about in ways that fundamentally misunderstand what democracy assistance looks like in 2021.

Imposing "democracy" by military force, trying to transplant an "American model" to other countries, etc... these are caricatures that certainly have historical bases and those roots have definitely left a problematic residue. But that's really not how most of this works anymore.

Democracy promotion has always been tied up with other foreign policy objectives. As those objectives have changed, so too has the particular form it takes. Recent approaches are much more oriented towards governance - for both development and stabilization reasons.

New efforts to insulate countries from Russian/Chinese interference have added another dimension. Any discussion of how this crisis affects our capacity and interest in supporting democracy abroad should be talking about how this works now. Not 20, 50, or 100 years ago.

(And of course, if anyone knows an editor interested in having me elaborate these thoughts in greater detail, the DMs are open )