Elizabeth N. Saunders
@profsaunders.bsky.social
19K followers 3.2K following 2.2K posts

Professor of Political Science & Director of the Saltzman Institute of War & Peace Studies, Columbia. New Book: The Insiders' Game: How Elites Make War and Peace https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691215808/the-insiders-game .. more

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Environmental science 20%
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profsaunders.bsky.social
Hard to think through problems when we are in a mode where the current problem gets eaten by a bigger problem within hours.

profsaunders.bsky.social
Everything depends on Trump's focus. Let's hope it's enough to make this ceasefire last. 11/11

profsaunders.bsky.social
So, yes, kudos. I was wrong to think the Trump plan was just another peace-in-two-weeks soundbite. It was extremely joyous to see the hostages come home. And to know the attacks and starvation in Gaza would stop, at least for now. But there's no USAID and little State Dept capacity. 10/

profsaunders.bsky.social
As I argued in @foreignaffairs.com, we now have the foreign policy of a personalist regime. As @columbiasipa.bsky.social Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo and @hillaryclinton.bsky.social argue, putting so much diplomacy in the hands of one person is very dangerous. 9/ www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/o...
Opinion | The Perils of Getting Too Personal in Foreign Policy
www.nytimes.com

profsaunders.bsky.social
Also, the reaction to the Qatar strike suggests that it was Netanyahu's overreach that finally spurred this pressure on Israel. Would Trump ever have reached this point otherwise? How much longer would it have taken? 8/

profsaunders.bsky.social
But it's notable how little role Rubio, State, or even experienced MidEast hands from other depts (DoD) played. Which will matter going forward, because when the headlines fade, those are the people who can help manage the problems likely to arise, as @pagefortna.bsky.social writes. 6/

profsaunders.bsky.social
The masterstroke was to force Netanyahu to apologize to the Qataris. Not just the call, but releasing news of the apology, with a photo. Kudos to whoever thought of that. It was a costly signal from Bibi and showed Trump was seriously pressuring Israel. 5/
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
Photo released by the White House showing Netanyahu on the call, apologizing to the Qataris, while Trump balances the phone on his lap.

profsaunders.bsky.social
It took skill to exploit this opening. A ceasefire was not inevitable. Kushner & Witkoff seem to have done it (notably, not Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, whose role seems to have been to chair one meeting & later to hand Trump the note that it was done). 4/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...
How Fury Over Israel’s Qatar Attack Pushed Netanyahu on Gaza
www.nytimes.com

profsaunders.bsky.social
Notably, this ep of The Daily @nytimes.com makes clear that the turning point was Israel's (failed) Sept strike on the Hamas team in Qatar, which angered Trump into finally putting pressure on Israel (of course, we should ask why mass starvation in Gaza didn't). 3/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/p...
How Trump Got Israel and Hamas to a Truce
www.nytimes.com

profsaunders.bsky.social
First, as many have said, this is a genuine achievement for Trump and for his administration. Lots of things aligned that had not previously, esp. Israel's diplomatic isolation & the Arab neighbors' motivation to pressure Hamas. But it still required threading a needle and they threaded it. 2/

profsaunders.bsky.social
🧵A thread inspired by this new @goodauth.bsky.social piece from the Dean of Ceasefire Studies, @pagefortna.bsky.social. Also, I like to admit when I'm wrong. I was wrong to doubt there would be a ceasefire, and I have written that Trump destroyed US diplomacy. 1/

goodauthority.org/news/israel-...
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire leaves important questions unanswered
Many important details must still be worked out.
goodauthority.org

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

rbreich.bsky.social
Nearly all the staff in the Office of Special Education have been fired as part of Trump’s sweeping layoffs.

These are the people responsible for protecting the civil rights of students with disabilities and ensuring they receive an equal education.

More needless cruelty on display.
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Marco Rubio's State Department announces publicly that it is exercising unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in revoking people's visas based on comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Department of State v
@StateDept
g..
The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.
The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here are just a few examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S.:
5:55 PM • Oct 14, 2025 • 34.1K Views
chrislhayes.bsky.social
Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

paulguinnessy.bsky.social
It's all triage in the DC metro area for nonprofits offering help, like meals, and thanks to Trump's cuts donations are down and also so is food bank support from the feds.
D.C. nonprofits face breaking point amid job cuts and shutdown
41% of DMV households affected by federal layoffs are food-insecure.
www.axios.com
npr.org
NPR @npr.org · 1d
Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the scenes and not accepting wholesale what any government or administration says. n.pr/4q87Jwb
Opinion: Why I'm handing in my Pentagon press pass
Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the scenes and not accepting wholesale what any government or administration says.
n.pr
karl-jacoby.bsky.social
Student government leaders of MIT, UVA, U of AZ, Dartmouth, UPenn, Brown, and Vanderbilt united in their opposition to the "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

sesmith.lol
This special education news is really devastating and we're going to learn more in the coming days as we get more info and people figure out exactly what it means, but a reminder that disabled people are entitled to a free appropriate public education.
Amid shutdown, Trump administration guts department overseeing special education
Multiple sources tell NPR that, as part of the Trump administration's latest reduction-in-force, the U.S. Department of Education has gutted the office that handles special education.
www.npr.org

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

carlquintanilla.bsky.social
The rupture “raises fresh doubts about whether Trump, operating with a hollowed-out national security team and a fragmented China strategy, is prepared for Beijing’s latest power play.”

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

senatepress.bsky.social
Senate adopted by voice vote: Kaine amendment #3337 to repeal the authorizations for use of military force against Iraq.
kairyssdal.bsky.social
Just 'cause it has to be said every now and then.

GOP Senators and Representatives are obviously okay with...everything...that's happening.

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders

adamrothman.bsky.social
America needs "solidarity among groups who disagree ferociously on many questions, but who agree on the need to keep America democratic and rebuild institutions and social connections to make democracy more robust," explains @himself.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...
Opinion | Where Trump Is Vulnerable and How to Act on It
www.nytimes.com

profsaunders.bsky.social
This speech from @marisakabas.bsky.social is really worth reading.
marisakabas.bsky.social
New — I was fortunate to speak in front of students and faculty at Grinnell College in Iowa tonight about the business of independent journalism, the current state of media under Trump 2.0, and billionaire control.

I published my full speech because I thought it might resonate beyond campus:
Truth, morality and independence in journalism under the second Trump regime
My full remarks to students and faculty at Grennell College.
www.thehandbasket.co
marisakabas.bsky.social
New — I was fortunate to speak in front of students and faculty at Grinnell College in Iowa tonight about the business of independent journalism, the current state of media under Trump 2.0, and billionaire control.

I published my full speech because I thought it might resonate beyond campus:
Truth, morality and independence in journalism under the second Trump regime
My full remarks to students and faculty at Grennell College.
www.thehandbasket.co
blipstress.bsky.social
An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.
donmoyn.bsky.social
The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

Reposted by Henry Farrell

profsaunders.bsky.social
“This battle holds bigger lessons. The greatest weapon that the forces of regime change possess is the fear of inevitability. If everyone believes that Mr. Trump will succeed in reshaping America, he will.”

A great @himself.bsky.social column in the @nytimes.com.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...
Opinion | You Beat Trumpism by Banding Together. It’s as Hard and as Simple as That.
www.nytimes.com