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In my last

 In my last  column, I presented a blunt warning about American discontent. Over three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction. A similar share express dissatisfaction with their lives. What can be done to get America back on track? The overarching cause of this pessimism is Americans ’ loss of trust and confidence in public and private institutions — from the federal government and the Supreme Court to law enforcement and even the once-revered military. The reality is that trust disappears in a second and takes years to be restored. Democrats and Republicans have both contributed to the former and are incapable of dealing with the latter. America has faced bleaker times. The American Revolution, the Civil War and post-World War I-era were much grimmer. In fact, the period 1918-1921/22 is instructive.
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New Delhi’s cumbersome responses in these cases reflect

  New Delhi’s cumbersome responses in these cases reflect the government’s policy drift—a critical inability to overcome domestic hurdles to swift policy implementation. For example, the first detailed case study Basrur examines involves the monumental 2008 U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement, which separated India’s civilian and military nuclear reactors and placed the former under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The accord effectively legitimized India’s clandestine nuclear weapons program by enabling India to participate in global nuclear commerce, which contributed significantly to a rapprochement in U.S.-India relations. Despite the agreement’s obvious strategic benefits for India, Basrur writes that the negotiations quickly became mired in India’s domestic politics. Specifically, India’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposed the deal, even though it had few reservations about a closer security partnership with the United States and had carried out I...
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