America’s cities are in danger of repeating the mistakes of the 1960s—tolerating lawlessness and disorder as residents and businesses flee to the suburbs. Robert Doar explains how New York City’s turnaround in the 1990s and 2000s—a tough-on-crime approach married to a focus on individual responsibility and economic opportunity—is still the blueprint for urban prosperity.

July 2026 will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. On November 15, AEI hosted the inaugural symposium in what will be a yearslong effort to commemorate and study our nation’s founding, culminating in an eight-volume book series. Distinguished scholars, including Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Gordon Wood and Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen, shared insights into the role and meaning of democracy in the American Revolution.

Contemporary defenders of capitalism need to defend the morality, dignity, and justice of the free enterprise system as much as they tout its economic benefits. In a new AEI report, Yuval Levin returns to Adam Smith’s original defense of capitalism to make just such a case.

If the goal of economic nationalism and economic populism is to help America’s working class, the Trump administration’s policies did not work. Michael R. Strain documents the failure of President Donald Trump’s protectionist agenda and industrial policy, showing that Trump’s most successful policies focused on economic opportunity and growth instead of class resentment.

The war in Ukraine is not permanently stalemated. While Ukraine’s summer offensive did not make major gains, Frederick W. Kagan argues that if the West removed its self-imposed limits on aid to Ukraine, victory would still be possible. Conversely, if Western aid dries up and Putin fully commits to the war, Ukraine could face a larger defeat.