SAMANTHA POWER

“One of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy.” – President Barack Obama

“One of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy.”
– President Barack Obama

Writing

Recent written works from Amb. Samantha Power:

COMMENCEMENT | “The Case for Empathy Optimism (Amid All).” American University School of International Service. May 9, 2026.

OP-ED | “Killing U.S.A.I.D. is a Win for Autocrats Everywhere,” The New York Times, February 6, 2025.

ARTICLE | “How Democracy Can Win,” Foreign Affairs, February 16, 2023.

ARTICLE | “The Can-Do Power,” Foreign Affairs, November 20, 2020.

OP-ED | “Two things Facebook still needs to do to reduce the spread of misinformation,” Washington Post, October 23, 2020 .

BOOK REVIEW | “A memoir of a family’s Holocaust complicity, with lessons for today,” Washington Post, October 16, 2020 .

BOOK REVIEW | “The Incredible Influence of James A. Baker III,” New York Times, September 25, 2020 .

ARTICLE | “Abubacarr Tambadou – TIME 100,” TIME, September 22, 2020.

REMEMBRANCE | “Samantha Power Remembers the Wise Words of Jean Kennedy Smith,” TIME, June 25, 2020.

OP-ED | “How the COVID-19 Era Will Change National Security Forever,” TIME, April 14, 2020.

OP-ED | “To Fight Coronavirus, There’s No Substitute for U.S. Leadership,” The New York Times, April 7, 2020.

BOOK REVIEW | “The courage and compassion of Catholic activist Dorothy Day,” The Washington Post, March 6, 2020.

OP-ED | “A Belated Recognition of Genocide by the House,” The New York Times, October 29, 2019.

BOOK EXCERPT | “Small moves can still change lives: How 16 women political prisoners were set free,” LinkedIn Weekend Essay, September 13, 2019.

BOOK EXCERPT | “Like A Fish Out of a War Zone,” Harvard Gazette, September 10, 2019.

BOOK EXCERPT | “Obama Told Me the Good News, Then Saw My Face Fall,” The Atlantic, September 5, 2019.

OP-ED | “The Trump Administration Is Making a Mockery of the Supreme Court,” The New York Times, January 27, 2019. (with Betsy Fisher)

BOOK REVIEW | “How Baseball Will Survive in the Age of Distraction,” The Washington Post, April 26, 2018.

OP-ED | “A Plan to Save the State Department,” New York Times, March 13, 2018.

BOOK CHAPTER | “Beyond Elections: Foreign Interference with American Democracy,” in Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America (HarperCollins, 2018).

OP-ED | “Why Foreign Propaganda Is More Dangerous Now,” The New York Times, September 29, 2017.

BOOK EXCERPT | “Why Elie Wiesel’s Night Still Matters So Much To Me — And All Of Us,” The Forward, September 12, 2017.

OP-ED | “My Friend, the Russian Ambassador,” The New York Times, February 25, 2017.

ARTICLE | “US Diplomacy: Realism and Reality,” The New York Review of Books, August 18, 2016.