We are in the era of soft coups. Old-fashioned coups d’état and invasions get terrible press. The images of U.S. troops invading the Dominican Republic in 1965 or marching through El Chorrillo in Panama in 1989, for example, produced resentment and anger. Over...

On August 20, 2018, El Salvador’s leftist president Salvador Sánchez Cerén announced on national television that El Salvador would break its ties with Taiwan and recognize the People’s Republic of China. This was in accord with international law, said Sánchez Cerén, and it would...