Gideon Rose and Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan.
A Foreign Affairs discussion on the role of social media and technology in fostering political change.
Was George W. Bush the heir of Woodrow Wilson? That is the important question addressed by the four authors who created this short but lucid contribution to the U.S. foreign policy debate.
The United States’ unique ability to capitalize on connectivity will make the twenty-first century an American century.
The unprecedented threat posed by terrorists and rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction cannot be handled by an outdated and poorly enforced nonproliferation regime. The international community has a duty to prevent security disasters as well as humanitarian ones -- even at the price of violating sovereignty.
The ever more litigious nature of American society is starting to affect an unexpected area: foreign policy. Increasing numbers of individuals, both American and foreign, are now using U.S. courts to defend their rights under international law in ways impossible just a few years ago. The plaintiffs range from Holocaust survivors to terrorist victims to the inhabitants of tropical rain forests; the defendants include multinational corporations, foreign officials, and even governments. On the one hand, the trend is bringing to justice many long thought unaccountable. On the other, it is making the tricky process of American diplomacy harder than ever.
The state is not disappearing; it is unbundling into its separate, functionally distinct parts. These courts, regulatory agencies, executives, and legislatures are then networking with their counterparts abroad, creating a new, transgovernmental order. While lacking the drama of high politics, transnational government networks are a reality for the internationalists of the 1990s -- bankers, lawyers, activists, and criminals. And they may hold the answer to many of the most pressing international challenges of the 21st century.
