Chester A. Crocker
Review Essay
Jul/Aug
2007
Washington has abandoned diplomacy in favor of military power. In Statecraft, Dennis Ross urges U.S. officials to resurrect the United States' peacemaking tradition and restore its international reputation.
Essay
Sep/Oct
2003
The Bush administration has spoken about the dangers posed by failed and failing states, but it has not made fixing these trouble spots a top priority, concentrating instead on rogues and weapons of mass destruction. This error will undermine the administration's broader objective of making the world a safer place. Washington must develop a coherent and committed strategy to prevent and contain state failure. Unless it does, the United States will soon face a new set of global challenges and be overwhelmed.
Response
Jan/Feb
2000
Joseph Nye, Jr., and Edward Luttwak confuse interventionism with incompetence.
Capsule Review
Mar/Apr
1997
Comment
May/Jun
1995
The mistakes of the U.S. intervention in Somalia should not obscure its successes: a humanitarian tragedy was averted, and the political landscape was improved.
Essay
Fall
1989
In the winter of 1980-81 I analyzed the question of American involvement in southern Africa in the pages of this journal.1 I discussed a set of concepts-"constructive engagement in the region as a whole"-as a possible basis for pursuing American interests in southern Africa. It seemed to me at the time that this phrase was self-evidently consistent with mainstream U.S. internationalism and essential to the very meaning of activist diplomacy.
Essay
Winter
1980
Something strange is occurring in the U.S.-South African relationship. At a time when our two societies need each other more than before, it is becoming unclear which one is more effective in exploiting divisions in the other. After nearly 20 years in which successive Republican and Democratic administrations have established some modest guidelines for U.S. policy, it has become fashionable to question whether the United States even has a policy toward South Africa. The fragile centrist consensus that so urgently needs to be strengthened among Americans instead founders in a fog of stereotypes and polarized perceptions about the country. On their side, South Africans are so enmeshed in their own internal ferment and so disenchanted with the recent American performance (globally as well as in southern Africa) that they view the United States increasingly as an object for manipulation, an ineffectual and reactive power.
