Features
Snapshots
Snapshot,
February 7, 2012
The Vatican has recently made pointed calls for global financial reform, but the Church's teaching is grappling to accommodate the growing divergence between the immediate economic expectations of Catholics in developed European nations and those living in emerging economies.
Snapshot,
February 7, 2012
Somalia's government has recently made gains against the militant group al Shabaab. But those will prove fleeting if it does not find a way to address the organization's grievances and bring moderates into the fold.
Snapshot,
February 5, 2012
Russia vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council to end the violence in Syria because it feels burned by last year's international intervention in Libya, and it harbors suspicions about the motives of the United States.
Letters From
Letter From,
January 25, 2012
Hosni Mubarak professed that Egypt was growing economically and progressing politically. The harsh, hopeless reality behind those fabrications proved to be his undoing. Now the country's future rests with two familiar powers playing very unfamiliar roles: The military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Prepare for another year of struggle.
Letter From,
January 11, 2012
In an effort to halt Iran's nuclear program, Washington and the West have been ramping up the pressure with sanctions and threats of war. None of it will work. The Green Movement has been vanquished, and the country -- both its leadership and its people -- are poised not for revolution, but more of the same.
Letter From,
December 13, 2011
Ireland's economic turnaround in the 1980s is generally credited to fiscal measures similar to the ones other European countries are now implementing. But those policies were painful and won't even work this time.
Postscripts
Postscript,
December 22, 2011
The suddenness of Kim Jong Il’s death has sparked fears of instability on the Korean peninsula and beyond. Fearing a messy collapse, Beijing and Washington are trying to promote a smooth transition. But rooting for stability means rooting for the continuation of arguably the most despicable government on earth.
Postscript,
September 11, 2011
Even as many energy plants across the world have implemented carbon capture and sequestration technologies, hundreds more heavily polluting facilities have come online. At current rates, green carbon technologies just can't keep up.
Postscript,
August 31, 2011
The U.S. campaign was a success but a provisional and limited one. Qaddafi is gone, but his ouster will not become a model for future interventions.
Reading Lists
Reading List,
June 1, 2011
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on Venezuela.
Reading List,
May 4, 2011
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Reading List,
March 9, 2010
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on the European Union.
Comments
Comment,
February 2, 2012
NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been praised for saving lives and ending a tyrannical regime, write the U.S. permanent representative to NATO and its supreme allied commander for Europe. But to replicate the success, member states must reinforce their political cohesion and improve the burden sharing that made the mission work.
Comment,
Jan/Feb
2012
Today’s troubles are real, but not ideological: they relate more to policies than to principles. The postwar order of mutually supporting liberal democracies with mixed economies solved the central challenge of modernity, reconciling democracy and capitalism. The task now is getting the system back into shape.
Comment,
Jan/Feb
2012
Stagnating wages and growing inequality will soon threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood. What is needed is a new populist ideology that offers a realistic path to healthy middle-class societies and robust democracies.
Essays
Essay,
January 24, 2012
Terrible rulers, sullen populations, a terrorist fringe -- the Arabs' exceptionalism was becoming not just a human disaster but a moral one. Then, a frustrated Tunisian fruit vendor summoned his fellows to a new history, and millions heeded his call. The third Arab awakening came in the nick of time, and it may still usher in freedom.
Essay,
Jan/Feb
2012
Opponents of military action against Iran assume a U.S. strike would be far more dangerous than simply letting Tehran build a bomb. Not so, argues this former Pentagon defense planner. With a carefully designed attack, Washington could mitigate the costs and spare the region and the world from an unacceptable threat.
Essay,
Jan/Feb
2012
China seems to want the yuan to dethrone the dollar as the global reserve currency. But don’t expect China’s currency to take over anytime soon. The yuan will rise, but far slower than predicted, and Beijing’s puzzling efforts to help it along reveal flaws in the government’s divided and incremental approach.
Responses
Response,
January 17, 2012
Bombing Iran's nuclear program would only be a temporary fix. Instead, the United States should plan a larger military operation that also aims to destabilize the regime and, in turn, resolves the Iranian nuclear crisis once and for all.
Response,
January 17, 2012
To suggest a nuclear Iran would result in a cascade of proliferation across the Middle East neglects the United States' power to prevent clients from building their own bombs.
Response,
January 17, 2012
Matthew Kroenig’s recent article in this magazine argued that a military strike against Iran would be “the least bad option” for stopping its nuclear program. But the war Kroenig calls for would be far messier than he predicts, and Washington still has better options available.
