Essays

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.

Confidence in the dollar and the euro continues to falter, threatening the international monetary system. The world has faced such monetary collapse before: in the 1930s, with disastrous results, and less catastrophically in the 1970s. Understanding these two precedents is crucial to successfully navigating the crisis today.

As the United States looks ahead, it faces two central challenges in foreign policy, writes a former national security adviser: enlarging the zone of prosperity and democracy in the West while balancing the rise of China and allaying the fears of the United States’ Asian allies. Neither challenge can be addressed in isolation -- for today, the fates of the West and the East are intertwined.

In their single-minded pursuit of economic growth, China's leaders have long overlooked public health -- which, by some measures, is now worse than under Mao. Despite recent reforms, China's citizens keep getting sicker, threatening the country's health-care system, the economy at large, and even the stability of the regime.