Content Type: Journal Article / Political Geography: United States / Publication Year: within 25 Years / Journal: Foreign Affairs

101. Frostbitten: Decoding the Cold War, 20 Years Later

Author:: Lawrence D. Freedman
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As the years pass, the Cold War increasingly appears as an undifferentiated chunk of history that stretched across time and space, with a vast cast of characters and occasional moments of drama. It is presented as a curious concatenation of summits and negotiations, alliances and clients, spies and border posts, ideological dogmas and underground resistance, and a combination of arcane theories about deterrence and some nasty actual wars.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: United States and Europe

102. Second Strike: Is the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Outmoded

Author:: Jan Lodal
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Keir Lieber and Daryl Press ("The Nukes We Need," November/December 2009) argue that to deter the growing number of nuclear-armed states against which it might have to fight a conventional war, the United States should develop a new generation of accurate low-yield nuclear weapons. They contend that "the least bad option in the face of explicit nuclear threats or after a limited nuclear strike may be a counterforce attack to prevent further nuclear use." It is true that for the United States to maintain nuclear deterrence, the president must have credible options to respond to nuclear threats or attacks. Lieber and Press rightly assert that the capability to destroy enemy cities with high-yield weapons is not enough. But their argument for new counterforce capabilities attacks a straw man. The United States already has the flexibility to carry out low-yield counterforce attacks, and there are no plans to eliminate this. The B-61 nuclear bomb has a variable yield that can be set quite low and is highly accurate, especially when carried by the stealth B-2 bomber. Cruise missiles with low-yield warheads have similar capabilities. Even long-range ballistic missiles can be targeted to minimize collateral damage. Lieber and Press go beyond urging low-yield counterforce capabilities and propose a bizarre and dangerous nuclear strategy for the United States: to develop the capacity for attacks against a threatening enemy that would prevent the enemy from launching any subsequent nuclear attacks. These disarming strikes would be launched even if the enemy had attacked an isolated military target, such as a carrier battle group at sea. Astoundingly, the authors also propose preemptive nuclear attacks against "explicit nuclear threats." The states against which such attacks might be used include Iran, North Korea, other new nuclear powers, and even China.
Political Geography:: United States and China

103. Helping Others Defend Themselves

Author:: Robert M. Gates
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the decades to come, the most lethal threats to the United States' safety and security -- a city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are likely to emanate from states that cannot adequately govern themselves or secure their own territory. Dealing with such fractured or failing states is, in many ways, the main security challenge of our time.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

104. Bigger Is Better

Author:: Richard Rosecrance
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Throughout history, states have generally sought to get larger, usually through the use of force. In the 1970s and 1980s, however, countervailing trends briefly held sway. Smaller countries, such as Japan, West Germany, and the "Asian tigers," attained international prominence as they grew faster than giants such as the United States and the Soviet Union. These smaller countries -- what I have called "trading states" -- did not have expansionist territorial ambitions and did not try to project military power abroad. While the United States was tangled up in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, trading states concentrated on gaining economic access to foreign territories, rather than political control. And they were quite successful. But eventually the trading-state model ran into unexpected problems. Japanese growth stalled during the 1990s as U.S. growth and productivity surged. Many trading states were rocked by the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, during which international investors took their money and went home. Because Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and other relatively small countries did not have enough foreign capital to withstand the shock, they had to go into receivership. As Alan Greenspan, then the U.S. Federal Reserve chair, put it in 1999, "East Asia had no spare tires." Governments there devalued their currencies and adopted high interest rates to survive, and they did not regain their former glory afterward. Russia, meanwhile, fell afoul of its creditors. And when Moscow could not pay back its loans, Russian government bonds went down the drain. Russia's problem was that although its territory was vast, its economy was small. China, India, and even Japan, on the other hand, had plenty of access to cash and so their economies remained steady. The U.S. market scarcely rippled.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States, China, India, Asia, Vietnam, and Germany

105. Faulty Basel

Author:: Marc Levinson
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Economics and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: United States and Europe

106. Expeditionary Economics

Author:: Carl J. Schramm
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

107. NATO's Final Frontier

Author:: Charles A. Kupchan
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: At NATO's 2010 summit, planned for November, the alliance's members intend to adopt a new "strategic concept" to guide its evolution. NATO's relationship with Russia is at the top of the agenda. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and its NATO allies have constructed a post-Cold War order that effectively shuts Russia out. Although NATO and the European Union have embraced the countries of central and eastern Europe, they have treated Russia as an outsider, excluding it from the main institutions of the Euro-Atlantic community. Russia's isolation is in part a product of its own making. The country's stalled democratic transition and occasional bouts of foreign policy excess warrant NATO's continued role as a hedge against the reemergence of an expansionist Russia. Nonetheless, the West is making a historic mistake in treating Russia as a strategic pariah. As made clear by the settlements after the Napoleonic Wars and World War II -- in contrast to the one that followed World War I -- including former adversaries in a postwar order is critical to the consolidation of great-power peace. Anchoring Russia in an enlarged Euro-Atlantic order, therefore, should be an urgent priority for NATO today. Russia has been disgruntled with the expansion of NATO ever since the alliance began courting new members from the former Soviet bloc in the early 1990s. However, Russia's economic and military decline and the West's primacy encouraged NATO members to discount the potential consequences of Russian discontent. "As American capabilities surged and Russian capabilities waned," the political scientists Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry have observed, "Washington policymakers increasingly acted as though Russia no longer mattered and the United States could do whatever it wanted." The strategic landscape has since changed dramatically, however, and the costs of excluding Russia from the Euro-Atlantic order have risen substantially. The Kremlin's recentralization of power and Russia's economic rebound thanks to higher energy prices have brought the country back to life. Russia now has the confidence and the capability to push back against NATO -- just as the West urgently needs Moscow's cooperation on a host of issues, including the containment of Iran's nuclear ambitions, arms control and nonproliferation, the stabilization of Afghanistan, counterterrorism, and energy security.
Topic:: NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and Europe

108. Overpowered?

Author:: Michael E. Mandelbaum
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:: United States and America

109. Getting Deradicalization Right

Author:: Jessica Stern and Marisa L. Porges
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Government, Islam, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia

110. Against the Grainpremium content icon

Author:: Carlisle Ford Runge and Carlisle Piehl Runge
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the late eighteenth century, the English political economist Thomas Malthus took a look at two sets of numbers and had an unnerving vision: with food supplies increasing arithmetically while the number of people grew geometrically, the world population would eventually run out of food. "By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man," he wrote in 1798, "the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall some where and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind." He was right, at least at the time: in Malthus' day, food production was essentially limited by the availability of land, whereas procreation faced few restraints. Malthus did not foresee, however, that new technologies in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century would dramatically raise agricultural productivity. Farmers worldwide learned to use new fertilizers, petrochemical-based herbicides and insecticides, genetically improved plants (especially wheat, corn, and rice), and massive diversions of water for irrigation, notably in China and South Asia. Crop yields soared, and in the United States so much so that by the 1950s chronic surpluses and low prices were becoming problems. The economist Willard Cochrane wrote in 1965 that thanks to the recent technological revolution in U.S. agriculture, the previous decade had witnessed "the greatest gain in productive efficiency of any ten-year period in the history of American farming." Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, crop yields continued to rise, not only in rich countries but also in many parts of the developing world. In India, Mexico, and elsewhere the "green revolution" was launched by plant breeders, such as the legendary Norman Borlaug. New varieties of wheat, maize, and rice raised yields by amounts that seemed miraculous at the time. The effort provided a new model for traditional farmers and improved their food security. And it encouraged a sense of purpose for agricultural research: to end world hunger. But it also exacerbated the disadvantages of poor, landless farmers relative to land-rich ones, who could afford the innovations. Landed farmers could find the credit to invest in irrigation and purchase high-yielding seeds, but those without access to credit, and thus the new inputs, were left behind.
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, South Asia, India, and Mexico

111. From Hope to Audacity

Author:: Zbigniew Brzezinski
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Barack Obama's foreign policy has generated more expectations than strategic breakthroughs. Three urgent issues -- the Israeli-Palestinian conï¬‚ict, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the Afghan-Pakistani challenge -- will test his ability to significantly change U.S. policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and United States

112. Not So Dire Straits

Author:: Bruce Gilley
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Since 2005, Taiwan and China have been moving into a closer economic and political embrace -- a process that accelerated with the election of the pro-détente politician Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president in 2008. This strengthening of relations presents the United States with its greatest challenge in the Taiwan Strait since 1979, when Washington severed ties with Taipei and established diplomatic relations with Beijing. In many ways, the current thaw serves Taipei's interests, but it also allows Beijing to assert increasing influence over Taiwan. As a consensus emerges in Taiwan on establishing closer relations with China, the thaw is calling into question the United States' deeply ambiguous policy, which is supposed to serve both Taiwan's interests (by allowing it to retain its autonomy) and the United States' own (by guarding against an expansionist China). Washington now faces a stark choice: continue pursuing a militarized realist approach -- using Taiwan to balance the power of a rising China -- or follow an alternative liberal logic that seeks to promote long-term peace through closer economic, social, and political ties between Taiwan and China.
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Taiwan

113. Nuclear Disorder

Author:: Graham T. Allison
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The global nuclear order today could be as fragile as the global financial order was two years ago, when conventional wisdom declared it to be sound, stable, and resilient. In the aftermath of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, a confrontation that he thought had one chance in three of ending in nuclear war, U.S. President John F. Kennedy concluded that the nuclear order of the time posed unacceptable risks to mankind. "I see the possibility in the 1970s of the president of the United States having to face a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these weapons," he forecast. "I regard that as the greatest possible danger." Kennedy's estimate reflected the general expectation that as nations acquired the advanced technological capability to build nuclear weapons, they would do so. Although history did not proceed along that trajectory, Kennedy's warning helped awaken the world to the intolerable dangers of unconstrained nuclear proliferation. His conviction spurred a surge of diplomatic initiatives: a hot line between Washington and Moscow, a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, a ban on nuclear weapons in outer space. Refusing to accept the future Kennedy had spotlighted, the international community instead negotiated various international constraints, the centerpiece of which was the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Thanks to the nonproliferation regime, 184 nations, including more than 40 that have the technical ability to build nuclear arsenals, have renounced nuclear weapons. Four decades since the NPT was signed, there are only nine nuclear states. Moreover, for more than 60 years, no nuclear weapon has been used in an attack. In 2004, the secretary-general of the UN created a panel to review future threats to international peace and security. It identified nuclear Armageddon as the prime threat, warning, "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the nonproliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation." Developments since 2004 have only magnified the risks of an irreversible cascade.
Topic:: United Nations
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, and Moscow

114. The Long Road to Zero

Author:: Charles D. Ferguson
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Over the past three years, a remarkable bipartisan consensus has emerged in Washington regarding nuclear security. The new U.S. nuclear agenda includes renewing formal arms control agreements with Russia, revitalizing a strategic dialogue with China, pushing for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, repairing the damaged nuclear nonproliferation regime, and redoubling efforts to reduce and secure fissile material that may be used in weapons. During the 2008 presidential campaign, the veteran foreign policy experts Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry, and George Shultz successfully encouraged both major-party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, to embrace the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons. In the past year, President Obama has made this goal a priority for his administration, although he admits that it is not likely to occur in his lifetime. This presents a conundrum, however: In a world where the strongest conventional military power cannot envision giving up its nuclear weapons before all other nations have abandoned theirs, how will humanity ever rid itself of these weapons? In order to speed the reduction of its own nuclear arsenal and encourage other countries' disarmament, the United States will have to confront three daunting obstacles: the insecurities of nations, including some currently protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and others that see a nuclear capability as the answer to many of their security problems; the notion that nuclear weapons are the great equalizer in the realm of international relations; and the proliferation risk that inevitably arises whenever nuclear supplier states offer to build civilian reactors for nonnuclear states.
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, China, and Washington

115. The Best Defense?

Author:: Abraham D. Sofaer
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush announced his determination to do whatever was necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States. Following the lead of several countries that had recently come to similar conclusions after their own bitter experiences -- including India, Israel, Japan, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom -- the United States tightened its immigration laws; increased the protection of its borders, ports, and infrastructure; criminalized providing "material support" for terrorist groups; and tore down the wall between the intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies, which had crippled counterterrorist efforts for decades. Washington did not authorize preventive detention, as other countries had, but it used other measures to hold persons against whom criminal charges could not be brought -- thereby preventing terrorist attacks. The U.S. government also led or joined various international efforts aimed at warding off new dangers, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, through which over 70 states cooperate to interdict the movement of nuclear materials across international borders. But the Bush administration's call for preventive action went further: it endorsed using force against states that supported terrorism or failed to prevent it. This was a particularly controversial position, since using (or threatening to use) preventive force across international borders is generally considered to be a violation of international law: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and most international legal authorities currently construe the United Nations Charter as prohibiting any use of force not sanctioned by the UN Security Council, with the exception of actions taken in self-defense against an actual or imminent state-sponsored "armed attack."
Topic:: Security and United Nations
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Washington, Israel, and Spain

116. Out of Order: Strengthening the Political-Military Relationship

Author:: Matthew Moten
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In June, U.S. President Barack Obama acted swiftly and wisely in relieving General Stanley McChrystal of command of the war in Afghanistan. In removing McChrystal for making disparaging comments about civilian leaders in a Rolling Stone article, the president reasserted the constitutional principle of civilian control of the military. He also immediately appointed General David Petraeus as the new commanding general in Afghanistan, with the U.S. mission continuing as before. Republicans did not try to exploit the situation for political advantage. There was no crisis, no rending of the fabric of political-military relations, and no threat to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the current state of relations between the United States' highest civilian and military leaders is quite good. This is a welcome change, and it began with the tenure of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who changed the climate at the Pentagon from one of suspicion to one of collaboration. Gates has established an atmosphere of trust and respect, combined with an unflinching demand for accountability. Although Donald Rumsfeld had a reputation for leading by fear and intimidation, in his six years as secretary of defense, he fired only one service secretary, Army Secretary Thomas White -- largely over personal differences -- and no flag officers (the hundreds of generals and admirals who compose the country's senior military leadership). In contrast, Gates has dismissed two service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the air force chief of staff, the commanding admiral of Central Command, two commanding generals in Afghanistan, and the surgeon general of the army. Yet Gates and Obama have also shown forbearance. Last October, in the midst of the administration's review of the country's Afghanistan policy, McChrystal publicly warned of "mission failure" if a significant infusion of U.S. troops was not made. But instead of removing McChrystal, who had become commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan less than three months earlier, Gates and Obama gave McChrystal a clear message about his place in the political-military partnership. Obama had a private chat with the general on Air Force One, and Gates delivered a highly publicized speech in which he reminded his listeners that "it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations -- civilian and military alike -- provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately."
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and United States

117. Smaller is Safer: A New Plan for Nuclear Postures

Author:: Bruce Blair, Valery Yarynich, Matthew McKinzie, Victor Esin, and Pavel Zolotarev
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On April 8, sitting beside each other in Prague Castle, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). Just two days earlier, the Obama administration had issued its Nuclear Posture Review, only the third such comprehensive assessment of the United States' nuclear strategy. And in May, as a gesture of openness at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, the U.S. government took the remarkable step of making public the size of its nuclear stockpile, which as of September 2009 totaled 5,113 warheads. For proponents of eliminating nuclear weapons, these events elicited both a nod and a sigh. On the one hand, they represented renewed engagement by Washington and Moscow on arms control, a step toward, as the treaty put it, "the historic goal of freeing humanity from the nuclear threat." On the other hand, they stopped short of fundamentally changing the Cold War face of deterrence. The New START agreement did not reduce the amount of "overkill" in either country's arsenal. Nor did it alter another important characteristic of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals: their launch-ready alert postures. The two countries' nuclear command, control, and communication systems, and sizable portions of their weapon systems, will still be poised for "launch on warning" -- ready to execute a mass firing of missiles before the quickest of potential enemy attacks could be carried out. This rapid-fire posture carries with it the risk of a launch in response to a false alarm resulting from human or technical error or even a malicious, unauthorized launch. Thus, under the New START treaty, the United States and Russia remain ready to inflict apocalyptic devastation in a nuclear exchange that would cause millions of casualties and wreak unfathomable environmental ruin. In the next round of arms control negotiations, Washington and Moscow need to pursue much deeper cuts in their nuclear stockpiles and agree to a lower level of launch readiness. These steps would help put the world on a path to the elimination of nuclear weapons -- "global zero." And they can be taken while still maintaining a stable relationship of mutual deterrence between the United States and Russia, based on a credible threat of retaliation, and while allowing limited but adequate missile defenses against nuclear proliferators such as Iran and North Korea.
Topic:: Cold War and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, North Korea, and Moscow

118. Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan beyond 2011

Author:: Michael O'Hanlon
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nine years ago, the United States worked with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban government in Kabul. The world was united, the cause for war was clear, and U.S. President George W. Bush enjoyed the support of roughly 90 percent of Americans. That was a long time ago. Today, the war in Afghanistan is a controversial conflict: fewer than half of Americans support the ongoing effort, even as roughly 100,000 U.S. troops are in harm's way. Troops from more than 40 countries still make up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but fewer than ten of those countries take substantial risks with their forces in the turbulent south and east of the country. And as the Netherlands prepares to depart Afghanistan this year and Canada remains committed to doing so in 2011, two of these coalition partners will likely soon be gone. Meanwhile, support for the coalition among Afghans has declined to less than 50 percent from highs of 80-90 percent early in the decade. Over the years, the U.S. mission has lost much of its clarity of purpose. Although voters and policymakers in the United States and elsewhere remain dedicated to denying al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan, they have begun debating whether a Taliban takeover would necessarily mean al Qaeda's return; whether al Qaeda really still seeks an Afghan sanctuary, as it did a decade ago; and whether U.S. forces could contain any future al Qaeda presence through the kinds of drone strikes now commonly employed in Pakistan. The most pressing question is whether the current strategy can work -- in particular, whether a NATO-led military presence of nearly 150,000 troops is consistent with Afghan mores and whether the government of President Hamid Karzai is up to the challenge of governing and keeping order in such a diverse, fractious land.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, America, Taliban, Netherlands, and Kabul

119. Defending a New Domain: The Pentagon's Cyberstrategy

Author:: William J. Lynn III
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Political Geography:: United States and Middle East

120. An Unlikely Trio: Can Iran, Turkey, and the United States Become Allies?

Author:: Mustafa Akyol
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, and Turkey

121. Hydraulic Pressures: Into the Age of Water Security

Author:: James E. Nickum
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Security, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:: United States, Mexico, and Southeast Asia

122. Islam Unveiled: From Cairo to Berlin and Back Again

Author:: Jeffrey Herf, Marc Lynch, and Paul Berman
Publication Date:: 09-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Topic:: Islam and Terrorism
Political Geography:: United States

123. The Future of American Power

Author:: Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: It is currently fashionable to predict a decline in the United States' power. But the United States is not in absolute decline, and in relative terms, there is a reasonable probability that it will remain more powerful than any other state in the coming decades.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States and America

124. Leading Through Civilian Power

Author:: Hillary Rodham Clinton
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: To meet the range of challenges facing the United States and the world, Washington will have to strengthen and amplify its civilian power abroad. Diplomacy and development must work in tandem, offering countries the support to craft their own solutions.
Topic:: Development and Governance
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

125. GDP Now Matters More Than Force

Author:: Leslie H. Gelb
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Most nations have adjusted their foreign policies to focus on economic security, but the United States has not. Today's leaders should adapt to an economic-centric world and look to Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower for guidance.
Topic:: Security and Economics
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, and Washington

126. Irresponsible Stakeholders?

Author:: Stewart Patrick
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A major strategic challenge for the United States in the coming decades will be integrating emerging powers into international institutions. To hold the postwar order together, the United States will have to become a more consistent exemplar of multilateral cooperation.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Brazil

127. The Demographic Future

Author:: Nicholas Eberstadt
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Global demographics in the twenty-first century will be defined by steep declines in fertility rates. Many countries will see their populations shrink and age. But relatively high fertility rates and immigration levels in the United States, however, may mean that it will emerge with a stronger hand.
Topic:: Economics, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Beijing

128. A Globalized God

Author:: Scott M. Thomas
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Religion is on the rise around the world. If the United States fails to confront the implications of this growth properly the potential for religiously motivated violence across the globe may increase dramatically over the next century.
Topic:: Islam
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, and Middle East

129. The Fertile Continent

Author:: Roger Thurow
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: With one billion people already going hungry and the world's population rising, global food production must urgently be increased. The countries that managed such surges in the past -- Brazil, China, India, the United States -- cannot do so again. But Africa can -- if it finally uses the seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation methods common everywhere else.
Topic:: Agriculture
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, China, India, and Brazil

130. Globalizing the Energy Revolution

Author:: Michael Levi, Adam Segal, Elizabeth C. Economy, and Shannon O'Neil
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Clean-energy technology is expensive and the United States is spending far too little on developing it. The U.S. government must do more to promote cross-border innovation and protect intellectual property rights.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States and China

131. Manufacturing Insecurity

Author:: William Pfaff
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States has built a worldwide system of more than 1,000 military bases, stations, and outposts -- a system designed to enhance U.S. national security. It has actually done the opposite, provoking conflict and creating insecurity.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, and Iraq

132. Moscow's Modernization Dilemma

Author:: Walter Laqueur
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Russia is showing signs that it may be interested in refashioning its relationship with the West, and with the United States in particular. Moscow would like to trade its cooperation on a range of international issues for technology and investment, both of which it needs for domestic growth and stability.
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and Moscow

133. The Default Power

Author:: Josef Joffe
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Every ten years, it is decline time in the United States. In the late 1950s, it was the Sputnik shock, followed by the "missile gap" trumpeted by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign. A decade later, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sounded the dirge over bipolarity, predicting a world of five, rather than two, global powers. At the end of the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech invoked "a crisis of confidence" that struck "at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will." A decade later, academics such as the Yale historian Paul Kennedy predicted the ruin of the United States, driven by overextension abroad and profligacy at home. The United States was at risk of "imperial overstretch," Kennedy wrote in 1987, arguing that "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend them all simultaneously." But three years later, Washington dispatched 600,000 soldiers to fight the first Iraq war -- without reinstating the draft or raising taxes. The only price of "overstretch" turned out to be the mild recession of 1991. Declinism took a break in the 1990s. The United States was enjoying a nice run after the suicide of the Soviet Union, and Japan, the economic powerhouse of the 1980s, was stuck in its "lost decade" of stagnation and so no longer stirred U.S. paranoia with its takeover of national treasures such as Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center. The United States had moved into the longest economic expansion in history, which, apart from eight down months in 2001, continued until 2008. "Gloom is the dominant mood in Japan these days," one Asian commentator reported in 1997, whereas "American capitalism is resurgent, confident and brash." That year, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "the defining feature of world affairs" was "globalization" and that if "you had to design a country best suited to compete in such a world, [it would be] today's America." He concluded on a triumphant note: "Globalization is us."
Topic:: Globalization
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, and Washington

134. The Dollar Dilemma

Author:: Barry Eichengreen
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Legions of pundits have argued that the dollar's status as an international currency has been damaged by the great credit crisis of 2007-9 -- and not a few have argued that the injury may prove fatal. The crisis certainly has not made the United States more attractive as a supplier of high-quality financial assets. It would be no surprise if the dysfunctionality of U.S. financial markets diminished the appetite of central banks for U.S. debt securities. A process of financial deglobalization has already begun, and it will mean less foreign financing for the United States' budget and balance-of-payments deficits. Meanwhile, the U.S. government will emit vast quantities of public debt for the foreseeable future. Together, these trends in supply and demand are a recipe for a significantly weaker dollar. And as central banks suffer capital losses on their outstanding dollar reserves, they will start considering alternatives. This is especially likely because these trends are superimposed on an ongoing shift toward a more multipolar world. The growing importance of emerging markets has sharply reduced the United States' economic dominance, weakening the logic for why the dollar should constitute the largest part of central-bank reserves and be used to settle trade and financial transactions. As emerging markets grow, they naturally accumulate foreign reserves as a form of self-insurance. Central banks need the funds to intervene in the foreign exchange market so that they can prevent shocks to trade and financial flows from causing uncomfortable currency fluctuations. This capacity becomes more important as previously closed economies open up and when international markets are volatile, as has been the case recently. It is only logical, in other words, for emerging markets to accumulate reserves.
Topic:: Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: United States

135. Without Conditions

Author:: Deepak Malhotra
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Diplomacy appears ready to make a comeback. The United States, after years of reluctance, is reconsidering the role of negotiation in confronting extremism and managing international conflict. India has resisted an aggressive response to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and is open to diplomatic engagement with Pakistan over Kashmir. Participants in the six-party talks have been scrambling to decide whether, when, and how to engage North Korea since its nuclear test of May 2009. The generals in Afghanistan are busier today than they have been in recent years, but so are the diplomats. Certainly, not everyone has rushed to the bargaining table -- witness, for example, the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. But governments around the world are asking themselves the same important question: When should they negotiate with their enemies? Determining the precise conditions for such talks is never easy. In the shadow of terrorism, the calculus is all the more complex. Not only can acts of belligerence or extremist violence strain or derail ongoing negotiations, but the persistence of violence is often the primary reason governments refuse to negotiate in the first place. This has long been the case in Israel, for example, where successive governments, especially those led by the conservative Likud Party, have refused to negotiate with Palestinian leaders until they bring the violence to a halt. The same dynamics influenced the peace process in Northern Ireland in the years leading up to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. North Korea's recent provocations have elicited a similar response from hard-liners in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The ability of extremists to derail negotiations through violence and belligerence presents policymakers with a high-stakes dilemma: Should the muzzling of extremism be set as a precondition to negotiations, or should negotiations be initiated in order to reduce support for extremism? Similar considerations have plagued peace efforts around the world, from Colombia, where the government has struggled for decades to determine when it should demand a cease-fire from FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), to Kashmir, where using violence to derail prospective talks has become a predictable tactic. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, surges in extremist violence are threatening to further destabilize already-weak governments.
Topic:: Diplomacy
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, Kashmir, and Mumbai

136. Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth

Author:: Michael Levi
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: This December, diplomats from nearly 200 countries will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time bound wealthy countries to specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these emissions come from burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- for energy, from deforestation, and from the agricultural sector. They must be cut deeply in the coming decades if the world is to control the risks of dangerous climate change. Most of those devoted to slashing the world's greenhouse gas emissions have placed enormous weight on the Copenhagen conference. Speaking earlier this year about the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was emphatic: "We must harness the necessary political will to seal the deal on an ambitious new climate agreement in December here in Copenhagen. . . . If we get it wrong we face catastrophic damage to people, to the planet." Hopes are higher than ever for a breakthrough climate deal. For the past eight years, many argued that developing nations reluctant to commit to a new global climate-change deal -- particularly China and India -- were simply hiding behind the United States, whose enthusiastic engagement was all that was needed for a breakthrough. Now the long-awaited shift in U.S. policy has arrived. The Obama administration is taking ambitious steps to limit carbon dioxide emissions at home, and Congress is considering important cap-and-trade and clean-energy legislation. The road to a global treaty that contains the climate problem now appears to be clear. But it is not so simple. The odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are vanishingly small. And even reaching such a deal the following year would be an extraordinary challenge, given the domestic political constraints in Washington and in other capitals that make such an agreement difficult to negotiate and ratify. The many government officials and activists seeking to solve the climate problem therefore need to fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations for the Copenhagen conference.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

137. The Unbalanced Triangle

Author:: Stephen Kotkin
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Chinese-Russian relationship is more opportunistic than strategic, Bobo Lo argues. The United States is stuck watching from the sidelines and may be pushing Moscow further into Beijing's pocket.
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, China, Beijing, and Moscow

138. Securing the Information Highway

Author:: Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Cyberwarfare is not an abstract future threat. The United States' electronic defenses are vulnerable and Washington must act quickly to secure computer networks, software, and hardware before it is too late.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

139. Losing Controls

Author:: Mitchel B. Wallerstein
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Since the early days of the Cold War, the United States has restricted the export of certain advanced technologies and the sharing of sensitive scientific and technical information with foreign nationals. Initially, these restrictions were justified on the grounds that the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies were engaged -- through fronts, third parties, and outright espionage -- in a systematic effort to buy or steal information, technology, and equipment developed in the West that they could then use in their own military systems. Because Soviet industry could not design or produce certain high-tech products, such as personal computers or sophisticated machine tools, the Soviets were forced to obtain them by other means. By successfully denying technology to the Soviet Union, the United States enabled NATO to maintain a strategic and tactical advantage without having to match the Warsaw Pact nations' troop strength in the field. Yet 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and long after the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the same system of export controls remains in place. It has only become more arcane and ineffective with time. U.S. export controls have survived largely because of outdated "fortress America" thinking -- the view that the United States is the primary source of most militarily useful scientific ideas and products and that it can continue to deny technology to potential adversaries without seriously damaging the global competitiveness of U.S. companies or, in the end, jeopardizing national security. In an earlier era, when the United States was far more economically and technologically dominant, the costs associated with a technology-denial strategy were easier to absorb. But in today's highly competitive world, the business lost due to export controls poses a threat to the well-being of key U.S. industries; estimated losses range as high as $9 billion per year.
Topic:: NATO and Cold War
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Soviet Union

140. The Dollar and the Deficits

Author:: C. Fred Bergsten
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The global economic crisis has revealed the folly of large U.S. budget and trade deficits, as well as of the strong dollar that makes them possible. If it is serious about recovery, the United States must balance the budget, stimulate private saving, and embrace a declining dollar.
Topic:: Economics and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:: United States

141. The Nukes We Need

Author:: Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Obama administration is right that the United States can safely cut some of its nuclear arsenal, but it must retain the right capabilities. Otherwise, the United States' adversaries might conclude -- perhaps correctly -- that Washington's nuclear strategy rests largely on a bluff.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: United States and Europe

142. Russia Reborn

Author:: Dmitri V. Trenin
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Two decades after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and nearly 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has shed communism and lost its historical empire. But it has not yet found a new role. Instead, it sits uncomfortably on the periphery of both Europe and Asia while apprehensively rubbing shoulders with the Muslim world. Throughout the 1990s, Moscow attempted to integrate into, and then with, the West. These efforts failed, both because the West lacked the will to adopt Russia as one of its own and because Russian elites chose to embrace a corporatist and conservative policy agenda at home and abroad. As a result, in the second presidential term of Vladimir Putin, Russia abandoned its goal of joining the West and returned to its default option of behaving as an independent great power. It redefined its objectives: soft dominance in its immediate neighborhood; equality with the world's principal power centers, China, the European Union, and the United States; and membership in a global multipolar order. Half a decade later, this policy course has revealed its failures and flaws. Most are rooted in the Russian government's inability and unwillingness to reform the country's energy-dependent economy, the noncompetitive nature of Russian politics, and a trend toward nationalism and isolationism. In terms of foreign policy, Russia's leaders have failed to close the book on the lost Soviet empire. It is as if they exited the twentieth century through two doors at the same time: one leading to the globalized market of the twenty-first century and the other opening onto the Great Game of the nineteenth century. As the current global economic crisis has demonstrated, the model that Russia's contemporary leaders have chosen -- growth without development, capitalism without democracy, and great-power policies without international appeal -- cannot hold forever. Not only will Russia fail to achieve its principal foreign policy objectives, it will fall further behind in a world increasingly defined by instant communication and open borders, leading to dangers not merely to its status but also to its existence. Russia's foreign policy needs more than a reset: it requires a new strategy and new policy instruments and mechanisms to implement it.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Russia, United States, and Soviet Union

143. In the Quicksands of Somalia

Author:: Bronwyn Bruton
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, Middle East, and Somalia

144. Changing North Korea

Author:: Andrei Lankov
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: North Korea, a small country with no economic potential to speak of, has for two decades been a major irritant to the international community. Its nuclear weapons program puts the international nonproliferation regime at risk and threatens to provide assorted rogue states and terrorist groups with the nuclear technology they have long sought. In April, Pyongyang conducted a missile test, and a nuclear test followed in May. In July, however, Kim Jong Il signaled a readiness to talk by inviting former U.S. President Bill Clinton to visit Pyongyang and retrieve two American journalists detained in North Korea since March. Still, this dramatic event was no indication that North Korea is planning to give up its nuclear program. In considering the North Korean nuclear question, U.S. policymakers and experts typically fall into two camps. The optimists believe that negotiating with Pyongyang will set North Korea on the path of Chinese-style political and economic reforms, help it become a "normal state," and convince it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The pessimists insist that only relentless pressure will cause Pyongyang to denuclearize. The optimists (such as Christopher Hill, who once led U.S. negotiations with North Korea and is now ambassador to Iraq) favor talks and compromise. The pessimists (such as John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) prefer coercive sanctions. Pyongyang's recent provocations seem to confirm the pessimists' view for now, but at other times the optimists have seemed vindicated, and the pendulum has swung back and forth frequently over the years. In any event, neither camp's approach is likely to work.
Political Geography:: United States, North Korea, and Pyongyang

145. The Future of U.S. Military Power

Author:: Thomas Donnelly, Philip Dur, and Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr.
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Political Geography:: United States and China

146. The Mushroom Cloud That Wasn't

Author:: Michael Krepon
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The threat of nuclear armageddon is overblown. Instead of stoking fear, policymakers should focus on securing existing nuclear materials and keeping them out of the hands of potential proliferators.
Topic:: Cold War and Terrorism
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, Iran, and North Korea

147. Tomorrow's Institution Today

Author:: Amitai Etzioni
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Old international institutions must be updated to tackle transnational challenges. The most promising model for doing so is the Proliferation Security Initiative, a recent cooperative effort to interdict weapons of mass destruction.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, and North Korea

148. The G-2 Mirage

Author:: Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A heightened bilateral relationship may not be possible for China and the United States, as the two countries have mismatched interests and values. Washington should embrace a more flexible and multilateral approach.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: United States, China, Washington, Israel, and Palestine

149. Deng Undone: The Costs of Halting Market Reform in China

Author:: Derek Scissors
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Driven by a near obsession with economic growth, Beijing has extended the state's reach into the economy. Instead of urging the Chinese government to resume extensive market reforms, Washington should encourage it to focus on a narrow range of feasible measures.
Topic:: Economics, Government, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Beijing

150. State Capitalism Comes of Age: The End of the Free Market?

Author:: Ian Bremmer
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Across the world, the free market is being overtaken by state capitalism, a system in which the state is the leading economic actor. How should the United States respond?
Topic:: Economics, Government, and Reform
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Europe

151. Necessity, Choice, and Common Sense: A Policy for a Bewildering World

Author:: Leslie H. Gelb
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States is declining as a nation and a world power. This is a serious yet reversible situation, so long as Americans are clear-eyed about the causes and courageous about implementing the cures, including a return to pragmatic problem solving.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Economics
Political Geography:: United States, China, and America

152. Diplomacy, Inc.: The Influence of Lobbies on U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: John Newhouse
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Lobbies representing foreign interests have an increasingly powerful -- and often harmful -- impact on how the United States formulates its foreign policy, and ultimately hurt U.S. credibility around the world.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, and Armenia

153. Farm Futures: Bringing Agriculture Back to U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: Catherine Bertini and Dan Glickman
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Hunger remains one of world's gravest humanitarian problems, but the United States has failed to prioritize food aid and agricultural development. Washington must put agriculture at the center of development aid -- and make it a key part of a new U.S. foreign policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Washington, and Asia

154. The King and Us: U.S.-Saudi Relations in the Wake of 9/11

Author:: David Ottaway
Publication Date:: 05-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The exchange of oil for security no longer defines the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Still, the two countries can restore healthy ties by addressing common concerns such as Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia

155. The Pentagon's Wasting Assets

Author:: Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr.
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- The military foundations of U.S. dominance are eroding. In response, Washington should pursue new sources of military advantage and a more modest grand strategy.
Topic:: Military Strategy
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

156. Flipping the Taliban

Author:: Fotini Christia and Michael Semple
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- The deployment of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is necessary to tip the balance of power against the Taliban. But this military "surge" must be accompanied with a political one designed to persuade insurgents to give up their fight.
Topic:: Military Strategy
Political Geography:: United States

157. Tehran's Take

Author:: Mohsen M. Milani
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- Iran's foreign policy is often portrayed in sensationalistic terms, but in reality it is a rational strategy meant to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic against what Tehran thinks is an existential threat posed by the United States.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, and Tehran

158. The Real War in Mexico

Author:: Shannon O'Neil
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- Hysteria over bloodshed in Mexico clouds the real challenge: the rising violence is a product of democratization -- and the only real solution is to continue strengthening Mexican democracy.
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Mexico

159. The Russia File

Author:: Robert Legvold
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Reversing the collapse of U.S.-Russian relations is one of the great tests facing the Obama administration. Among the major powers, Russia is the hard case. And the stakes involved in getting U.S.-Russian relations right are high -- much higher than the leadership of either country has acknowledged or perhaps even realized so far. If the Obama administration can guide the relationship onto a more productive path, as it is trying to do, it will not only open the way for progress on the day's critical issues -- from nuclear security and energy security to climate change and peaceful change in the post-Soviet area -- but also be taking on a truly historic task. One of the blessings of the post-Cold War era has been the absence of strategic rivalry among great powers, a core dynamic of the previous 300 years in the history of international relations. Should it return, some combination of tensions between the United States, Russia, and China would likely be at its core. Ensuring that this does not happen constitutes the less noticed but more fateful foreign policy challenge facing this U.S. president and the next.
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, China, and Soviet Union

160. Pirates, Then and Now

Author:: Max Boot
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- To defeat piracy in centuries past, governments pursued a more active defense at sea and a political solution on land. The current piracy epidemic off the coast of East Africa requires many of the same tactics.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Ukraine, and East Africa

161. Can the Right War Be Won?

Author:: Steven Simon
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Two new books offer insightful analyses of how to succeed in Afghanistan. But the sheer difficulty of the task points to the need for an alternative strategy -- one that defends U.S. interests without trying to rebuild a shattered country.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and United States

162. A Hegemon's Coming of Age

Author:: Walter Russell Mead
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: George Herring's well-written and lively book may turn out to be one of the last attempts by a leading scholar to compress a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the United States' foreign relations into a single volume.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: United States

163. India's Fortune

Author:: Edward Luce
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nandan Nilekani has produced one of the best and most thought-provoking books on India in years.
Topic:: Economics and Government
Political Geography:: United States and India

164. Which Way Is History Marching?

Author:: G. John Ikenberry, Daniel Deudney, Ronald Inglehart, zar Gat, and Christian Welzel
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Two recent articles in these pages -- "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival [1]" (January/February 2009) and "How Development Leads to Democracy [2]" (March/April 2009) -- have taken issue with my July/August 2007 essay, "The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers [3]." In the first, Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry dispute my argument that the authoritarian capitalist great powers Germany and Japan were defeated in both world wars largely because of contingent factors rather than structural inefficiencies. As I have argued, these countries were too small in comparison to the United States. With respect to the challenge posed by China and Russia, Deudney and Ikenberry insist that developed nondemocratic capitalist societies will not be viable in the long run.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, and Germany

165. Get Smart

Author:: Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Summary -- Leslie Gelb's skepticism of "smart power" is misguided; it is only by combining the strategies of both hard and soft power that the United States can achieve its ends.
Political Geography:: United States

166. Arms and Influence at Sea

Author:: Thomas Culora and Andrew Erickson
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Robert Kaplan ("Center Stage for the Twenty-first Century," March/April 2009) correctly underscores the Indian Ocean's strategic importance. But in envisioning "dynamic great-power rivalry" between Beijing and New Delhi there, he is too pessimistic about the United States' ability to maintain influence, too optimistic about China's ability to exert influence rapidly, and too dismissive of India's inherent regional advantages.
Political Geography:: United States, China, Beijing, and New Delhi

167. Reforming State

Author:: Robert B. Oakley and Edward Marks
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: J. Anthony Holmes ("Where Are the Civilians?" January/February 2009) makes a number of persuasive points concerning the military's domination of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, fixing U.S. foreign policy requires a comprehensive, long-term approach. An excellent beginning would be to implement fully the proposals contained in a recent joint report by the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Henry L. Stimson Center. They are ambitious enough to make rapid implementation hard work, but they are probably only the minimum necessary to meet today's requirements.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States

168. Logic, Not Lobbies

Author:: Ronald D. Asmus and Jeremy D. Rosner
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: We are troubled by the assertions made by John Newhouse ("Diplomacy, Inc.," May/June 2009) about NATO enlargement -- an initiative in which we both played direct roles -- as well as by his broader thesis about the role of ethnic population groups in shaping U.S. foreign policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and NATO
Political Geography:: United States

169. The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive?

Author:: G. John Ikenberry
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: China's rise will inevitably bring the United States' unipolar moment to an end. But that does not necessarily mean a violent power struggle or the overthrow of the Western system. The U.S.-led international order can remain dominant even while integrating a more powerful China -- but only if Washington sets about strengthening that liberal order now.
Political Geography:: United States and China

170. Reconsidering Revaluation: The Wrong Approach to the U.S.-Chinese Trade Imbalance

Author:: David D. Hale and Lyric Hughes Hale
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Politicians in Washington are clamoring for currency revaluation in China to reverse China's trade surplus with the United States. But the trade imbalance is not the threat they make it out to be, and a stronger yuan is not the solution. Everybody should focus instead on properly integrating China into the global economy.
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Washington

171. Public Footprints in Private Markets: Sovereign Wealth Funds and the World Economy

Author:: Robert M. Kimmitt
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The massive growth of sovereign wealth funds -- pools of capital controlled by governments and invested in private markets abroad -- should not cause alarm. But it does raise legitimate questions for the United States, pointing to the need for new policy principles for both the funds and the countries in which they invest.
Political Geography:: United States

172. Stopping Nuclear Terrorism: The Dangerous Allure of a Perfect Defense

Author:: Michael Levi
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Nuclear terrorism poses a grave threat to global security, but seeking silver bullets to counter it does not make sense. Instead of pursuing a perfect defense, U.S. policymakers should create an integrated defensive system that takes advantage of the terrorists' weaknesses and disrupts their plots at every stage, thereby chipping away at their overall chances of success.
Political Geography:: United States

173. A New Realism: A Realistic and Principled Foreign Policy

Author:: Bill Richardson
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States needs a foreign policy that is based on reality and is loyal to American values. The next U.S. president needs to send a clear signal to the world that America has turned the corner and will once again be a leader rather than a unilateralist loner. Getting out of Iraq and restoring our reputation are necessary first steps toward a new strategy of U.S. global engagement and leadership.
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and America

174. Review: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: The Making of the Modern World

Author:: Owen Harries
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Walter Russell Mead rightly argues that the United Kingdom and the United States made the modern world. But his call for Washington to pursue both a maritime grand strategy and Niebuhrian realism will not fly.
Political Geography:: United States and United Kingdom

175. To the Editor: Israel Lobby and its Discontents

Author:: R. T. Curran
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In "Jerusalem Syndrome" (November/December 2007), Walter Russell Mead is disappointed in John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. I am disappointed in Walter Russell Mead. The U.S. relationship with Israel is difficult and complex. I was directly involved in Middle East matters at the State Department and the White House in the 1970s and early 1980s and have worked in key Middle Eastern capitals, including Amman, Cairo, and Jerusalem. Several presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisers have wrestled unsuccessfully to find ways and means to develop a creative and objective-driven dialogue in the Near Eastern neighborhood.
Political Geography:: United States, Israel, and Jerusalem

176. Diplomacy in an Age of Faith: Religious Freedom and National Security

Author:: Thomas F. Farr
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States has failed to understand the global resurgence of religiosity. Washington should put the promotion of religious freedom at the center of U.S. foreign policy -- recognizing that it is vital not only to liberty and stability abroad but also to U.S. national security.
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

177. Pyongyang Blues

Author:: James Kelly and Victor D. Cha
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Leon Sigal's letter "Asian Blunders" ("Letters to the Editor," January/February 2008) misses the reality of what has been a remarkably consistent U.S. policy toward North Korea during George W. Bush's two terms as president: use diplomacy to seek a "peaceful resolution" to the North's decades-long nuclear weapons program. Some figures either in or close to the administration have made remarks suggesting that nothing less than regime change would suffice, but they were and are without support from the president.
Topic:: International Relations
Political Geography:: United States, Asia, and North Korea

178. To the Editor: Misunderstanding India

Author:: Rajiv Sikri
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: R. Nicholas Burns' case ("America's Strategic Opportunity With India," November/December 2007) for a U.S.-Indian partnership rests on flawed assumptions. Contrary to what Burns states, the nuclear issue has not been the key point keeping India and the United States apart. Indian mistrust of the United States is rooted in the decades-old U.S. policy of military and diplomatic support for Pakistan. The United States' opposition to India's becoming a nuclear weapons power and its unwillingness to support India's permanent membership in the UN Security Council have only strengthened Indian misgivings.
Topic:: United Nations
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, America, and India

179. To the Editor: Chinese Ghosts

Author:: Harold Brown
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: G. John Ikenberry propagates a misconception ("The Rise of China and the Future of the West," January/February 2008) by using GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) to conclude that China will surpass the United States in terms of economic weight sometime around 2020. A nation's weight in the world economy is primarily exerted through imports and exports, investment and capital flows. All of these take place at currency exchange rates, not at PPP. A haircut in Wuhan may cost a dollar's worth of yuan and be worth $15 to the Chinese GDP at PPP, but its effect on the outside world's economy is nothing, at least not until China can export haircuts.
Political Geography:: United States and China

180. Brazil's Big Moment

Author:: Juan de Onis
Publication Date:: 11-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Brazil is on the cusp of fulfilling its potential as a global player. The next U.S. president should rethink relations with this important country.
Political Geography:: United States and Brazil

181. Rice's Record

Author:: Steven L. Hull
Publication Date:: 11-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Political Geography:: United States

182. After Guantánamo

Author:: Kenneth Roth
Publication Date:: 05-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become a stain on the United States' reputation. Shutting it down will cause new problems. Rather than hold terrorism suspects in preventive detention, the United States should turn them over to its criminal justice system.
Political Geography:: United States

183. The Future of American Power

Author:: Fareed Zakaria
Publication Date:: 05-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Despite some eerie parallels between the position of the United States today and that of the British Empire a century ago, there are key differences. Britain's decline was driven by bad economics. The United States, in contrast, has the strength and dynamism to continue shaping the world -- but only if it can overcome its political dysfunction and reorient U.S. policy for a world defined by the rise of other powers.
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, and America

184. The Age of Nonpolarity

Author:: Richard N. Haass
Publication Date:: 05-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States' unipolar moment is over. International relations in the twenty-first century will be defined by nonpolarity. Power will be diffuse rather than concentrated, and the influence of nation-states will decline as that of nonstate actors increases. But this is not all bad news for the United States; Washington can still manage the transition and make the world a safer place.
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

185. Congress at War

Author:: Louis Fisher, Ryan Hendrickson, and Stephen R. Weissman
Publication Date:: 05-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: To the Editor: William Howell and Jon Pevehouse ("When Congress Stops Wars," September/October 2007) suggest that Congress has been far more influential in shaping U.S. military action abroad than previously thought. We disagree. Such a view does not reflect the overwhelming historical evidence since World War II. Moreover, their argument undervalues Congress' constitutional responsibility to independently check the president prior to war. In most cases, Congress has chosen the politically expedient route of deferring to the president. The principal reason for this support has been not partisan calculations, as Howell and Pevehouse argue, but rather lawmakers' unwillingness to exercise their constitutional powers and understand the need for legislative checks.
Political Geography:: United States

186. Building a New Atlantic Alliance

Author:: James P. Rubin
Publication Date:: 07-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: How the United States can restore its relationship with Europe.
Political Geography:: United States

187. Shortsighted Statecraft

Author:: Daniel C. Kurtzer
Publication Date:: 07-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Stopping three decades of unnecessary bungling.There is a feature of my seminars on U.S. Middle East policy at Princeton that I call "déjà vu all over again" -- with apologies to Yogi Berra. I ask students to assess the bungled efforts and missed opportunities of generations of U.S. diplomats and seek in them lessons for the future. They examine the hubris that drove the U.S. government to engineer the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq's democratically elected government in Iran. This traumatic episode was conveniently forgotten by 1979, when National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski encouraged Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to use force against the opposition, ignoring the warnings of U.S. diplomats on the ground in Iran that the shah's reign was doomed. Similarly, the United States forgot the lesson of the limited and United Nations-approved 1991 war in response to Iraq's aggression in Kuwait when it launched an ideologically inspired invasion of Iraq in 2003. Likewise, in 2006, Washington seemed to have forgotten the fiasco that followed Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Rather than learn from the past, Washington backed Israel's ill-advised attempt to deliver a knockout blow against another Lebanese foe, this time Hezbollah. My students and I conclude -- only half-jokingly -- that U.S. policymakers ought to take the class before taking office.
Political Geography:: United States, Washington, Middle East, and Kuwait

188. The Next President

Author:: Richard Holbrooke
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The next U.S. president will inherit a more difficult set of international challenges than any predecessor since World War II.
Political Geography:: United States

189. The September 12 Paradigm

Author:: Robert Kagan
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The next administration must learn from Bush's mistakes, but should not shy away from using U.S. power to promote American values.
Political Geography:: United States

190. How to Leave a Stable Iraq

Author:: Michael E. O'Hanlon, Kenneth M. Pollack, and Stephen Biddle
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The situation in Iraq is improving. With the right strategy, the United States will eventually be able to draw down troops without sacrificing stability.
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

191. A Strategic Economic Engagement

Author:: Henry M. Paulson Jr.
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The prosperity of the United States and China depends on helping China further integrate into the global economic system.
Political Geography:: United States and China

192. Containing Climate Change

Author:: Carter F. Bales and Richard D. Duke
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States can curb its own emissions and encourage energy efficiency and the development of clean-energy technology worldwide by rethinking carbon regimes.
Topic:: Climate Change
Political Geography:: United States

193. Millions Uprooted

Author:: António Guterres
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The international community must ensure that people seeking saftey are protected; soverignty is not a shield behind which authoritarian governments may terrorize their own people.
Topic:: Development
Political Geography:: United States

194. The Land of Hope Again?

Author:: Dominique Moïsi
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A culture of fear has supplanted the traditional U.S. culture of hope. By returning to hope, the United States can regain the standing it has lost.
Political Geography:: United States

195. American Oligarchs

Author:: Katrina vanden Heuvel
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Replying to Padma Desai's letter ("Putin's Russia," May/June 2008), Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss assert that, like the Yeltsin-era media bosses, the United States' "oligarchs . . . own" many media outlets, including The Nation. In reality, The Nation -- the United States' oldest continuously published weekly -- has operated at a loss during all but a few of its 143 years and has been kept alive by its subscribers, advertisers, and many loyal supporters. Moreover, The Nation's equally long-standing antioligarchic positions are known to virtually everyone familiar with the American press.
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and America

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS