Publishing Institution: Council on Foreign Relations / Political Geography: America / Publication Year: within 25 Years / Topic:

1. Southeast Asian Perspectives on U.S.–China Competition

Author:: Aaron Connely
Publication Date:: 08-2017
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In April 2016, the Lowy Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations' International Institutions and Global Governance program held a workshop on Southeast Asian perspectives on U.S.–China competition, which informed this publication. That workshop was made possible in part by the generous support of the Robina Foundation. This report is a collaboration between the Lowy Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed in this report are entirely the authors' own and not those of the Lowy Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Robina Foundation.
Topic:: Governance and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: China and America

2. Managing a Smaller U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Author:: Jennifer Harris
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Research Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Comprising roughly 700 million barrels of crude oil stored in caverns throughout Texas and Louisiana, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established by Congress in the mid-1970s in response to the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo and ensuing oil price shocks. Its purpose was to insulate the United States from crude oil supply disruptions. In the decades since, despite significant changes in global oil markets, the basic logic and design of the SPR have remained largely unchanged.
Topic:: Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: America

3. Interactive: Oil Exporters' External Breakeven Prices

Author:: Brad Sester and Cole Frank
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The 2014 fall in global oil prices, from over $100 a barrel to around $50 a barrel, reduced the export proceeds of the world’s main oil- and gas-exporting economies by about $1 trillion. After a decade of largely uninterrupted high oil prices, this dramatic swing has tested the economic resiliency and political adaptability of oil-exporting countries. One of the best single measures of the resilience of an oil- or gas-exporting economy is the oil price that covers its import bill—the external breakeven price.
Topic:: Oil and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: America

4. The Case for Reforming Section 702 of U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Law

Author:: Laura K. Donohue
Publication Date:: 06-2017
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On December 31, 2017, section 702 of the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA) will expire. Section 702 governs the domestic interception of foreigners’ communications, when the targets are believed to be outside the United States. Although externally directed, this statute is being used by agencies to monitor, collect, and search U.S. citizens’ communications for foreign intelligence and criminal activity. Congress has an opportunity to amend section 702 to safeguard U.S. national security, protect citizens, and comply with the Constitution.
Topic:: Global Security
Political Geography:: America

5. A New Deal for the Twenty-First Century

Author:: Edward Alden and Robert Litan
Publication Date:: 05-2017
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The challenge of how to help those left behind by rapid economic change—whether caused by technology or global competition—has moved to the center of the U.S. national debate in a way it has not been since the 1930s. Trade competition, especially from China, has been a significant factor in declining U.S. manufacturing employment over the past decade. Trade also became a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, despite the larger role played by automation and technological change in displacing manufacturing workers for decades. This process will only continue in coming years, with advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and software that will eliminate many jobs while creating others, regardless of what policies the federal government may adopt toward trade and outsourcing.
Topic:: International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:: America

6. North America Time for a New Focus

Author:: Shannon K. O'Neil
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: North America was once called the New World. The people, their ideas, and the resources of the continent shaped the histories of the Old World—East and West. Today, North America is home to almost five hundred million people living in three vibrant democracies. If the three North American countries deepen their integration and cooperation, they have the potential to again shape world affairs for gen-erations to come.
Topic:: Security, Economics, Energy Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:: United States and America

7. The War of Law

Author:: Jon Kyl, Douglas J. Feith, and John Fonte
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the era of globalization, policymakers are increasingly debating the proper role of international law, and a group of legal scholars have embraced transnationalism, the idea that growing interconnectedness should dissolve international boundaries. But that approach is at odds with basic American principles.
Topic:: Globalization, War, and Law
Political Geography:: America

8. In Defense of Citizens United

Author:: R. Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane
Publication Date:: 07-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Hardly the blow to democracy that many painted it as, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United will make American politics more competitive, less beholden to party bosses, and more responsive to the public at large. It may even help break the fiscal stalemate strangling the U.S. economy.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: America

9. The Spoils of War

Author:: Max Hastings
Publication Date:: 12-2013
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: For decades, World War II suffused the hearts and minds of the American generation that experienced it as “the good war,” in which Allied virtue eventually triumphed over fascist evil. Today, Western societies are mature enough to adopt a more nuanced perspective. There remains no doubt that “our side” deserved to win; terrible consequences would have befallen the world following an Axis victory. But the Allied cause was morally compromised by the need to enlist the services of Joseph Stalin's tyranny in order to defeat the forces of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America

10. Bucking Beijing

Author:: Aaron L. Friedberg
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: United States worries about China's rise, but Washington rarely considers how the world looks through Beijing's eyes. Even when U.S. officials speak sweetly and softly, their Chinese counterparts hear sugarcoated threats and focus on the big stick in the background. America should not shrink from setting out its expectations of Asia's rising superpower -- but it should do so calmly, coolly, and professionally.
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, Washington, and Asia

11. America the Undertaxed

Author:: Andrea Louise Campbell
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one -- a statement about what sort of society Americans want.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States and America

12. Latin Lessons

Author:: Ray Suarez
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Discussions of Hispanic Americans in the media and on the campaign trail are warped by ignorance about who they really are and what they really want. A new book seeks to fill the gap with a data-rich portrait of this complex community.
Political Geography:: America

13. Is Growth Good?

Author:: Frances Beinecke, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, John Harte, Mary Ellen Harte, and Bjørn Lomborg
Publication Date:: 10-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: ENVIRONMENTALISTS DO NOT OPPOSE GROWTH Frances Beinecke In 1970, U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law, launching one of the most successful public health and environmental programs in history. In the first decade that followed, in Los Angeles, the amount of pollution from ozone -- the main component of smog -- exceeded government health standards on 200 days each year. By 2004, that number had dropped to 28 days. In the 1970s, also as a result of polluted air, nearly 90 percent of American children had lead in their blood at levels higher than what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deemed safe, and parents were alarmed by studies showing that lead interfered with cognitive development. Today, only two percent of children have such high levels of lead in their bodies. By controlling hazardous emissions, the Clean Air Act delivered these and many other health benefits. And it did so without curbing economic growth. The United States' GDP has risen by 207 percent since the law was passed over four decades ago. And because the law sparked innovation -- from catalytic converters, which convert toxic exhaust fumes from automobiles into less dangerous substances, to smokestack scrubbers -- pollution reductions have proved relatively inexpensive. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for every dollar the United States has spent on cutting pollution through the Clean Air Act, it has gained more than $40 in benefits.
Political Geography:: United States and America

14. The Case for Space

Author:: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama articulated his vision for the future of American space exploration, which included an eventual manned mission to Mars. Such an endeavor would surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- maybe even $1 trillion. Whatever the amount, it would be an expensive undertaking. In the past, only three motivations have led societies to spend that kind of capital on ambitious, speculative projects: the celebration of a divine or royal power, the search for profit, and war. Examples of praising power at great expense include the pyramids in Egypt, the vast terra-cotta army buried along with the first emperor of China, and the Taj Mahal in India. Seeking riches in the New World, the monarchs of Iberia funded the great voyages of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. And military incentives spurred the building of the Great Wall of China, which helped keep the Mongols at bay, and the Manhattan Project, whose scientists conceived, designed, and built the first atomic bomb.
Political Geography:: China, America, India, and Egypt

15. God and Caesar in America

Author:: David Campbell and Robert Putnam
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A Feb. 29 update to the print story from the March/April issue: In the wake of the Great Recession it would seem natural that the 2012 election would be fought over economic issues. Yet so far in the Republican primaries, we have seen social issues, and religion especially, move to the forefront. Rick Santorum is only the latest in a series of Republicans who have infused their campaigns with talk about God. Even Mitt Romney, a Mormon who has generally tried to avoid discussing religion, has recently pledged to defend "religious liberty" against the Obama administration. Increasingly, the rhetoric of the leading Republican contenders echoes the Republican fringe of twenty years ago. Then, we heard Pat Buchanan -- the quintessential protest candidate -- bombastically declare that America was in the midst of a culture war. Today, the frontrunners all play to the Republican base by describing the White House's "war on religion."
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: America

16. The Future of U.S.-Chinese Relations

Author:: Henry Kissinger
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: On January 19, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao issued a joint statement at the end of Hu's visit to Washington. It proclaimed their shared commitment to a “positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship.” Each party reassured the other regarding his principal concern, announcing, “The United States reiterated that it welcomes a strong, prosperous, and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs. China welcomes the United States as an Asia-Pacific nation that contributes to peace, stability and prosperity in the region.” Since then, the two governments have set about implementing the stated objectives. Top American and Chinese officials have exchanged visits and institutionalized their exchanges on major strategic and economic issues. Military-to-military contacts have been restarted, opening an important channel of communication. And at the unofficial level, so-called track-two groups have explored possible evolutions of the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Yet as cooperation has increased, so has controversy. Significant groups in both countries claim that a contest for supremacy between China and the United States is inevitable and perhaps already under way. In this perspective, appeals for U.S.-Chinese cooperation appear outmoded and even naive.
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, and Washington

17. The Arab Spring at One

Author:: Fouad Ajami
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Throughout 2011, a rhythmic chant echoed across the Arab lands: "The people want to topple the regime." It skipped borders with ease, carried in newspapers and magazines, on Twitter and Facebook, on the airwaves of al Jazeera and al Arabiya. Arab nationalism had been written off, but here, in full bloom, was what certainly looked like a pan-Arab awakening. Young people in search of political freedom and economic opportunity, weary of waking up to the same tedium day after day, rose up against their sclerotic masters.
Topic:: Economics and Oil
Political Geography:: America, Europe, and Arabia

18. Clear and Present Safety

Author:: Michael Cohen and Micah Zenko
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Last August, the Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney performed what has become a quadrennial rite of passage in American presidential politics: he delivered a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. His message was rooted in another grand American tradition: hyping foreign threats to the United States. It is “wishful thinking,” Romney declared, “that the world is becoming a safer place. The opposite is true. Consider simply the jihadists, a near-nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, an unstable Pakistan, a delusional North Korea, an assertive Russia, and an emerging global power called China. No, the world is not becoming safer.” Not long after, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed Romney's statement. In a lecture last October, Panetta warned of threats arising “from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from rogue states to cyber attacks; from revolutions in the Middle East, to economic crisis in Europe, to the rise of new powers such as China and India. All of these changes represent security, geopolitical, economic, and demographic shifts in the international order that make the world more unpredictable, more volatile and, yes, more dangerous.” General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concurred in a recent speech, arguing that “the number and kinds of threats we face have increased significantly.” And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced the point by claiming that America resides today in a “very complex, dangerous world.”
Topic:: Terrorism
Political Geography:: United States, China, America, Middle East, and India

19. The Missing Middle in American Politics

Author:: Reihan Salam
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After Lyndon Johnson's victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the once-mighty Republican Party was reduced to a regional rump. The Democrats won overwhelming majorities in the House and the Senate, which they used to pass Johnson's Great Society legislation. Republicans, meanwhile, were at one another's throats, having endured the most divisive campaign in modern political history. Goldwater had managed to win the Republican presidential nomination over the impassioned opposition of moderate and progressive Republicans, who at the time may well have constituted a majority of the party's members. Moderates blamed Goldwater's right-wing views for the defection of millions of Republican voters.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, China, and America

20. Freedom's Secret Recipe

Author:: Michael Mann
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with a 1989 essay called "The End of History?" which he expanded into a 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. His thesis was a reworking of the "end of ideology" argument propounded in the 1950s by Daniel Bell and others, with an even more emphatic twist. "What we may be witnessing," Fukuyama declared, "is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the endpoint of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." The argument seemed hubristic, a product of the era's American triumphalism.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

21. Not Time to Attack Iran

Author:: Colin Kahl
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012), Matthew Kroenig takes a page out of the decade-old playbook used by advocates of the Iraq war. He portrays the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as both grave and imminent, arguing that the United States has little choice but to attack Iran now before it is too late. Then, after offering the caveat that "attacking Iran is hardly an attractive prospect," he goes on to portray military action as preferable to other available alternatives and concludes that the United States can manage all the associated risks. Preventive war, according to Kroenig, is "the least bad option."
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Iran

22. U.S. Education Reform and National Security

Author:: Joel I. Klein, Condoleezza Rice, and Julia Levy
Publication Date:: 03-2012
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Mission Statement. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Founded in 1921, the Council takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. The Council carries out its mission by: Maintaining a diverse membership, including special programs to promote interest and develop expertise in the next generation of foreign policy leaders; Convening meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, DC, and other cities where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders, and prominent thinkers come together with Council members to discuss and debate major international issues; Supporting a Studies Program that fosters independent research, enabling Council scholars to produce articles, reports, and books and hold roundtables that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations; Publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal of international affairs and U.S. foreign policy; Sponsoring Independent Task Forces that produce reports with both findings and policy prescriptions on the most important foreign policy topics; and Providing up-to-date information and analysis about world events and American foreign policy on its website, CFR.org.
Topic:: Economics, Education, Globalization, and National Security
Political Geography:: United States, New York, America, and Washington

23. The Tea Party and American Foreign Policy

Author:: Walter Russell Mead
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: What does rise of the Tea Party movement mean for U.S. foreign policy? Since today's populists have little interest in creating a liberal world order, U.S. policymakers will have to find some way to satisfy their angry domestic constituencies while also working effectively in the international arena.
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States and America

24. The Post-Washington Consensus

Author:: Francis Fukuyama and Nancy Birdsall
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The American version of capitalism is no longer dominant around the world. In the next decade, developing countries are likely to continue to trade the flexibility and efficiency associated with the free-market model for domestic policies meant to ensure greater resilience in the face of competitive pressures and global economic trauma.
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America and Washington

25. The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge

Author:: Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo
Publication Date:: 03-2011
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: This paper examines the evolving structure of the American economy, specifically, the trends in employment, value added, and value added per employee from 1990 to 2008. These trends are closely connected with complementary trends in the size and structure of the global economy, particularly in the major emerging economies. Employing historical time series data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. industries are separated into internationally tradable and nontradable components, allowing for employment and value-added trends at both the industry and the aggregate level to be examined. Value added grew across the economy, but almost all of the incremental employment increase of 27.3 million jobs was on the nontradable side. On the nontradable side, government and health care are the largest employers and provided the largest increments (an additional 10.4 million jobs) over the past two decades. There are obvious questions about whether those trends can continue; without fast job creation in the nontradable sector, the United States would already have faced a major employment challenge.
Topic:: Economics, Markets, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:: United States and America

26. Progress and the Past

Author:: Peter Hakim
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: No abstract is available.
Political Geography:: China, America, Brazil, Latin America, Syria, Venezuela, and Bolivia

27. The Impending Squeeze

Author:: Tim W. Ferguson, Charles B. Heck, and Mitchell W. Hedstrom
Publication Date:: 05-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: ESSAY American Profligacy and American Power Roger C. Altman and Richard N. Haass The U.S. government is incurring debt at an unprecedented rate. If U.S. leaders do not act to curb their debt addiction, then the global capital markets will do so for them, forcing a sharp and punitive adjustment in fiscal policy. The result will be an age of American austerity. Would you like to leave a comment? 1CommentsJoin To the Editor: Roger Altman and Richard Haass ("American Profligacy and American Power," November/December 2010) persuasively argue that continued American profligacy promises to undermine American power. But the situation is even more urgent than they suggest. Although Altman and Haass expect markets to remain calm "possibly for two or three years," the rising price of gold suggests otherwise. Gold has risen from $460 per ounce to $1,400 per ounce in the last five years -- representing a 67 percent devaluation of the U.S. dollar per unit of gold. As former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan has said, gold is "the ultimate means of payment." Moreover, on top of new government debt over the next several years, maturing existing debt will need to be refinanced. At 4.6 years, the average maturity of the U.S. federal debt held by the public (debt that now totals $9.1 trillion) is tight relative to, for instance, the average maturity of 13.5 years for British government debt. According to the International Monetary Fund, the maturing debt of the U.S. government will equal 18.1 percent of U.S. GDP during 2011 alone. Altman and Haass rightly note that the U.S. government's annual interest expense will rise dramatically as its stock of debt increases and interest rates inevitably rise. Further debt increases would substantially darken the fiscal outlook for the federal government. And even a relatively small rise in interest rates would have a significant impact. TIM W. FERGUSON Editor, Forbes Asia CHARLES B. HECK Former North American Director, Trilateral Commission MITCHELL W. HEDSTROM Managing Director, TIAA-CREF
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Asia

28. The Secrets of Germany's Success

Author:: Steven Rattner
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As Americans fret about their economic decline, Germans are celebrating their country's success as a manufacturing juggernaut. Obama's former auto czar explains the key to Germany's export boom -- and how the United States can emulate it.
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Germany

29. Are U.S. Borders Secure?

Author:: Edward Alden and Bryan Roberts
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In response to record numbers of illegal border crossings and the security fears triggered by the 9/11 attacks, over the past two decades the United States has steadily increased its efforts to secure its borders against illegal immigration. The number of U.S. Border Patrol agents has risen from fewer than 3,000 to more than 20,700; nearly 700 miles of fencing have been built along the southern border with Mexico; and surveillance systems, including pilotless drones, now monitor much of the rest of the border. In a speech in El Paso, Texas, in May, U.S. President Barack Obama claimed that the United States had "strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible." Yet according to spring 2011 Rasmussen poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans think the border is no more, or even less, secure than it was five years ago. Some administration critics claim that the United States' frontiers have never been more porous. This contradiction stems in part from the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has never clearly defined what border control means in practice. A secure border cannot mean one with no illegal crossings -- that would be unrealistic for almost any country, especially one as big and as open as the United States. On the other hand, the borders cannot be considered secure if many of those attempting to enter illegally succeed. Defining a sensible middle ground, where border enforcement and other programs discourage many illegal crossings and most of those who try to cross illegally are apprehended, is the challenge. Unfortunately, the U.S. government has failed to develop good measures for fixing goals and determining progress toward them. Since 2005, the DHS has reported how many miles of the country's land borders are under its "operational control," but it has done so without having clearly defined what that standard means and without providing hard data to back it up. The lack of sound measurement has left the administration touting its efforts rather than their results: during a press conference in 2010, Obama noted, "We have more of everything: ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], Border Patrol, surveillance, you name it. So we take border security seriously."
Topic:: Security and Border Control
Political Geography:: United States and America

30. How Health Care Can Save or Sink America

Author:: Peter R. Orszag
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States' fiscal future depends on whether the country can limit health-care costs. Obama's reforms were a major step in the right direction, argues the former White House budget director. But to finish the job, the U.S. medical system must evolve so that it emphasizes evidence and pursues quality rather than quantity.
Topic:: Health
Political Geography:: United States and America

31. Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring

Author:: F. Gregory Gause III
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The vast majority of academic specialists on the Arab world were as surprised as everyone else by the upheavals that toppled two Arab leaders last winter and that now threaten several others. It was clear that Arab regimes were deeply unpopular and faced serious demographic, economic, and political problems. Yet many academics focused on explaining what they saw as the most interesting and anomalous aspect of Arab politics: the persistence of undemocratic rulers. Until this year, the Arab world boasted a long list of such leaders. Muammar al-Qaddafi took charge of Libya in 1969; the Assad family has ruled Syria since 1970; Ali Abdullah Saleh became president of North Yemen (later united with South Yemen) in 1978; Hosni Mubarak took charge of Egypt in 1981; and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali ascended to Tunisia's presidency in 1987. The monarchies enjoyed even longer pedigrees, with the Hashemites running Jordan since its creation in 1920, the al-Saud family ruling a unified Saudi Arabia since 1932, and the Alaouite dynasty in Morocco first coming to power in the seventeenth century. These regimes survived over a period of decades in which democratic waves rolled through East Asia, eastern Europe, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Even the Arab countries' neighbors in the Muslim Middle East (Iran and Turkey) experienced enormous political change in that period, with a revolution and three subsequent decades of political struggle in Iran and a quasi-Islamist party building a more open and democratic system in secular Turkey.
Political Geography:: America, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia

32. The City and the State

Author:: Sandy Hornick
Publication Date:: 07-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: New books by Witold Rybczynski and Edward Glaeser celebrate the ever-changing American urban experience. In proposing how to revitalize modern cities, however, both books underplay the critical role of the government.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America

33. Leaving Afghanistan to the Afghans

Author:: David M. Rodriguez
Publication Date:: 09-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the summer of 2011, I visited the Afghan army's Regional Military Training Center in Helmand Province. The recruits had been there for two weeks, and they looked as strong as any group of U.S. soldiers in basic training. The Afghan drill instructors were as competent, and had the same cocky swagger, as American ones. "Sir, look at all of our volunteers," one drill sergeant proudly said to me. "They're great. We have already won. . . . We just don't know it yet." To comprehend the United States' progress in Afghanistan, it is important to understand how and where we have focused our resources and what work lies ahead. To be sure, the United States and its coalition partners still have plenty of challenges left to tackle in Afghanistan. However, there are indisputable gains everywhere we have focused our efforts. In 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, with the help of David Petraeus, then the commander of the U.S. Central Command, worked hard to design a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign for Afghanistan that would "get the inputs right," as Petraues often said. The upshot was more resources, troops, and civilian support and better command coherence. There are now more Afghan and coalition soldiers in Helmand and Kandahar Provinces alone than there were in all of Regional Command East, the formation responsible for security in Afghanistan's 14 eastern provinces, when I commanded the latter from 2007 to 2008. As 33,000 U.S. troops begin the drawdown, returning to the United States by next summer, 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police will be in place to continue their work. There are clear signs of progress in Afghanistan, and coalition forces have regained the initiative. The strategy has worked because it sought to match the coalition's goals with available resources. It involved four major concepts. First, use a bottom-up approach founded on good governance, capable security forces, and engagement with local communities. If towns had good leaders and security providers, populations would find local solutions to their local problems, with just a little help from Kabul. Insurgents could no longer exploit popular grievances about security, justice, and a lack of basic services.
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and America

34. The True Costs of Humanitarian Intervention

Author:: Benjamin A. Valentino
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: As forces fighting Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi consolidated control of Tripoli in the last days of August 2011, many pundits began speaking of a victory not just for the rebels but also for the idea of humanitarian intervention. In Libya, advocates of intervention argued, U.S. President Barack Obama had found the formula for success: broad regional and international support, genuine burden sharing with allies, and a capable local fighting force to wage the war on the ground. Some even heralded the intervention as a sign of an emerging Obama doctrine. It is clearly too soon for this kind of triumphalism, since the final balance of the Libyan intervention has yet to be tallied. The country could still fall into civil war, and the new Libyan government could turn out to be little better than the last. As of this writing, troubling signs of infighting among the rebel ranks had begun to emerge, along with credible reports of serious human rights abuses by rebel forces. Yet even if the intervention does ultimately give birth to a stable and prosperous democracy, this outcome will not prove that intervention was the right choice in Libya or that similar interventions should be attempted elsewhere. To establish that requires comparing the full costs of intervention with its benefits and asking whether those benefits could be achieved at a lower cost. The evidence from the last two decades is not promising on this score. Although humanitarian intervention has undoubtedly saved lives, Americans have seriously underappreciated the moral, political, and economic price involved. This does not mean that the United States should stop trying to promote its values abroad, even when its national security is not at risk. It just needs a different strategy. Washington should replace its focus on military intervention with a humanitarian foreign policy centered on saving lives by funding public health programs in the developing world, aiding victims of natural disasters, and assisting refugees fleeing violent conflict. Abandoning humanitarian intervention in most cases would not mean leaving victims of genocide and repression to their fate. Indeed, such a strategy could actually save far more people, at a far lower price.
Topic:: Security, Government, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: America, Washington, and Libya

35. Manufacturing Globalization

Author:: Robert Z. Lawrence, Richard Katz, and Michael Spence
Publication Date:: 11-2011
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: TROUBLE ON THE HOME FRONT Richard Katz A decade ago, the great American jobs train fell off its tracks. Traditionally, boosts in private-sector employment have accompanied recoveries from economic downturns. In the first seven years after the beginning of the 1980 and 1990 recessions, for example, the number of private-sector jobs increased by 14 percent. Yet in January 2008, seven years after the previous pre-recession peak and before the most recent recession began, private-sector jobs were up only four percent. Today, for the first time in the postwar era, there are fewer of these jobs than there were ten years before. Ignoring the overall dearth of jobs, Michael Spence (“The Impact of Globalization on Income and Unemployment,” July/August 2011) singles out the fraction of employment in sectors related to trade. He claims that China and other developing countries have taken U.S. jobs and blames globalization for the substantial increase in income inequality across the country. It is misleading, he says, to argue that “the most important forces operating on the structure of the U.S. economy are internal, not external.” He is wrong: the fault lies not in China or South Korea but at home.
Topic:: Globalization
Political Geography:: China, America, and South Korea

36. 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

37. 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

38. American Profligacy and American Power

Author:: Richard N. Haass and Roger C. Altman
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The U.S. government is incurring debt at an unprecedented rate. If U.S. leaders do not act to curb their debt addiction, then the global capital markets will do so for them, forcing a sharp and punitive adjustment in fiscal policy. The result will be an age of American austerity.
Topic:: Economics, Government, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and America

39. Back to School

Author:: Arne Duncan
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: U.S. students now compete throughout their careers with their peers in other countries. But thinking of the future as a contest among countries vying to get larger pieces of a finite economic pie is a recipe for protectionism and global strife. Instead, Americans must realize that expanding educational attainment everywhere is the best way to grow the pie for all.
Topic:: Cold War and Economics
Political Geography:: America and South Korea

40. Conflict or Cooperation?

Author:: Richard K. Betts
Publication Date:: 11-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: After the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, and John Mearsheimer each presented a bold vision of what the driving forces of world politics would be. The world in 2010 hardly seems on a more promising track -- a reminder that simple visions, however powerful, do not hold up as reliable predictors of particular developments.
Topic:: Cold War
Political Geography:: China and America

41. Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos

Author:: Niall Ferguson
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: NIALL FERGUSON is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His most recent book is The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. There is no better illustration of the life cycle of a great power than The Course of Empire, a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole that hang in the New-York Historical Society. Cole was a founder of the Hudson River School and one of the pioneers of nineteenth-century American landscape painting; in The Course of Empire, he beautifully captured a theory of imperial rise and fall to which most people remain in thrall to this day.
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, America, and Iran

42. Armistice Now: An Interim Agreement for Israel and Palestine

Author:: Ehud Yaari
Publication Date:: 03-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: More than 16 years after the euphoria of the Oslo accords, the Israelis and the Palestinians have still not reached a final-status peace agreement. Indeed, the last decade has been dominated by setbacks -- the second intifada, which started in September 2000; Hamas' victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections; and then its military takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 -- all of which have aggravated the conflict.
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: America, Israel, Palestine, and Arabia

43. 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

44. 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

45. An Elegy for Journalism?

Author:: Peter Osnos
Publication Date:: 01-2010
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The rise of American foreign reporting was marked by outsized personalities and an expansive sense of mission. Today, the craft is in steady decline. But what will be lost if journalism disappears?
Political Geography:: America

46. 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

47. Parsing Iran's 'Momentous' Internal Drama

Author:: Karim Sadjadpour
Publication Date:: 06-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Karim Sadjadpour, a leading Iranian analyst who worked for four years in Iran for the International Crisis Group, says that given the "unprecedented" scale of protests in Iran over the presidential election results, "it's very difficult to see how the status quo ante could prevail no matter what happens." However, he believes the United States should continue trying to stay out of the political infighting in Iran. "This is extremely delicate and the situation is so dynamic," Sadjadpour says. "We clearly have to be on the right side of history here, but if we try to insert ourselves into the momentous internal Iranian drama that's unfolding we may unwittingly undermine those whom we're trying to strengthen."
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Islam, Politics, and Insurgency
Political Geography:: America and Iran

48. U.S. Immigration Policy

Author:: Jeb Bush and Thomas McLarty
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States, a country shaped by generations of immigrants and their descendants, is badly mishandling its immigration policy, with serious consequences for its standing in the world. The urgency of this issue has led the Council on Foreign Relations to convene an Independent Task Force to deal with what is ordinarily regarded as a domestic policy matter. America's openness to and respect for immigrants has long been a foundation of its economic and military strength, and a vital tool in its diplomatic arsenal. With trade, technology, and travel continuing to shrink the world, the manner in which the United States handles immigration will be increasingly important to American foreign policy in the future. The Task Force believes that the continued failure to devise and implement a sound and sustainable immigration policy threatens to weaken America's economy, to jeopardize its diplomacy, and to imperil its national security.
Topic:: Security, Economics, and Immigration
Political Geography:: United States and America

49. Globalization in Retreat

Author:: Roger C. Altman
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: It is now clear that the global economic crisis will be deep and prolonged and that it will have far-reaching geopolitical consequences. The long movement toward market liberalization has stopped, and a new period of state intervention, reregulation, and creeping protectionism has begun.
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, America, France, and Germany

50. The Next Top Model?

Author:: Russell Seitz
Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: David Victor, M. Granger Morgan, Jay Apt, John Steinbruner, and Katharine Ricke ("The Geoengineering Option," March/April 2009) date geoengineering to the twentieth century, but it has been an integral part of the landscape of history. Although Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751, "We are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light," little credit is due to young George Washington's hatchet work. Fire in the hands of Neolithic man had already transformed the ecology -- and the albedo -- of Australia and the Americas eons before.
Political Geography:: America and Australia

51. Born Again in the U.S.A.

Author:: Timothy Samuel Shah
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Religion and modernity were never expected to go hand in hand, and for centuries they coexisted uncomfortably. But thanks to the entrepreneurial model of American evangelicals, argue two journalists at The Economist, God is back.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: America

52. 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

53. The Forgotten Front

Author:: Christopher S. Bond and Lewis M. Simons
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Barack Obama's planned visit to Indonesia this November is not only a sentimental journey to his childhood home. It also represents a long-overdue recognition that to recapture the admiration and respect of the world's Muslims, Washington should focus neither on the stalemated chessboard of the Middle East nor on the chaotic Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Rather, it should concentrate its efforts in Southeast Asia, an increasingly democratic and peaceful region that is also beginning to face the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The last time Americans took a sober look at Southeast Asia, military helicopters were snatching the last U.S. officials off Saigon rooftops as Vietcong soldiers marched on the panicked capital. Soon after the fall of Saigon, in 1975, Cambodia and Laos were toppled by their own domestic communist movements. Thailand trembled with the fear of North Vietnamese tanks churning across the Mekong River, and the other so-called dominoes shook, too. But the dreaded threat failed to materialize. More than three decades later, Americans no longer concern themselves with this corner of the world. One day, the United States' future seemed inextricably bound to Southeast Asia's; the next, Southeast Asia was forgotten. This is an all-too-familiar pattern: Washington ignores a country or region until it blows up; then, it belatedly discovers such nations and obsesses clumsily over them; and finally, it relapses into a self-imposed torpor, allowing new threats to emerge. This was the case in Afghanistan during the 1990s after it ceased to be useful as a bulwark against Soviet expansion, and it may also prove true of Southeast Asia today if Washington does not awaken to the region's growing importance. Southeast Asia is home to 250 million Muslims, concentrated in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand -- the supposed dominoes of the Vietnam era. Indonesia has the world's single largest Muslim population: 220 million -- three times as large as that of Egypt, the most populous Arab nation. Yet Indonesia remains truly unknown to most Americans.
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, America, Middle East, and Southeast Asia

54. War About Terror: Civil Liberties and National Security After 9/11

Author:: Daniel B. Prieto
Publication Date:: 02-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Political leaders, lawyers, and scholars have long grappled with questions of how to protect fundamental freedoms in times of national crisis. Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist observed that “the government's authority to engage in conduct that infringes civil liberty is greatest in time of declared war.” This observation is highly relevant in today's national security context. In an environment shaped by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, securing the U.S. homeland from fur the attacks and confronting terrorist networks abroad are central priorities of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Yet the transformation of the U.S. security apparatus after 9/11 and a range of new national security programs have generated widespread concern over the protection of international human rights, democratic norms, and a number of rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution that form, collectively, the civil liberties of the American people.
Topic:: Intelligence, Terrorism, and Torture
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Middle East

55. Trade Liberalization: Cordell Hull and the Case for Optimism

Author:: Douglas A. Irwin
Publication Date:: 07-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The news from Geneva of the breakdown of the Doha Round after seven years of effort has generated a great deal of pessimism about the future of multilateral trade agreements. America's troubles with the World Trade Organization (WTO) are of course only the beginning. There are also domestic problems when it comes to trade policy, an issue that ties together America's economic prosperity and its global political influence. Recent public opinion polls in the United States reveal increased skepticism about the benefits of globalization and diminished support for free trade policies. The post–World War II bipartisan consensus in favor of open trade has broken up, leading to gr eater resistance to new trade agreements in Congress, as reflected in the House's recent decision to postpone consideration of the Colombia free trade agreement (FTA). Despite efforts in the Doha Round to limit agricultural subsidies, Congress recently showered domestic farmers with more cash in the recently passed Farm Bill, even at a time when commodity prices are soaring.
Topic:: Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:: Geneva, United States, America, and Colombia

56. Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States: Assessing Sources of Systemic Risk

Author:: Monty G. Marshall
Publication Date:: 10-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A public debate over the threat posed by weak, fragile, failing, and failed states and what can or should be done about them has become increasing visible and vocal since the attacks of September 11, 2001. As President George W. Bush declared in his 2002 National Security Strategy report: “America is now threatened less by conquering states than ... by failing ones.” This debate has grown particularly acute as the United States' prolonged military response to the war on global terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq has revealed the difficulties of controlling militancy and extremism by direct military intervention and enforced democratic change. The challenges associated with weak or failing states have garnered increase d attention by the policy community, but major differences about how to assess the level of risk in any given case remain.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, International Relations, Foreign Policy, Political Violence, Development, Diplomacy, Government, and International Security
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and America

57. 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

58. America's Priorities in the War on Terror: Islamists, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan

Author:: Michael D. Huckabee
Publication Date:: 01-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. In particular, it should focus on eliminating Islamist terrorists, stabilizing Iraq, containing Iran, and toughening its stance with Pakistan.
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Iraq, America, and Iran

59. America the Resilient: Defying Terrorism and Mitigating Natural Disasters

Author:: Stephen E. Flynn
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: A climate of fear and a sense of powerlessness caused by the threats of terrorism and natural disasters are undermining American ideals and fueling political demagoguery. Rebuilding the resilience of American society is the way to reverse this and respond to today's challenges.
Political Geography:: America

60. Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism

Author:: Jerry Z. Muller
Publication Date:: 03-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.
Political Geography:: America

61. 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

62. Freight Pain

Author:: Marc Levinson
Publication Date:: 11-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The golden age of globalization is over due to slower, costlier, and less certain transportation. In retrospect, Americans may lament too little globalization, not too much.
Topic:: Globalization
Political Geography:: America

63. Sovereign Wealth and Sovereign Power: The Strategic Consequences of American Indebtedness

Author:: Brad W. Setser
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the 1870s, the scope of Great Britain's financial empire exceeded the scope of its political empire. Dependence on British investors sometimes was a precursor, though, to informal—or even formal— political control. When Egypt's khedive needed to raise cash to cover his personal debt to private British banks, he sold his large personal stake in the Suez Canal to the British state. Egypt's ruler did little better managing Egypt's public debt: difficulties making payments led Britain and France to assume control over Egypt's treasury and, by 1882, to full British political control.
Topic:: Economics, Government, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:: Britain, United States, America, and Egypt

64. 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

65. The New Israel and the Old

Author:: Walter Russell Mead
Publication Date:: 07-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The real key to Washington's pro-Israel policy is long-lasting and broad-based support for the Jewish state among the American public at large.
Political Geography:: America, Washington, and Israel

66. The Future of North America

Author:: Robert A. Pastor
Publication Date:: 07-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: It's time to integrate further with Canada and Mexico, not separate from them.
Political Geography:: America

67. Mirrors And Smoke

Author:: Stephen R. Graubard
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Foreign Affairs
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Condoleezza Rice ("The New American Realism," July/August 2008) evokes a certain sympathy but also substantial disappointment with her account of the accomplishments of the Bush administration over the last eight years. Her argument is undeniably poignant, especially for its hyperbole and obfuscation. It is embarrassing that she should offer so self-serving an account of the pretended achievements of the Bush administration, given that its foreign policy disasters are well known.
Political Geography:: America

68. 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

69. Climate Change and National Security: An Agenda for Action

Author:: Joshua W. Busby
Publication Date:: 11-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Americans witnessed on their own soil what looked like an overseas humanitarian-relief operation. The storm destroyed much of the city, causing more than $80 billion in damages, killing more than 1,800 people, and displacing in excess of 270,000. More than 70,000 soldiers were mobilized, including 22,000 active duty troops and 50,000-plus members of the National Guard (about 10 percent of the total Guard strength). Katrina also had severe effects on critical infrastructure, taking crude oil production and refinery capacity off-line for an unprecedented length of time. At a time when the United States was conducting military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country suddenly had to divert its attention and military resources to respond to a domestic emergency.
Topic:: International Relations, Climate Change, and Development
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and America

70. The United States and the WTO Dispute Settlement System

Author:: Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:: 03-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States likes to think of itself as a nation that abides by its treaties and commitments. Successive U.S. administrations have taken the obligations implied by international agreements seriously: They have opted out of parts of many agreements for fear that compliance would be contrary to U.S. interests, and have refused outright to sign some treaties on the grounds of potential legal exposure. But U.S. behavior toward the World Trade Organization is different; in this case, the United States has been quite willing to accept binding multilateral rules. Yet, the United States has also been repeatedly judged to be in violation of its WTO commitments by the organization's dispute settlement panels, and although some violations could be ascribed to uncertainties about the meaning of the rules, the United States is also guilty of disregarding the rules deliberately. Opinion in Congress sometimes encourages this behavior; legislators are less likely to question the legitimacy of U.S. conduct than to question the WTO's authority to pass judgment over the United States. Moreover, these tensions are likely to escalate if the Doha Round of global trade negotiations breaks down. If the diplomatic route to market access is blocked, trading partners will seek access to U.S. consumers by bringing more cases before the WTO's tribunals. A surge in such cases could increase resentment of the WTO in the United States, weakening America's commitment to its traditional postwar role as the bulwark of the international trading system. This would be unfortunate, because even without changes in the behavior of its trading partners, the rules of the WTO improve the performance of the U.S. economy.
Topic:: International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:: United States and America

71. Generating Momentum for a New Era in U.S.-Turkey Relations

Author:: Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Stephen Cook
Publication Date:: 06-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The growing schism between the West and the Islamic world is one of the primary challenges confronting American foreign and defense policymakers. As a consequence, the relationship between the United States and Turkey—a Western-oriented, democratizing Muslim country—is strategically more important than ever. Turkey has the potential to be an invaluable partner as Washington endeavors to chart an effective course in its relations with the Muslim world. However, to achieve this level of cooperation, U.S.-Turkey relations must be repaired and modernized.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Diplomacy
Political Geography:: United States, America, Washington, Turkey, and North America

72. Reforming U.S. Patent Policy: Getting the Incentives Right

Author:: Keith E. Mascus
Publication Date:: 11-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: America's robust economic competitiveness is du e in no small part to a large capacity for innovation. That capacity is imperiled, however, by an increasingly overprotective patent system. Over the past twenty-five years, American legislators and judges have operated on the principle that stronger patent protection engenders more innovation. This principle is misguided. Although intellectual property rights (IPR) play an important role in innovation, the recent increase in patent protection has not spurred innovation so much as it has impeded the development and use of new technologies.
Topic:: Development, Economics, and Markets
Political Geography:: United States, China, and America

73. Foreign Investment and National Security: Getting the Balance Right

Author:: David M. Marchick and Alan P. Larson
Publication Date:: 07-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Despite the significant benefits that foreign investment brings to the U.S. economy, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 53 percent of Americans believe foreign ownership of U.S. companies is “bad for America,” a sentiment that reached a boiling point with the proposed acquisition of the U.S. port operations of P Steam Navigation Company by Dubai Ports World (DPW). The DPW case brought to the public's attention the little-known executive committee charged with reviewing the security risks of foreign investment—the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)—and ignited a flurry of congressional activity to change its mandate and operations under the Exon-Florio Amendment to the Defense Production Act of 1950.
Topic:: Security, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:: United States, America, and Dubai

74. Getting Serious about the Twin Deficits

Author:: Menzie D. Chinn
Publication Date:: 09-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Twenty years ago, the United States was the world's largest creditor nation, unsurpassed in its ownership of assets outside of its borders, even after deducting what foreigners owned inside its borders. Yet over the past two decades, America has been transformed into the world's largest debtor nation. At the end of 2004, its debts to the rest of the world exceeded its assets by about $2.5 trillion—21 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). This proportion is unmatched by any other major developed economy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:: United States and America

75. Finding America's Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy

Author:: Peter G. Peterson, Kathy Bloomgarden, Henry Grunwald, David E. Morey, Shibley Telhami, Jennifer Sieg, and Sharon Herbstman
Publication Date:: 09-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: The United States has a growing problem. Public opinion polls echo what is seen in foreign editorials and headlines, legislative debate, and reports of personal and professional meetings. Anti- Americanism is a regular feature of both mass and elite opinion around the world. A poll by the Times of London, taken just before the Iraq war, found respondents split evenly over who posed a greater threat to world peace, U.S. President George W. Bush or then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. At the same time, European antiwar protests drew millions, and several national leaders ran successfully on anti- American platforms. Americans at home and abroad face an increased risk of direct attack from individuals and small groups that now wield more destructive power. The amount of discontent in the world bears a direct relationship to the amount of danger Americans face.
Topic:: International Relations and Diplomacy
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Europe

76. A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:: Lawrence J. Korb
Publication Date:: 05-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: From the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001, and even now after the Iraq war of 2003, the United States has not had a consistent national security strategy that enjoyed the support of the American people and our allies. This situation is markedly different from the Cold War era when our nation had a clear, coherent, widely supported strategy that focused on containing and deterring Soviet Communist expansion. The tragic events of September 11, the increase in terrorism, and threats from countries such as North Korea and, until recently, Iraq, create an imperative once again to fashion and implement a coherent national security strategy that will safeguard our national interests.
Topic:: Defense Policy and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, Israel, East Asia, North Korea, and Berlin

77. Iraq: The Day After

Author:: Thomas R. Pickering and James R. Schlesinger
Publication Date:: 03-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: If the United States goes to war and removes the regime of Saddam Hussein, American interests will demand an extraordinary commitment of U.S. financial and personnel resources to postconflict transitional assistance and reconstruction. These interests include eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD); ending Iraqi contacts, whether limited or extensive, with international terrorist organizations; ensuring that a post-transition Iraqi government can maintain the country's territorial integrity and independence while contributing to regional stability; and offering the people of Iraq a future in which they have a meaningful voice in the vital decisions that impact their lives.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Economics, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

78. Enhancing U.S. Leadership at the United Nations

Author:: Lee Feinstein, David Dreier, Lee Hamilton, and Adrian Karatnycky
Publication Date:: 10-2002
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Enhanced American leadership at the United Nations is beneficial for U.S. interests and can help strengthen the UN and the international system. For many years, however, the United States has not been nearly as effective at the UN as it can or should be.
Topic:: Government, International Cooperation, and United Nations
Political Geography:: United States and America

79. Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century

Author:: Edward L. Morse and Amy Myers Jaffe
Publication Date:: 04-2001
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: For many decades the United States has not had a comprehensive energy policy. Now, the consequences of this complacency have revealed themselves in California. Now, there could be more California-like situations in America's future. President George W. Bush and his administration need to tell these agonizing truths to the American people and lay the basis for a comprehensive, long-term U.S. energy security policy.
Political Geography:: America and California

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS