|
|
May/June 2008
Vol 87, Number 3 << Previous: March/April 2008 FIND FOREIGN AFFAIRS ON A NEWSSTAND NEAR YOU  |  |
Blood Barrels
Michael L. Ross
The world has grown much more peaceful over the past 15 years -- except for oil-rich countries. Oil wealth often wreaks havoc on a country's economy and politics, helps fund insurgents, and aggravates ethnic grievances. And with oil ever more in demand, the problems it spawns are likely to spread further.
Read Preview
After Guantánamo
Kenneth Roth
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.
Read
|
 | |
The Future of American Power
Fareed Zakaria
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.
Read
The Age of Nonpolarity
Richard N. Haass
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.
Read
The Price of the Surge
Steven Simon
The Bush administration's new strategy in Iraq has helped reduce violence. But the surge is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state and may even have made such an outcome less likely -- by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni tribes and pitting them against the central government. The recent short-term gains have thus come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.
Read
Beyond Darfur
Andrew S. Natsios
While the crisis in Darfur simmers, the larger problem of Sudan's survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Old tensions between the Arabs of the Nile River valley, who have held power for a century, and marginalized groups on the country's periphery are turning into a national crisis. Engagement with Khartoum may be the only way to avert another civil war in Sudan, and even that may not be enough.
Read
The Trouble With Congo
Séverine Autesserre
Although the war in Congo officially ended in 2003, two million people have died since. One of the reasons is that the international community's peacekeeping efforts there have not focused on the local grievances in eastern Congo, especially those over land, that are fueling much of the broader tensions. Until they do, the nation's security and that of the wider Great Lakes region will remain uncertain.
Read Preview
The Case Against the West
Kishore Mahbubani
The West is not welcoming Asia's progress, and its short-term interests in preserving its privileged position in various global institutions are trumping its long-term interests in creating a more just and stable world order. The West has gone from being the world's problem solver to being its single biggest liability.
Read Preview
|
 | |
The Distant Horizon
Paul Kennedy
William Bernstein's A Splendid Exchange, Strobe Talbott's The Great Experiment, and Amy Chua's Day of Empire take up the challenge of "Big History" -- and in the process shed light on the real choices policymakers face.
Read
|
| | |
The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism
Bruce Hoffman
Marc Sageman claims that al Qaeda's leadership is finished and today's terrorist threat comes primarily from below. But the terrorist elites are alive and well, and ignoring the threat they pose will have disastrous consequences.
Read
Putin's Russia
Padma Desai
Read
CIA Chronicles
Amy Zegart
Read
Chinese Ways
Naazneen Barma, Ely Ratner, Steven Weber
Read
Market Blues
Terrence Keeley
Read
Congress at War
Louis Fisher, Ryan Hendrickson, and Stephen R. Weissman
Read
The Road to the Arctic
Coalter G. Lathrop, Scott Borgerson
Read
Recent Books on International Relations
Africa
Asia and Pacific
Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Republics
Middle East
The United States
Western Europe
Western Hemisphere
Economic, Social, and Environmental
Military, Scientific, and Technological
Political and Legal
|
|
|
|
|
