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November/December 2002
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NATO’s Price by Celeste A. Wallander
Debates about NATO’s future usually focus on missions, capabilities, and expansion – but figuring out how to keep wayward members in line is at least as important.
[500-word preview]
Toughest on the Poor: America’s Flawed Tariff System by Edward Gresser
U.S. tariff policy has evolved into something astonishingly tough on the poor, both at home and abroad. This scandalous situation would not be hard to fix.
[500-word preview]
Governing The Internet: Engaging Government, Business, and Nonprofits by A. Zoe Baird
Self-regulation is no longer enough. The future of Internet governance hinges on deploying the strengths of government, business, and nonprofits for the public good.
[500-word preview]
Essays
The Future of AIDS by Nicholas Eberstadt
In the decades ahead, the center of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic is set to shift from Africa to Eurasia. The death toll in that region’s three pivotal countries’Russia, India, and China – could be staggering. This will assuredly be a humanitarian tragedy, but it will be much more than that. The disease will alter the economic potential of the region’s major states and the global balance of power. Moscow, New Delhi, and Beijing could take steps to mitigate the disaster – but so far they have not.
From Prague to Baghdad by G. Strobe Talbott
In Afghanistan, the Bush administration seemed determined at first to keep NATO on the sidelines. Now, as war with Iraq looms and the alliance ponders its own future, the president needs to reaffirm his commitment to the organization by including NATO in any new operation from the beginning. If not, its future relevance may come into question.
[500-word preview]
Russia Renewed? by Daniel Treisman
Most observers think Vladimir Putin is remaking Russia. In fact, although the faces may have changed, Putin’s Russia is more like Yeltsin’s than is generally recognized. Oligarchs still reign, war in Chechnya rages on, and most of Putin’s innovations are superficial. Meanwhile, most of what is new in Russia – the growing economy and Putin’s popularity – owes little to the president’s policies.
[500-word preview]
The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism by Barry Rubin
Despite what many argue, Arab and Muslim rage at the United States has had very little to do with actual U.S. policies – policies that have been been remarkably pro-Arab over the past 50 years. Promoting anti-Americanism is simply the best way Muslim leaders have found to distract their publics from the real problem: internal mismanagement. New U.S. policies or a PR campaign will not change matters.
A Renaissance for U.S. Trade Policy? by C. Fred Bergsten
The Bush administration’s recent protectionist measures have attracted intense international criticism. U.S. backtracking on free trade could give other countries an excuse to do likewise. But critics should note that those measures also made it easier for Bush to win “fast-track” negotiating authority from Congress, providing the political base necessary for further liberalization.
[500-word preview]
The Responsibility to Protect by Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun
Throughout the humanitarian crises of the 1990s, the international community failed to come up with rules on how and when to intervene, and under whose authority. Despite the new focus on terrorism, these debates will not go away. The issue must be reframed as an argument not about the “right to intervene” but about the “responsibility to protect” that all sovereign states owe to their citizens.
[500-word preview]
Humanitarianism in Crisis by David Rieff
Humanitarian organizations have moved to incorporate human rights and development into their increasingly politicized agendas. Yet in the process, they have abandoned the neutrality and independence that were the original hallmarks of the movement. Few seem to notice what is being lost.
[500-word preview]
When Soldiers Become Cops by Rachel Bronson
As Afghanistan has shown, keeping the peace in foreign lands requires a variety of tools – some of which Washington just does not have. Rather than avoid peace-keeping entirely, the U.S. government ends up sending in elite military units that get bogged down for years. Developing a constabulary force would be a better answer.
Can Burma Reform? by Joshua Kurlantzick
Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, faces a burgeoning economic disaster and a looming HIV/AIDS epidemic. In responding to these crises, the United States and its allies should employ both the promise of aid and the threat of sanctions to prod the country’s military rulers toward democracy.
[500-word preview]
Reviews & Responses
In the Beginning by Richard Holbrooke
Warren Zimmermann’s First Great Triumph shows that a century ago Americans were already confronting many of the foreign policy issues on today’s agenda.
Pakistan’s Slide Into Misery by Sumit Ganguly
Three new books detail 50 years of misrule in a country ill served by its overweening military. Now Pervez Musharraf seems bound to repeat these mistakes.
Who Owns Ideas? The War Over Global Intellectual Property by David S. Evans
Copy Fights provides a provocative and balanced introduction to the brewing global battle over intellectual property rights.
Does Saudi Arabia Still Matter? Differing Perspectives on the Kingdom and Its Oil by Shibley Telhami and Fiona Hill et al.
Four authors refuel the debate on Saudi oil; Edward Morse and James Richard reply.
A Tale of Two Wars by Greg Bankoff
Max Boot tells only half the story; U.S. small wars did not look that small to the losers.