World Policy Journal
Volume XX, No 3, Fall 2003

Facing a Janus Decade
The Editors ^*

 

The Roman diety Janus looked both forward and backward, as does this issue of our journal, the first of four to mark our twentieth anniversary. Survival itself is a condition and not a merit, yet given the mortality rate of magazines—most perish in their first few years—it does appear that we have found an audience. Moreover, for our staff, contributors, and sponsoring World Policy Institute, it is justly a matter of pride that for 20 years our pages have reflected a consistency of purpose, tone, and scope.

The principles announced in our founding editorial are as applicable and even more urgently relevant to the uncertain and anxious world Americans confront today:

World Policy is founded on the belief that America faces new opportunities as well as new dangers. For along with the grim realities of expanding nuclear arsenals, deteriorating world economic conditions, and growing turmoil are unmistakable opportunities to put our welfare and that of other societies on a more solid footing. With Europe, we share an interest in more independent allies that are less reliant on American military power and more confident in attempting to mend the scars of the past. With the Soviet Union, we share an interest in bringing the arms race to a halt, in deescalating tensions, and in establishing an atmosphere that allows each of us to address ever more pressing domestic problems. With the Third World, we share a hope for democratization, greater economic justice, and the settling of local conflicts with the least violence, without the intervention of the superpowers or their proxies. And with all countries, we share an interest in reducing the role of military power in international relations, in restructuring the world economy, in bringing democratic collective management to trade, money and finance, and in easing the painful process of industrialization in the Third World and revitalization in the First.

(Signed by our founding editors, Robert C. Johansen, Sherle R. Schwenninger, and Jerry W. Sanders.)

It continues to be our hope to provide a forum for young and unheard voices, to cultivate skepticism about conventional bromides, and to aspire to uncluttered and accessible prose—never underestimating a reader’s intelligence, nor overestimating his or her stock of information. That has been our lodestar under successive editors, and it is gratifying that three of them—Sherle Schwenninger, James Chace, and Karl E. Meyer—are represented in the pages that follow. Building on our first 20 years, retaining the classic elegance of our facelift by the renowned Ivan Chermayeff, and facing another Janus decade with fresh energy and curiosity, we extend our thanks to all who have helped make this journal possible— New School University, the advisory board of the World Policy Institute, our own editorial board, and our readers.

—The Editors