World Policy Journal
Volume XVI, No 3, Fall 1999

 

Agenda for the Year 2000
By Stephen Schlesinger

 

With a presidential election forthcoming at the turn of a new millennium, we at World Policy Journal consider this to be a good time to review the strengths and weaknesses of the American foreign policy agenda. We have asked a number of prominent specialists—journalists and academicians—to take a look at our current global policies and assess what has gone right and what has gone wrong in the past decade or so, and to recommend new ideas and programs that ought to be given consideration by our leaders in the years ahead.

Given our progressive viewpoint here at World Policy Journal (and at the World Policy Institute, which publishes the Journal), we are deeply interested not only in security issues but in the social and ethical implications of America’s overseas engagement. We try to focus broadly in both our editorial and research work on a number of critical norms and values in international society: the preservation of democratic beliefs; the protection of civil rights; the advancement of tolerance, fairness, and the rule of law; and the support of capitalism tempered by social justice.

We have asked our contributors to address the central questions of our age in light of these standards, namely: what constitutes a good society; how effective is foreign assistance; what role should human rights play in formulating policy; how should a sole superpower function on the world stage; what are America’s interests and obligations in its own hemisphere; what are our most important interests; what should America’s role be with respect to global organizations and international law; and who will be our most likely competitors and allies in the first decades of the next century.

Our symposium is organized in three sections. The first examines America’s grand strategy for the twenty-first century, with articles by James Chace and Nicholas X. Rizopoulos, David P. Calleo, and Charles A. Kupchan. The second focuses on America’s long-term values and interests, with essays by David Rieff, Ethan B. Kapstein, Karl E. Meyer, and Jeff Madrick. The third looks at America’s future relations with the emerging regions of the world, with articles by Kenneth Maxwell and Armando Bravo Martinez.

We have undertaken this project in a nonpartisan spirit and in the hope that America’s political leaders, its elected representatives, and others involved with global affairs will find in the essays that follow innovative and commonsense ideas that can serve as the foundation for new thinking in their approaches to American foreign policy.

 

Stephen Schlesinger
Publisher, World Policy Journal
Director, World Policy Institute