Tag Archives: Foreign Affairs

Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Government, Magazines, Politics, Reviews

Politics: Foreign Affairs Magazine- January 2024

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Foreign Affairs (December 13, 2023): The new January/February 2024 issue features ‘The Self-Doubting Superpower’ – America shouldn’t give up on the World It Made; The Middle East Remade; Why Israel Slept; Hamas’s Advantage, and more….

The Self-Doubting Superpower

America Shouldn’t Give Up on the World It Made

By Fareed Zakaria

Most Americans think their country is in decline. In 2018, when the Pew Research Center asked Americans how they felt their country would perform in 2050, 54 percent of respondents agreed that the U.S. economy would be weaker. An even larger number, 60 percent, agreed that the United States would be less important in the world. This should not be surprising; the political atmosphere has been pervaded for some time by a sense that the country is headed in the wrong direction. According to a long-running Gallup poll, the share of Americans who are “satisfied” with the way things are going has not crossed 50 percent in 20 years. It currently stands at 20 percent.

Why Israel Slept

The War in Gaza and the Search for Security

By Amos Yadlin and Udi Evental

In a barbaric surprise attack launched by Hamas on October 7, more Jews were slaughtered than on any day since the Holocaust. Thousands of elite Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip infiltrated small communities and cities in southern Israel, where they proceeded to commit sadistic, repulsive crimes against humanity, filming their vile deeds and boasting about them to friends and family back home.

Foreign Affairs, Government, Politics, Reviews, Society, Videos

Turkey At 100 – Ataturk’s Dream & Erdogan’s Reality

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DW News (October 29, 2023) – Turkey is celebrating its 100th birthday. Events are taking place across the country to mark the anniversary of its founding.

In the capital Ankara, Pesident Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid a wreath at the mausoleum dedicated to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founder, who created a modern, secular republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

The centennial is also a personal milestone for Erdogan, who has been in power for more than 20 years. But challenges loom large as Turkey looks to the future. More from our correspondent Julia Hahn in Istanbul.

Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Government, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Foreign Affairs Magazine- NOV/DEC 2023

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Foreign Affairs November/December 2023: The new issue features  new essays by today’s leading policymakers and thinkers, including U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on the future of American foreign policy, former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy on how artificial intelligence will transform the military, and scholars Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman on the convergence of economic and national security. 

The Sources of American Power

A Foreign Policy for a Changed World

By Jake Sullivan

Nothing in world politics is inevitable. The underlying elements of national power, such as demography, geography, and natural resources, matter, but history shows that these are not enough to determine which countries will shape the future. It is the strategic decisions countries make that matter most—how they organize themselves internally, what they invest in, whom they choose to align with and who wants to align with them, which wars they fight, which they deter, and which they avoid.

The Dysfunctional Superpower

Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?

By Robert M. Gates

The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today.

Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Military, Reviews, Videos

Analysis: How Powerful Is Hamas? (The Economist)

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The Economist (October 13, 2023) – On October 7th Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on Israel and slaughtered more than 1,300 people, mostly civilians. What is Hamas and how powerful is it?

Video timeline: 00:00 – What is Hamas? 00:55 – Hamas’s control of Gaza 01:18 – Growth of Hamas military capacity 01:32 – The latest attack on Israel

Analysis, Essays, Foreign Affairs, Magazines, Politics, Reviews

Essay: The Dysfunctional Superpower – Can America Deter China And Russia?

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“Xi’s sense of personal destiny entails significant risk of war…”

Foreign Affairs (September 29, 2023): The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today.

The problem, however, is that at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response from the United States, the country cannot provide one. Its fractured political leadership—Republican and Democratic, in the White House and in Congress—has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter. Political leaders have failed to explain how the threats posed by these countries are interconnected. They have failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail.

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Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Interviews, Military, Podcasts

Ukraine War: An Interview With President Zelensky

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The Economist (September 11, 2023) – As the counter-offensive continues, Ukrainian forces are running out of time to make substantial gains. Diplomatic attempts to isolate Russia have failed and progress on the front lines is slowing. From the capital Kyiv, the president tells The Economist’s editor-in-chief how the country is bracing for a long war.

Foreign Policy, Government, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Foreign Policy Magazine – Fall 2023

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Foreign Policy Magazine – Fall 2023: The new issue features The G-7 Becomes a Power Player – Russia’s war and China’s rise are turning a talking shop into a fledgling alliance of democracies; Vivek Ramaswamy’s Foreign Policies Raise Eyebrows in Washington – The GOP’s rising star offers up a grab bag of ideas cribbed from Eminem to Richard Nixon and more…

The G-7 Becomes a Power Player

Foreign Policy – the Global Magazine of News and Ideas

Russia’s war and China’s rise are turning a talking shop into a fledgling alliance of democracies.

By G. John Ikenberry, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University.

Time and again over the last century, the United States and the other liberal democracies in Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere have found themselves on the same side in grand struggles over the terms of the world order. This political grouping has been given various names: the West, the free world, the trilateral world, the community of democracies. In one sense, it is a geopolitical formation, uniting North America, Europe, and Japan, among others. It is an artifact of the Cold War and U.S. hegemony, anchored in NATO and Washington’s East Asian alliances.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Foreign Policies Raise Eyebrows in Washington

Vivek Ramaswamy's Foreign Policies Raise Eyebrows in Washington – DNyuz

The GOP’s rising star offers up a grab bag of ideas cribbed from Eminem to Richard Nixon.

By Jack Detsch

End American dependence on Taiwan’s semiconductor factories. Declare economic independence from China. Give India an AUKUS-like submarine deal. And stage a dramatic visit to Moscow to broker a deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Analysis, Business, Foreign Affairs, Reviews, Videos

Analysis: China’s Large Investments In Europe

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CNBC International (August 30, 2023) – China has invested heavily in Europe, particularly in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 when the region was strapped for cash. This means that Chinese firms are now shareholders in many key European infrastructure projects.

These include ports, wind and solar farms, telecommunications, airports – the list goes on. But there are growing fears that Beijing could use its strategic investments to further its own political ambitions. A recent dispute between the Baltic nation of Lithuania and Beijing shed light on potential reactions from China.

It’s led European governments to step up their scrutiny of Chinese investments and attempt to figure out how to redesign their relationship with Beijing. Dr Yu Jie from Chatham House told CNBC that we’re going to see more frictions regarding Chinese investment in Europe looking ahead.

Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Government, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Foreign Affairs Magazine- SEPT/OCT 2023

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Foreign Affairs – September/October 2023: The issue features ‘The Desperation of the Dictators’; Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals; What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip; Xi’s Age of Stagnation – The Great Walling-Off of China, and more…

Delusions of Détente

Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals

By Michael Beckley

With U.S.-Chinese relations worse than they have been in over 50 years, an old fairy tale has resurfaced: if only the United States would talk more to China and accommodate its rise, the two countries could live in peace. The story goes that with ample summitry, Washington could recognize Beijing’s redlines and restore crisis hotlines and cultural exchanges. Over time and through myriad points of face-to-face contact—in other words, reengagement—the two countries could settle into peaceful, if still competitive, coexistence.

The End of the Russian Idea

What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip

By Andrei Kolesnikov

In June 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a special ceremony on the St. Petersburg waterfront to mark the anniversary of three flags: the flag of the Russian Federation, otherwise known as Peter the Great’s tricolor, formally unfurled in 1693; the imperial Russian flag, introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1858; and the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle, adopted by the Soviet state 100 years ago and later used by Joseph Stalin. Putin watched the event from a boat as the National Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Choir performed the national anthem, which, thanks to a law Putin enacted in 2000, has the same melody as its Stalin-era counterpart. 

Economics, Essays, Foreign Affairs, Government, Magazines, Reviews

ESSAYS: CHINA’S ‘ECONOMIC MIRACLE’ HAS NOW ENDED

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Foreign Affairs (August 2, 2023) – As 2022 came to an end, hopes were rising that China’s economy—and, consequently, the global economy—was poised for a surge. After three years of stringent restrictions on movement, mandatory mass testing, and interminable lockdowns, the Chinese government had suddenly decided to abandon its “zero COVID” policy, which had suppressed demand, hampered manufacturing, roiled supply lines, and produced the most significant slowdown that the country’s economy had seen since pro-market reforms began in the late 1970s.

Economic long COVID will likely plague the Chinese economy for years.

In the weeks following the policy change, global prices of oil, copper, and other commodities rose on expectations that Chinese demand would surge. In March, then Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a target for real GDP growth of around five percent, and many external analysts predicted it would go far higher.

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