Foreign Affairs

Highly personalized leader regimes are coming to the forefront of political systems across the globe

The 2008 war taught Georgia that confrontation with Russia is futile and that it needs Western support.

Two years ago, I argued in these pages that America was suffering from political decay. The country’s constitutional system of checks and balances, combined with partisan polarization and the rise of well-financed interest groups, had combined to yield what I labeled “vetocracy,” a situation in which it was easier to stop government from doing things than it was to use govern­ment to promote the common good. Recurrent budgetary crises, stagnating bureaucracy, and a lack of policy innovation were the hall­marks of a political system in disarray.

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In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed, many economists worried that even if the U.S. economy improved, unemployment would remain high for years to come. Some warned darkly of a “jobless recovery.” Those fears have proved unfounded: since peaking at ten percent in October 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen by half and is now lower than it was in the years leading up to the crisis. Beyond the basic unemployment rate, a broad range of evidence shows that the labor market has largely returned to good health. Compared with earlier in the recovery, far fewer workers are underemployed or underutilized. Long-term unemployment has fallen steadily, from an all-time high of four percent of the labor force in early 2010 to just over one percent today.

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In spite of China's new two-child policy, the trauma of China's one-child policy continues to linger.

Speeding up Georgia’s integration into NATO will leave Moscow unhappy, but losing Georgia would be far worse. 

Beer, wine, and spirits have shaped United States history from the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 to President Nixon’s drunken diplomacy and beyond. Booze has left an indelible mark on the nation’s culture, and has been intertwined in its trajectory from day one.

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World headlines blare the news that negotiators in Paris have reached a global climate change agreement. Yet underneath the soaring rhetoric were hard politics that can tell a lot about the longevity of the agreement.

As the developing world continues to get richer, global inequality will continue to fall. But there is more to the story than this: economic globalization has also increased inequality within individual countries, partially offsetting the effects of the convergence of the rest with the West.

The United Nations should not be held responsible for the failures of its members. Yet the world body still faces pressing challenges of its own. Seven decades after its founding, the United Nations presides over an ever-expanding agenda—and in trying to do too much, it risks doing little well.  

Presidential ExtraEssays for the PresidencyRebooting Republican Foreign PolicyGetting the GOP's Groove BackThe Clinton LegacyRenewing American LeadershipRising to a New Generation of Global ChallengesReengaging With the WorldToward a Realistic PeaceSecurity and Opportunity for the Twenty-first CenturyAn Enduring Peace Built on FreedomA New RealismAmerica's Priorities in the War on TerrorBridges, Bombs, or Bluster?A Strategy of PartnershipsForeign Policy for a Democratic PresidentCampaign 2000: Promoting the National InterestCampaign 2000: A Republican Foreign PolicyCampaign 2000: New World, New Deal: A Democratic Approach to GlobalizationA Republican Looks at Foreign PolicyA Democrat Looks at Foreign PolicyAmerica's First Post-Cold War PresidentA Republican Looks at Foreign PolicyA Democrat Looks at Foreign PolicyThe 1988 Election: U.S. Foreign Policy at a WatershedAmerican Foreign Policy: The Bush AgendaThe 1988 ElectionForeign Policy and the American CharacterAfter the Election: Foreign Policy Under Reagan IIThe First Term: From Carter to ReaganThe First Term: Four More Years: Diplomacy Restored?The First Term: The Reagan Road to DétenteBeyond Détente: Toward International Economic SecurityFor a New Policy BalanceThe End of Either/OrAsia After Viet NamPolicy and the PeopleThe Presidency and the PeaceTwo Years of the Peace CorpsU.S. Policy in Latin AmericaA Democrat Looks at Foreign PolicyPutting First Things FirstThe Senate in Foreign PolicyForeign Policy in Presidential CampaignsKorea in PerspectiveNovember 1952: Imperatives of Foreign PolicyThe Challenge to AmericansThe Foreign Policy of the American Communist PartyThe Promise of Human RightsOur Sovereignty: Shall We Use It?European Legislation for Industrial PeaceLabor Under the NazisThe Permanent Bases of American Foreign PolicyPolitical Factors in American Foreign PolicySome Foreign Problems of the Next AdministrationOur Foreign PolicyOur Foreign PolicyForeign AffairsForeign Relations of the United States, 1921-1924American Foreign Policy: a Democratic ViewAmerican Foreign Policy: a Republican ViewAmerican Foreign Policy: a Progressive ViewAfter the Election1024 x 76832.0.0PortraitSeptember 15, 2015

In the decades since Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan began working together to end the Cold War, much has changed. But one grim element of the old order war remains a constant: Mankind still possesses the knowledge and means to destroy itself with nuclear weapons, a capability increasingly outside the firm control of two alliances committed to maintaining their own versions of the status quo. How should today’s thinkers and policymakers deal with contemporary and future nuclear threats? By looking for guidance to one of the giants of the earlier age, Andrei Sakharov, write Sidney D. Drell, Jim Hoagland, and George P. Shultz.

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