Feed aggregator

With the Taliban resurgent, reconstruction faltering, and opium poppy cultivation at an all-time high, Afghanistan is at risk of collapsing into chaos. If Washington wants to save the international effort there, it must increase its commitment to the area and rethink its strategy—especially its approach to Pakistan, which continues to give sanctuary to insurgents on its tribal frontier.

Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable—but rarely heard—explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.

Two new books attempt to explain U.S. power and policy in imperial terms. Unfortunately for their authors, the United States neither has nor is an empire.

In China's Trapped Transition, Minxin Pei attempts to solve the puzzle of China's present -- and figure out its future.

In Defense of Hugo Chávez Bernardo Alvarez Herrera

For nearly a decade, U.S. policy toward Latin America has been narrowly focused on a handful of issues, such as China's growing influence in the region and the power of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Latin Americans want economic ties with the United States but feel slighted by Washington and uneasy about the U.S. role in the world. The costs of the estrangement will be high for both sides.

If an influenza pandemic struck today, borders would close, the global economy would shut down, international vaccine supplies and health-care systems would be overwhelmed, and panic would reign. To limit the fallout, the industrialized world must create a detailed response strategy involving the public and private sectors.

The Bush administration has literalized its "war" on terrorism, dissolving the legal boundaries between what a government can do in peacetime and what's allowed in war. This move may have made it easier for Washington to detain or kill suspects, but it has also threatened basic due process rights, thereby endangering us all. This article appears in the Foreign Affairs eBook, "The U.S. vs. al Qaeda: A History of the War on Terror." Now available for purchase.

China has begun to embrace regional and global institutions it once shunned and take on the responsibilities that come with great-power status.

China has achieved stunning economic progress since the 1970s, thanks to aggressive liberalization, a commitment to exporting high-tech goods, and a massive injection of foreign investment. Although this unprecedented success is understandably unnerving to China's neighbors and trading partners, it should not be cause for worry; China, the United States, and the rest of the world still have lots of business to do.

The September 11 attacks led the United States to replace its previous engaged and enlightened approach to Latin American relations with a total focus on security matters. This pullback has undermined recent regional progress on economic reform and democratization. To meet the pressing challenges ahead, Latin America needs the United States to be a committed partner.

During the war on terrorism, George W. Bush has shown a split personality on the promotion of democracy abroad. Bush the realist seeks warm ties with dictators who may help in the fight against al Qaeda, while Bush the neo-Reaganite proclaims that democracy is the only true solution to terror. How the administration resolves this tension will define the future of U.S. foreign policy.

The concepts emerging from the Bush administration's war on terrorism form a neoimperial vision in which the United States arrogates to itself the global role of setting standards, determining threats, and using force. These radical ideas could transform today's world order in a way that the end of the Cold War did not. The administration's approach is fraught with peril and likely to fail. If history is any guide, it will trigger resistance that will leave America in a more hostile and divided world. This article appears in the Foreign Affairs eBook, "The U.S. vs. al Qaeda: A History of the War on Terror." Now available for purchase.

Afghanistan's peace remains tenuous. Rival warlords still control separate militias, and distrust of government abounds. Only a national army can secure the peace. Yet the Afghans have been slow to create one, and the international community has not helped much. The United States must jump-start the process before war breaks out again.

How will the United States defend itself against the unknown, the unseen, and the unexpected? One way is by exploiting new technologies to develop a flexible arsenal: reduced nuclear forces, advanced conventional capabilities, and a range of defenses against missile, space, and computer attacks. Yet all the high-tech weapons in the world will not defend the country unless the Pentagon and the armed forces change the way they train, fight, and think. Americans and their military must accept changing coalitions, understand the need for preemptive offense, and prepare for a new kind of war that may increasingly be waged with nonmilitary means. Now is precisely the time to begin making these changes; September 11 is all the proof we need.

President Bush's condemnation of North Korea as part of the "axis of evil" caused confusion worldwide, as allies and enemies alike tried to discern his administration's constantly shifting policy toward Pyongyang. But there is method to the madness. Look closely, and a consistent strategy emerges: "hawk engagement." Although Bush's team may use tactics seemingly similar to those of Clinton's, the administration wants to engage Kim Jong Il for very different reasons: to set him up for a fall.

Over the past decade, China's leaders have pursued rapid economic reform while stifling political change. The result today is a rigid state that is unable to cope with an increasingly organized, complex, and robust society. China's next generation of leaders, set to take office in 2002-3, will likely respond to this dilemma by accelerating political reform—unless a new cold war with the United States intervenes.

With no Soviet threat, America has found it exceedingly difficult to define its "national interest." Foreign policy in a Republican administration should refocus the country on key priorities: building a military ready to ensure American power, coping with rogue regimes, and managing Beijing and Moscow. Above all, the next president must be comfortable with America's special role as the world's leader.

The Kyoto pact on global warming is neither a battle won nor a costly burden -- more like a quick political fix for the vast problems of climate change. Above all, policymakers need to think more about the long term. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires including the developing countries who sat out Kyoto. Research into affordable energy sources that emit little carbon dioxide must intensify. And the world must develop international bodies to minimize the costs of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, including trading emission rights.

Last year, the world gathered at Kyoto to grapple with the threat of global warming. But the Kyoto approach-negotiations to set national limits on the emissions of the greenhouse gases that are heating the earth-cannot solve the problem. The emissions targets will never be met without the cooperation of the developing countries, and they will not consent. We would do better to attack global warming through mutually agreed-upon actions, especially a nationally collected tax on greenhouse gas emissions.