Foreign Affairs

Sessions found that a domestic violence victim from El Salvador—perhaps the most dangerous country on earth in which to be a woman—would not qualify for asylum, even though her own country had utterly failed to protect her.

A group of experts weighs in on whether U.S. foreign policy has focused too much on counterterrorism over the past decade.

The Marshall Plan was the most successful U.S. foreign policy program of the Cold War, and arguably the most successful in all of U.S. history. In France, Italy, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and beyond, the plan’s $13 billion in aid expedited economic recovery, buoyed morale, and eroded the appeal of communism. All that is well known. But what is often forgotten is that the Marshall Plan also ratcheted up Cold War tensions. By spurring the economic revival of the western occupation zones in Germany and their eventual merger into the country of West Germany, it rekindled fears across the continent, east and west, about the specter of renewed German power. That, in turn, led to the establishment of NATO and the division of Europe.

Read More

Among the debates that have swept the U.S. foreign policy community since the beginning of the Trump administration, alarm about the fate of the liberal international rules-based order has emerged as one of the few fixed points. From the international relations scholar G. John Ikenberry’s claim that “for seven decades the world has been dominated by a western liberal order” to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s call in the final days of the Obama administration to “act urgently to defend the liberal international order,” this banner waves atop most discussions of the United States’ role in the world. 

Read More

Experts from both the United States and China weigh in on Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner’s March/April article about U.S. China policy.

As long as Putin remains in power, changing Russia will be close to impossible. Washington needs a new grand strategy to deal with the fact that Putin is here to stay and won’t end his assault on Western democracy and multilateral institutions anytime soon.

In theory, carbon pricing makes sense, but in practice, it isn’t doing much about climate change.

The United States has weathered a number of challenges in its progress toward social democracy, and the trials of the present era will likely prove a brief detour rather than a dead end.

Rather than seeking to return to an imagined past in which the United States molded the world in its image, Washington should limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad and concentrate on reconstructing a viable liberal democracy at home.

In too many places, governments are failing to invest in their populations. This is a problem because neglecting investments in human capital can dramatically weaken a country’s competitiveness in a rapidly changing world.

Marx’s theory remains one of the most perceptive critiques of capitalism ever offered. Far from being outdated, Marxism is crucial for making sense of the world today.

The Marshall Plan worked because its designers had clear objectives and were willing to accept tradeoffs, such as a Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

The world is at the dawn of a second Industrial Revolution, this time, a digital revolution. And its impact will be, if anything, even greater than that of the first.

Many observers of contemporary Russia focus on the state’s grip on society. What they miss is that society itself has a grip on the state.

The disruption to the earth’s climate will ultimately command more attention and resources and have a greater influence on the global economy and international relations than any other force.

The abil­ity of major countries and international organizations to convince separatists that good behavior leads to success may be eroding. And if secessionists conclude that abiding by the rules generates few rewards, the consequences could be ugly.

An excessive focus on counterterrorism disfigures American politics, distorts U.S. policies, and in the long run will undermine national security.

Today, as ever, great-power politics will drive world events. That means the course of the coming century will largely be determined by the relationship between China and the United States.

It appears that the new Spanish government’s intention is to erode Catalonia’s claims to independence by changing the discourse about nationhood in Spain.