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42. The Precedents for Withdrawal: From Vietnam to Iraq
- Author:
- Bennett Ramberg
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- As Washington ponders how long to stay in Iraq, it would do well to remember the limited impact of the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s, Lebanon in the 1980s, and Somalia in the 1990s.
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Washington, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, and Somalia
43. Reshaping the World Order: How Washington Should Reform International Institutions
- Author:
- Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The current architecture of international institutions must be updated, but skeptics question whether the United States is up to the task. They need not worry: Washington still possesses enough power and legitimacy to spearhead reform.
- Topic:
- Reform
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
44. Unclear Nuclear Logic?
- Author:
- Frank Procida and Peter Huessy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- To the Editor:The shift in U.S. nuclear policy advocated by Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal ("The Logic of Zero," November/December 2008) might make sense for a number of important reasons -- not least among them safety, cost, and reducing the risk of annihilation through miscalculation. But it would be naive to expect any of the authors' recommendations to alter the decision-making of the rogue states that are currently pursuing nuclear technology. Assuming it were feasible, even the complete elimination of the United States' nuclear arsenal would almost certainly have little positive effect on Tehran's or Pyongyang's proliferation, as the same complex set of internal and external factors now driving their policies would persist, as would their perceived vulnerability to U.S. conventional superiority. The less drastic measures the authors call for, such as Washington's accepting international oversight over its own fissile material, far from enhancing the likelihood of reaching agreements with rogue states, would probably barely register in negotiations.
- Topic:
- Security and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Washington, and North Korea
45. Diagnosing USAID
- Author:
- Amy B. Frumin
- Publication Date:
- 03-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- No abstract is available.
- Topic:
- Security, Fragile/Failed State, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Washington
46. The Default Power
- Author:
- Josef Joffe
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Every ten years, it is decline time in the United States. In the late 1950s, it was the Sputnik shock, followed by the "missile gap" trumpeted by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign. A decade later, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sounded the dirge over bipolarity, predicting a world of five, rather than two, global powers. At the end of the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech invoked "a crisis of confidence" that struck "at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will." A decade later, academics such as the Yale historian Paul Kennedy predicted the ruin of the United States, driven by overextension abroad and profligacy at home. The United States was at risk of "imperial overstretch," Kennedy wrote in 1987, arguing that "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend them all simultaneously." But three years later, Washington dispatched 600,000 soldiers to fight the first Iraq war -- without reinstating the draft or raising taxes. The only price of "overstretch" turned out to be the mild recession of 1991. Declinism took a break in the 1990s. The United States was enjoying a nice run after the suicide of the Soviet Union, and Japan, the economic powerhouse of the 1980s, was stuck in its "lost decade" of stagnation and so no longer stirred U.S. paranoia with its takeover of national treasures such as Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center. The United States had moved into the longest economic expansion in history, which, apart from eight down months in 2001, continued until 2008. "Gloom is the dominant mood in Japan these days," one Asian commentator reported in 1997, whereas "American capitalism is resurgent, confident and brash." That year, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "the defining feature of world affairs" was "globalization" and that if "you had to design a country best suited to compete in such a world, [it would be] today's America." He concluded on a triumphant note: "Globalization is us."
- Topic:
- Globalization
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Washington
47. Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth
- Author:
- Michael Levi
- Publication Date:
- 09-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- This December, diplomats from nearly 200 countries will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time bound wealthy countries to specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these emissions come from burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- for energy, from deforestation, and from the agricultural sector. They must be cut deeply in the coming decades if the world is to control the risks of dangerous climate change. Most of those devoted to slashing the world's greenhouse gas emissions have placed enormous weight on the Copenhagen conference. Speaking earlier this year about the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was emphatic: "We must harness the necessary political will to seal the deal on an ambitious new climate agreement in December here in Copenhagen. . . . If we get it wrong we face catastrophic damage to people, to the planet." Hopes are higher than ever for a breakthrough climate deal. For the past eight years, many argued that developing nations reluctant to commit to a new global climate-change deal -- particularly China and India -- were simply hiding behind the United States, whose enthusiastic engagement was all that was needed for a breakthrough. Now the long-awaited shift in U.S. policy has arrived. The Obama administration is taking ambitious steps to limit carbon dioxide emissions at home, and Congress is considering important cap-and-trade and clean-energy legislation. The road to a global treaty that contains the climate problem now appears to be clear. But it is not so simple. The odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are vanishingly small. And even reaching such a deal the following year would be an extraordinary challenge, given the domestic political constraints in Washington and in other capitals that make such an agreement difficult to negotiate and ratify. The many government officials and activists seeking to solve the climate problem therefore need to fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations for the Copenhagen conference.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
48. Securing the Information Highway
- Author:
- Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Cyberwarfare is not an abstract future threat. The United States' electronic defenses are vulnerable and Washington must act quickly to secure computer networks, software, and hardware before it is too late.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
49. In the Quicksands of Somalia
- Author:
- Bronwyn Bruton
- Publication Date:
- 11-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States, Washington, Middle East, and Somalia
50. Deterring State Sponsorship of Nuclear Terrorism
- Author:
- Michael A. Levi
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Policymakers consistently identify nuclear terrorism as one of the greatest threats facing the United States and the world. Indeed, the diffusion of technology, the rise of extremist ideology, and the steady spread of nuclear materials conspire to make nuclear terrorism an increasingly worrying prospect.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- United States, New York, and Washington