Tabla de contenidos para Winter 2021 en Foreign Policy

Kelebogile Zvobgo is the founder and director of the International Justice Lab at William & Mary and a Ph.D. candidate in political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. C. Raja Mohan is the director of the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, a contributing editor on international affairs for the Indian Express, and a former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board. Heather Hurlburt is the director of the New Models of Policy Change project at New America. She previously led the National Security Network and held senior positions in the Clinton administration. Janine di Giovanni is an author, foreign correspondent, and senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Her latest book is The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches…

FALL 1980 | 10 YEARS Intellectual Insecurity Although successive editors have reiterated FOREIGN POLICY’s commitment—stated in its first issue—to publish writers at all points on the political spectrum, it is symptomatic of a larger national insecurity that the magazine has at times been under attack for allowing certain views into print. This insecurity, both cultural and intellectual, reflects significant shifts in the global distribution of power, shifts that did not benefit the United States. Charles William Maynes and Richard H. Ullman FALL 1990 | 20 YEARS America Turns Inward In 1970, national divisions over the Vietnam War were at their peak, and the main goal of any sensible U.S. foreign policy was to end that war before the damage to America’s image and stability became irreversible. Today, the task of…

FALL 1975 Early Disarray The postwar international economic system, grounded in the American principles of economic liberalism and dependent on the special roles played by this country in several different dimensions, appears to be in disarray. —Marina von Neumann Whitman SUMMER 1998 The Case for Hegemony The truth is that the benevolent hegemony exercised by the United States is good for a vast portion of the world’s population. It is certainly a better international arrangement than all realistic alternatives. —Robert Kagan JULY/AUGUST 2002 Crash Out The real question is not whether U.S. hegemony is waning but whether the United States can devise a way to descend gracefully, with minimum damage to the world, and to itself. —Immanuel Wallerstein NOVEMBER 2011 Build Back Our capacity to come back stronger is unmatched…

SUMMER 1971 Nixon’s Challenge In large part, the Nixon Doctrine is an attempt to respond both to changed international as well as domestic conditions. Its object is to preserve as well as give some new meaning to America’s continued involvement in the world. —Zbigniew Brzezinski SUMMER 1986 Reagan’s Rhetoric President Ronald Reagan is fond of calling America a “city upon a hill.” But the Puritan leader John Winthrop, who first uttered those words in the 17th century, intended them as a warning about the importance of adhering to the values that eventually shaped America’s founding and development. —Cyrus R. Vance SPRING 1993 Clinton’s World If President Bill Clinton serves a full two terms, his decisions will influence the course of world demography for a long time. The quality of American…

SPRING 1979 The Long War The conflict between North and South Korea has remained virtually unchanged since the end of the Korean War, despite important shifts in global and regional power alignments. The United States has contributed to this stalemate in Korea by maintaining an essentially immobile Korean policy. —Gareth Porter SPRING 1990 Japan Can’t Go Its Own Way Today, Japan is no longer an obedient follower of the United States. Japan cannot remain in that comfortable role even if it dearly wishes to do so. —Kan Ito JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 China Is No Threat Without Military Might U.S. power may recede gradually in the coming years, and the unavoidable decline in Japan’s influence will heighten the sense of China’s regional preeminence. But to have a real collision, China needs a…

ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL U.S. foreign policies of the last 50 years may well have been containment, which the United States used from 1947 until the end of the Cold War to block the expansion of Soviet power and influence. Today, as pundits and politicians talk about a new cold war erupting between the United States and China and Russia, it’s worth asking whether some version of containment could once again make sense for the coming decades as well. To be sure, there are vast differences in the nature of the threat facing the United States in the 1950s and that today. But there are plenty of reasons to give the policy a second look, too. And an approach that relies more on the positive aspects of the original…

SPRING 1997 Networked World Mention of the internet brings to mind thoughts of cool technology, expanding markets, and pitched battles between high-tech companies. Missing from the picture are the huge implications for foreign policy. A driving force behind the foreign-policy debate is the emergence of the networked economy—an economy in which computing and communications converge to create an electronic marketplace that is utterly dependent on powerful information networks. —Daniel F. Burton Jr. NOVEMBER 2009 Whiz-Bang In our collective enthusiasm for whiz-bang new social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, the implications of this next television age—from lower birthrates among poor women to decreased corruption to higher school enrollment rates—have largely gone overlooked despite their much more sweeping impact. —Charles Kenny MAY/JUNE 2016 Disrupt and Converge These days, the trendy word…

Professor of International Commerce and Policy, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University "The multidisciplinary education in our Master's in International Commerce and Policy graduate program places the world of finance, trade, and international development against a broad global backdrop, while offering specific hands-on courses in strategic trade, development project evaluation, and the new world of artificial intelligence and fintech." Professor J.P. Singh believes that economics and international affairs programs do not always incorporate the kind of skillbuilding that helps foster a long-term career in the field. So, the professor emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach to teaching skills that students can use throughout their careers. The Master's in International Commerce and Policy program at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, where Singh teaches, offers specific hands-on…

Arizona State University, Thunderbird School of Global Management https://thunderbird.asu.edu admissions.tbird@asu.edu 602-496-7100 Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/admissions sipa_admission@sipa.columbia.edu 212-854-6216 George Mason University, Schar School of Policy and Government https://schar.gmu.edu schar@gmu.edu 703-993-8099 Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies https://sais.jhu.edu sais.dc.admissions@jhu.edu +01 202-663-5700 Tufts University, The Fletcher School https://fletcher.tufts.edu fletcheradmissions@tufts.edu +1 617-627-3040 University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies https://www.kent.ac.uk/brussels bsisadmissions@kent.ac.uk +32 2-641-1721 Nova Southeastern University (in the online version of this FP Guide) https://hcas.nova.edu/academics/graduate hcasadmissions@nova.edu 954-262-8066 See these schools and more at https://fpguide.foreignpolicy.com/2021-leaders…

One of the huge challenges humanity faces is the eradication of poverty. This is a common goal that involves all the countries and no one should be indifferent. The international community showed its shared will to overcome this challenge when the United Nations established the Sustainable Development Goals. Although this goal may seem utopian, realizing it should not only be a moral commitment but a plausible objective. History shows us that reducing poverty is possible. Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty decreased from 36 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2015. However, since then the rate of reduction has been slower and the pandemic has put decades of progress in the fight against poverty at risk. Despite the grim outlook, we can consider the hopeful lessons…

Although its strong economic growth trajectory has temporarily slowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Iceland nevertheless remains favorably positioned for the waves of international spending and investment forecast for the post-vaccine world. Famous for its incredible landscapes and rich fishing waters, the country of 360,000 people has embraced sustainability and innovation to maximize the opportunities generated by its natural resources. Tourism and fisheries are key sources of foreign exchange earnings, but the renewable energies and creative industries are growing and attracting attention and investment in various sectors, including from its single largest trading partner and investor: the U.S. “We have had more stability in recent years, and this will hopefully create more opportunities,” says Bjarni Benediktsson, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. “We have valuable resources that the world is…

From the the big screen, to the small screen and the games console screen, Iceland’s vibrant creative industries ecosystem is being showcased more than ever before, with its beautiful environment and creative talent pool flying the flag around the world. Tax breaks and financial incentives have helped entice top international directors to its shores and mountains, with revenue from the movie industry tripling in the last decade alone. “The creation of new film clusters is important to boost film related-activities outside Reykjavik,” says Laufey Guðjónsdóttir, Director of the Icelandic Film Centre (IFC). The IFC provides financial support for the production and co-production of Icelandic feature films, documentaries, short films and TV fiction. Iceland’s creative talents are also increasingly being utilized by the lucrative video gaming industry, as underlined by innovative…

Boasting some of the world’s finest fishing waters, Iceland’s seafood industry has a long, rich and proud heritage built on traditional techniques, but is moving with the times by embracing modernization and efficient methods through the twin channels of innovation and new technologies. Aquaculture is rapidly becoming an important contributor to export earnings, as illustrated by the 92% year-on-year surge in 2019. With healthy eating becoming more and more popular, global salmon consumption has tripled since 1980, and farmed salmon is the fastest growing food production system globally. As the country’s leading producer of sustainably reared salmon, Icelandic Salmon AS is setting the benchmark with major investment in the streamlining of operations concentrated on responsible production methods certified by the ASC (Aquaculture Stewardship Council), as company Chairman, Kjartan Olafsson, explains…

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001 Cultural Renaissance In his celebrated 1948 essay, “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture,” T.S. Eliot predicted that in the future, humanity would experience a renaissance of local and regional cultures. At the time, his prophecy seemed quite daring. However, globalization will likely make it a reality in the 21st century, and we must be happy about this. —Mario Vargas Llosa SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 Global Disruption Globalization is bringing more choices and new opportunities for prosperity. It is making us more familiar with global diversity. However, millions of people around the world experience globalization not as an agent of progress but as a disruptive force, almost hurricanelike in its ability to destroy lives, jobs, and traditions. —Kofi A. Annan JULY/AUGUST 2004 Boom and Bust Globalization has been a boon to…

OVER THE COURSE OF U.S. HISTORY, American statecraft has oscillated between two poles: stubborn isolationism and unstinting internationalism. Isolationism was the default position from the founding era to 1941. In 1796, President George Washington set the young nation on a clear course: “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Americans thereafter avidly pursued international commerce and ruthlessly expanded across North America, but they shunned strategic entanglement farther afield. Following brief bouts of foreign ambition during the Spanish-American War and World War I, the isolationist impulse returned, leading to the strategic retreat of the interwar era. Isolationism’s long run then ended abruptly with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From…

SPRING 1995 Grim Statistics Development is not an issue of the past. More than 1 billion people live in absolute poverty, literally on the brink of starvation. The gap between rich and poor is widening, within as well as among countries. —Boutros Boutros-Ghali SUMMER 1998 Progress and Povert Ironically, inequality is growing at a time when the triumph of democracy and open markets was supposed to usher in a new age of freedom and opportunity. In fact, both developments seem to be having the opposite effect. —Nancy Birdsall JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2005 Dignity and Anger The root cause of poverty is social injustice and the bad government that abets it. In such circumstances, poverty is an assault against human dignity, and in that assault lies the natural seed of human anger. —Colin…

WINTER 1972-73 Climate Change and Security There has been a growth of concern in the developed world with problems of the environment and of the sheer survival of human life on the planet. Whether or not any of the dire predictions about threats to the environment is valid is less important for this discussion than the fact that these threats are seen very much in terms of security—i.e., as threats to a broader definition of peace. —Robert E. Hunter SPRING 1981 Political Will The means are available to save many species. The funding could be made available if it were given the priority accorded to food, energy, and pollution. The missing element is political will. If nothing is done before the problem becomes all too apparent, the process of mass…

1 IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, IT ISN ALWAYS EASY to suss out good ideas from bad. Some bad ideas masquerade as neutral fact, only to be exposed later on. Others worm their way into strategic doctrines, guiding a wide range of policies that long outlast the original thought. Good ideas, meanwhile, can have bad effects and bad ideas can be used for good. Given this tangle, picking the worst foreign-policy ideas of the last 50 years may seem like knitting socks with fish line. But is its not impossible. First, we need to establish what we mean by ideas. In their 1993 book, Ideas and Foreign Policy, the political scientists Robert Keohane and Judith Goldstein defined ideas as “beliefs held by individuals.” Within that broad category, they wrote, are two…

DESPITE THE IMMENSE POTENTIAL of U.S.- Africa relations, China has been more engaged with the continent and in several ways is now ahead of the United States in the scale of its diplomatic and economic ties. China is now Africa’s largest trade partner and the largest bilateral lender to many African countries, creating an asymmetric power dynamic with the potential for dependency. China has also outperformed the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of higher education, becoming the primary destination for English-speaking African students. China even trains African journalists, about 1,000 each year, who are the ones forming the global narrative about the continent. Furthermore, Chinese President Xi Jinping has committed to giving African countries priority access to a successful COVID-19 vaccine developed in China, and Beijing will…

SUMMER 1972 Soviet Peace It would be a very sad and hopeless situation if we were to convince ourselves that the peace of the world depended on the ability of the rest of us to prevent the Soviet Union indefinitely from acting like a great power. —George F. Kennan FALL 1989 The Thaw The great powers now have the opportunity to end, on terms that protect their common interests and European stability, the great confrontation that has divided the Continent. —Ronald Steel WINTER 1991-’92 New Russia Since the birth of the Soviet state, foreign observers have often used the terms “Russian” and “Soviet” as if they were interchangeable. Now, with the vast, multiethnic Soviet state a shambles, many are wondering about the future of a post-imperial Russia. —Dimitri Simes SUMMER…

With its white-sanded beaches, clear blue seas, renowned cuisine and relaxed, welcoming lifestyle, the Cayman Islands is a favorite destination for luxurious short vacations. Now, the Caribbean paradise is offering the world’s remote-working professionals and their families the opportunity to spend the next two years embracing the life of their dreams on its three islands’ idyllic shores. A major benefit for digital nomads accepted onto the Cayman Islands’ Global Citizens Concierge Program is that it is a haven sheltered from COVID-19, as the country successfully implemented one of the most proactive and decisive containment strategies worldwide. As a result, the risk of contracting the virus is nearly zero and residents have resumed their normal lives. “The way we handled the situation has received global respect. The Cayman Islands is a…

Over the past decade, a bright new dawn has greeted the Icelandic banking sector following its impressive recovery from the dark days of the 2008 global financial crisis. Although unprecedented at the time, the government’s decision not to nationalize debt-laden banks and instead let them fail, meant the industry bounced back faster than it otherwise would have. Now noted for its resilience and transparency, the banking and financial services sector is at the heart of the country’s fiscal resurgence and a key conduit for COVID-19 financial assistance packages provided by the government to scores of enterprises and individuals. “We have built a lot of buffers in our system. Our large currency reserves are probably 10 times higher than in the financial crisis. The same applies for the financial sectors, as…

A household name for more than a century, 1912 is one of Iceland’s oldest family-owned firms, as well as one of its most successful through its core focus on technology, knowledge, and resources to maximize performance. Headed by Ari Fenger for the past 13 years, the dynamic executive – who is the fourth generation of his famous family to lead the company – has tripled turnover while at the helm and provided strategic direction in an increasingly competitive sector. Subsidiary Nathan & Olsen specializes in the sale and marketing of brands in the cosmetics and grocery market, sibling Ekran provides large-scale kitch ens and the food industry with daily supplies, while Emmessís is a leading producer of ice-cream. “The U.S. market is very important for us in Iceland as it…

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN JONATHAN TEPPERMAN AND FAREED ZAKARIA TO MARK THE OCCASION of FOREIGN POLICY’s 60th birthday, FP’s Jonathan Tepperman sat down recently with Fareed Zakaria—the author, CNN host, and one of today’s leading thinkers on international affairs—to discuss the moment of the magazine’s creation, the many similarities between then and now, what the last 60 years have taught us about U.S. strategy, and where the country should go from here. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and concision. JONATHAN TEPPERMAN: FOREIGN POLICY was founded as a journal in the winter of 1970-1971. Reading through the first issue today, one can’t help but be struck by the parallels to the present moment. In that issue’s introduction, FP’s founders, Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel, write about how…

WHEN SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON and Warren Demian Manshel, the founders of FOREIGN POLICY, asked me to write for their inaugural issue in 1970, university campuses were riven by students who feared being drafted to fight and possibly die in a misbegotten war in Vietnam. The central claim in my essay was that “No More Vietnams!” would become a new foreign-policy mantra. While some 2 million Americans had been sent to fight in Korea in the 1950s and more than 300,000 U.S. troops were still bogged down in Vietnam when I wrote, I offered my bet that the next decade would see no equivalents. What I did not imagine, however, was how dramatic the decline in combat deaths would be. An estimated 33,000 Americans died fighting in Korea and 47,000 in…

SPRING 1992 Expansive Threat The end of the Cold War is not a panacea. Dangers lie ahead. An explosive mixture of nationalism and internationalism most seriously threatens history’s recent gains. —Kim Dae-jung SPRING 1995 National Appeal It is much easier to mobilize society behind a real or imagined national injury than behind abstract ideas like democracy or open society. —George Soros MAY/JUNE 2003 Anti-American Wave When American nationalism drives the country’s foreign policy, it galvanizes broad-based anti-Americanism. And at such times, it becomes impossible to ignore the inconsistencies and tensions with American nationalism—or the harm they inflict on the United States’ legitimacy abroad. —Minxin Pei MARCH/APRIL 2008 The Case for Nationalism Scholars can persist in looking down on nationalism as a backward, unevolved reflex, and governments could continue to fail…

1 IN A WORLD DEFINED BY SCARCITY, there will always be a bountiful harvest of bad predictions about the future. This is true for both foreign policy and FOREIGN POLICY alike. In January 1989, East Germany’s leader, Erich Honecker, declared that the Berlin Wall would still be standing in “50 or even 100 years.” He turned out to be off by 49 to 99 years; the wall crumbled 10 months after his statement. No one writing in the pages of this magazine has been as consequentially wrong as Honecker. Nonetheless, even a cursory perusal of FOREIGN POLICY’s archives reveals some serious errors in foresight. One article in the Winter 1999-2000 issue by the Russia expert Daniel Treisman claimed that Boris Yeltsin’s successor as president of Russia would “find himself blocked…

AS HE TAKES A FRESH LOOK AT WASHINGTON’S CHINA strategy, President-elect Joe Biden faces hard choices. China has become a powerful challenger to the United States’ post-World War II global primacy. To make matters worse, the political coalition that propelled Biden to victory is deeply divided on how to deal with China. There is strong opposition among Democrats to the total political confrontation and complete economic decoupling from China that outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration articulated toward the end of its term. Among progressives, there is deep resistance to a cold war with China, even as they want to intensify the pressure on Beijing on human rights. Powerful corporate interests on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, many of them with close ties to the Democratic Party, would love…

SUMMER 1992 No End The global expansion of democracy does not mean that we are at the end of history but rather that we have reached a critical turning point in history. —Larry Diamond FALL 1997 Democratic Decline If people believe that government is incompetent and cannot be trusted, they are less likely to provide such crucial contributions as tax dollars and voluntary compliance with laws, and bright young people will not be willing to go into government. —Joseph S. Nye Jr. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 Out of Many, One While at the United Nations, I used to joke that managing the global institution was like trying to run a business with 184 chief executive officers—each with a different language, a distinct set of priorities, and an unemployed brother-in-law seeking a paycheck.…

1 IF 2020 CONFIRMED ONE THING, it was the centrality of the dollar to the global economy. U.S. hegemony may already have passed us in a political and strategic sense, but U.S. financial influence is proving more enduring. This is reassuring in the sense that the U.S. Federal Reserve has once again acted as a responsive and generous steward of the dollar-based financial system. But it is also a cause of puzzlement and frustration. While China and Russia experiment with alternatives to the dollar-based payment system, in Europe the buzzword of the day is “strategic autonomy.” Given the increasing aggression of Washington’s financial sanctions, compounded by the capriciousness of the presidency of Donald Trump, this is hardly surprising. It is an obvious reaction to the weaponization of interdependence. It is…

U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN’S FOREIGN-POLICY ADVISORS have been eager to convey that “America is back” and ready to resume leadership of the Western world. But Biden and his team may soon discover that a foundation of past U.S. leadership—a reputation for competence—has eroded beyond easy repair. Donald Trump was only a symptom of this erosion, which has developed over decades of military misadventures, financial debacles, and now the calamity of COVID-19. And underlying all these reasons, as Trump saw but could not remedy, has been industrial decline. In America’s heyday, the dominant economic formation was the large industrial corporation. Giants like General Electric, General Motors, Ford, Bethlehem Steel, International Harvester, and IBM provided the backbone of U.S. military power and technological dominance on world markets. These firms grew up on…

1 A SHIFTING GLOBAL ORDER AS U.S. DOMINANCE ERODES. Americans tired of foreign entanglements while facing social and racial discord at home. An ethically challenged president whose policies are dividing the country. A world beset by new challenges, from resource depletion and overpopulation to environmental pollution. A calcified foreign-policy establishment struggling to find answers for an uncertain new era. In 1970, the United States looked eerily as it does today. Fifty years ago, these tectonic shifts—coupled with a strong sense that U.S. foreign policy needed fresh voices and a new debate—prompted two friends to found a new magazine. It was the birth of FOREIGN POLICY. The seed money for the new venture came from Warren Demian Manshel, a wealthy New York investment banker and intellectual entrepreneur who had already founded…

They have been around for a while, but it was not until 2017 that cryptocurrencies really gained global attention as the price of a Bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. When Facebook announced Libra, its new cryptocurrency payment system, last year, the conversation hit all levels of society and politics. Earlier this year, 80 percent of central banks were working on a central bank digital currency (CBDC), 40 percent were experimenting with proofs of concept, and 10 percent, mostly in emerging economies, were running pilot projects. But what happens in China is of key importance. The purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies are still banned in China, but things are moving quickly. Making transactions more efficient The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, started research on a government-backed cryptocurrency way…