Foreign Affairs
Volume 92, Issue 2, Mar/Apr 2013
1. Title: Generation Kill: A Conversation with Stanley McChrystal
Authors: Rose, Gideon.
Abstract: In an interview, General Stanley McChrystal, author of the recently published memoir My Share of the Task, talked about his job. McChrystal was part of a special operations effort that they can call Task Force 714. So the first thing they did when he took over in late 2003 was realize that they needed to understand the problem much better. To do that, they had to become a network themselves -- to be connected across all parts of the battlefield, so that every time something occurred and they gathered intelligence or experience from it, information flowed very, very quickly. So that was the revolution. He didn't do it. The organization he was part of became this learning organization. If he takes any credit, it is for loosening the reins and yelling "Giddyup!" a lot. The whole point of war is to take care of people, not just to kill them. You have to have a positive reason that protects people, or it's wrong.
2. Title: Beyond the Pivot: A New Road Map for U.S. - Chinese Relations
Authors: Rudd, Kevin.
Abstract: The Obama administration's renewed focus on the strategic significance of Asia has been entirely appropriate. Without such a move, there was a danger that China, with its hard-line, realist view of international relations, would conclude that an economically exhausted US was losing its staying power in the Pacific. But now that it is clear that the US will remain in Asia for the long haul, the time has come for both Washington and Beijing to take stock, look ahead, and reach some long-term conclusions as to what sort of world they want to see beyond the barricades. The start of Obama's second term and Xi's first presents a unique window of opportunity to put the US-Chinese relationship on a better course. Doing that, however, will require sustained leadership from the highest levels of both governments and a common conceptual framework and institutional structure to guide the work of their respective bureaucracies, both civilian and military.
3. Title: The Long Arm of International Law: Giving Victims of Human Rights Abuses Their Day in Court
Authors: Leval, Pierre N.
Abstract: Yet over 65 years after Nuremberg, although the world remains awash in these atrocities, the prohibitions of international law are largely toothless, especially when the abusive governments remain in power. To deal with the effective immunity of abusers whose regimes remain in power, international law has developed the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that trials for certain offenses may be heard in courts throughout the world if the defendant cannot be brought to justice in the country where he committed them. Despite this framework, however, prohibitions against atrocities are rarely enforced. In most countries, courts act only with statutory authorization and, under existing legal codes, have no power to entertain suits between foreign parties alleging foreign violations of international law. That other countries have not yet empowered their courts to hear foreign human rights lawsuits is no reason for the US to withdraw the jurisdiction its courts have exercised for over 30 years.
4. Title: Gangster's Paradise: The Untold History of the United States and International Crime
Authors: Andreas, Peter.
Abstract: The dark underside of the global economy is thriving. Globalization has been good not only for legitimate businesses but also for those who traffic in illegal drugs, evade sanctions or taxes, trade stolen goods and intellectual property on the black market, smuggle immigrants, and launder money. These various illegal activities are often lumped together and categorized as global or transnational organized crime. Using history to evaluate the illicit side of globalization is crucial for a number of reasons: because it is so glaringly missing from today's debates about transnational crime, because it corrects for the hubris of the present and the common tendency to view recent developments as entirely new and unprecedented, and because it helps Americans make sense of their past, present, and future. Drawing more public and policy attention to these serious challenges, however, should not devolve into shrill calls to regain control when Washington never actually had control in the first place and, in fact, once caused the very type of chaos it now scrambles to contain.
5. Title: Capitalism and Inequality: What the Right and the Left Get Wrong
Authors: Muller, Jerry Z.
Abstract: Recent political debate in the US and other advanced capitalist democracies has been dominated by two issues: the rise of economic inequality and the scale of government intervention to address it. As the 2012 US presidential election and the battles over the fiscal cliff have demonstrated, the central focus of the left today is on increasing government taxing and spending, primarily to reverse the growing stratification of society, whereas the central focus of the right is on decreasing taxing and spending, primarily to ensure economic dynamism. Each side minimizes the concerns of the other, and each seems to believe that its desired policies are sufficient to ensure prosperity and social stability. Both are wrong. The challenge for government policy in the advanced capitalist world is thus how to maintain a rate of economic dynamism that will provide increasing benefits for all while still managing to pay for the social welfare programs required to make citizens' lives bearable under conditions of increasing inequality and insecurity.
6. Title: Mexico Makes It: A Transformed Society, Economy, and Government
Authors: O'Neil, Shannon K.
Abstract: Mexico continues to struggle with grave security threats, but it is also fostering a globally competitive marketplace, a growing middle class, and an increasingly influential pro-democracy voter base. In addition, Mexico's ties with the US are changing. Common interests in energy, manufacturing, and security, as well as an overlapping community formed by millions of binational families, have made Mexico's path forward increasingly important to its northern neighbor. Today, Mexico has shaken off its volatile past to become one of the most open and globalized economies in the world. It maintains free-trade agreements with over 40 countries. No longer addicted to oil, Mexico's export economy is now driven by manufacturing, especially of cars, computers, and appliances. The shift from commodities and agriculture to services and manufacturing has catapulted the country forward, and Mexico is outpacing many other emerging-market countries, including China, India, and Russia, in making this economic transition.
7. Title: Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do: Why the U.S.-Pakistani Alliance Isn't Worth the Trouble
Authors: Haqqani, Husain.
Abstract: Washington has not had an easy time managing the US- Pakistani relationship, to put it mildly. For decades, the US has sought to change Pakistan's strategic focus from competing with India and seeking more influence in Afghanistan to protecting its own internal stability and economic development. But even though Pakistan has continued to depend on US military and economic support, it has not changed its behavior much. Each country accuses the other of being a terrible ally -- and perhaps both are right. With the US and Pakistan at a dead end, the two countries need to explore ways to structure a nonallied relationship. Once Pakistan's national security elites recognize the limits of their power, the country might eventually seek a renewed partnership with the US -- but this time with greater humility and an awareness of what it can and cannot get. Sometimes, the best way forward in a relationship lies in admitting that it's over in its current incarnation.
8. Title: Japan's Cautious Hawks: Why Tokyo Is Unlikely to Pursue an Aggressive Foreign Policy
Authors: Curtis, Gerald L.
Abstract: The Japanese have thought about foreign policy in similar terms since the latter half of the nineteenth century. The men who came to power after the 1868 Meiji Restoration set out to design a grand strategy that would protect their country against the existential threat posed by Western imperialism. The challenge they faced -- and met -- was to ensure Japan's survival in an international system created and dominated by more powerful countries. That quest for survival remains the hallmark of Japanese foreign policy today. Given Japan's pragmatic approach to foreign policy, it should come as no surprise that the country has reacted cautiously to a changing international environment defined by China's rise. Tokyo has doubled down on its strategy of deepening its alliance with the US; sought to strengthen its relations with countries on China's periphery; and pursued closer economic, political, and cultural ties with China itself. The one development that could unhinge this strategy would be a loss of confidence in the US commitment to Japan's defense.
9. Title: The Lost Logic of Deterrence: What the Strategy That Won the Cold War Can-and Can't-Do Now
Authors: Betts, Richard K.
Abstract: Deterrence isn't what it used to be. In the second half of the twentieth century, it was the backbone of US national security. Its purpose, logic, and effectiveness were well understood. It was the essential military strategy behind containing the Soviet Union and a crucial ingredient in winning the Cold War without fighting World War III. But in recent decades, deterrence has gone astray, and US defense policy is worse for the change. Since the Cold War ended, the US has clung to deterrence where it should not have, needlessly aggravating relations with Russia. Too much deterrence of Russia is a mistake, but not as serious as the opposite mistake: rejecting deterrence where it is badly needed. That mistake is harming US efforts to cope with nuclear proliferation and, most particularly, Iran. One reason US leaders might be reluctant to apply deterrence these days is that the strategy's most potent form -- the threat to annihilate an enemy's economy and population in retaliation -- is no longer deemed legitimate.
10. Title: The Evolution of Irregular War: Insurgents and Guerrillas From Akkadia to Afghanistan
Authors: Boot, Max.
Abstract: Throughout most of human species' long and bloody slog, warfare has primarily been carried out by bands of loosely organized, ill-disciplined, and lightly armed volunteers who disdained open battle in favor of stealthy raids and ambushes: the strategies of both tribal warriors and modern guerrillas and terrorists. Many scholars have even claimed that guerrilla raids are not true warfare. This view comes to seem a bit ironic when one considers the fact that throughout history, irregular warfare has been consistently deadlier than its conventional cousin -- not in total numbers killed, since tribal societies are tiny compared with urban civilizations, but in the percentage killed. Although leftist insurgencies were on the wane, however, guerrilla warfare and terrorism hardly disappeared. They simply assumed different forms as new militants motivated by the oldest grievances of all -- race and religion -- shot their way into the headlines.
11. Title: Red White: Why a Founding Father of Postwar Capitalism Spied for the Soviets
Authors: Steil, Benn.
Abstract: In the words of Harry Dexter White, a then little-known Treasury official who became the unlikely architect of the Bretton Woods system, it was time to build a New Deal for a new world. Working in parallel and in prickly collaboration with his British counterpart, the revolutionary economist John Maynard Keynes, White set out to create the economic foundations for a durable postwar global peace. A newly created International Monetary Fund would ensure that exchange rates were not manipulated for competitive advantage. But as the chief architect of Bretton Woods, White outmaneuvered his far more brilliant British counterpart, distinguishing himself as an unrelenting nationalist who could extract every advantage out of the tectonic shift in geopolitical circumstances put in motion by World War II. Even White's closest colleagues were unaware, however, that his postwar vision involved a far more radical reordering of US foreign policy, centered on the establishment of a close permanent alliance with the new rising European power -- the Soviet Union.
12. Title: Getting the GOP's Groove Back: How to Bridge the Republican Foreign Policy Divide
Authors: Stephens, Bret.
Abstract: Put aside, then, fantasies about saving the GOP from itself or restoring the statesmanlike ways of George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, or Dwight Eisenhower. Instead, take note of the more consequential foreign policy debate now taking shape within the heart of the conservative movement itself. This is the debate between small-government and big-military conservatives. Until recently, the two camps had few problems traveling together. Yet faced with the concrete political choices raised by last year's budget sequester -- which made large cuts in nondefense discretionary spending contingent on equally large cuts in the Pentagon's budget -- the coalition has begun to show signs of strain. In retooling its foreign policy, the Republican Party should heed lessons from both types of conservatives. When it comes to foreign policy, the American people will ultimately reward not the party with the most ambitious vision but the party with the most sober and realistic one.
13. Title: A Light in the Forest: Brazil's Fight to Save the Amazon and Climate-Change Diplomacy
Authors: Tollefson, Jeff.
Abstract: Across the world, complex social and market forces are driving the conversion of vast swaths of rain forests into pastureland, plantations, and cropland. Rain forests are disappearing in Indonesia and Madagascar and are increasingly threatened in Africa's Congo basin. But the most extreme deforestation has taken place in Brazil. With the resulting increase in arable land, Brazil has helped feed the growing global demand for commodities, such as soybeans and beef. Brazil has dramatically slowed the destruction of its rain forests, reducing the rate of deforestation by 83% since 2004, primarily by enforcing land-use regulations, creating new protected areas, and working to maintain the rule of law in the Amazon. At the same time, Brazil has become a test case for a controversial international climate-change prevention strategy known as REDD, short for "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation," which places a monetary value on the carbon stored in forests.
14. Title: Own the Goals: What the Millennium Development Goals Have Accomplished