In The News

Clock Running Out on Irreversible Climate Change – Part II

Bo Ekman April 18, 2008
The coming negotiations over the successor to the Kyoto Protocol appear doomed as states express more concern about their narrow rights than the planet’s health. Bo Ekman, founder of Tällberg Forum, argues for developing fallback policies that global citizens must consider in the event of failure of the Copenhagen Process. Ekman fears that the “world will descend into eco-protectionism, where...

Asia’s Republican Leanings

Roger Cohen April 10, 2008
The heated US presidential campaign offers a lesson in democracy for the globe, and many who are not citizens of the US follow every detail. One ambassador has noted that the election is the “best diplomacy tool I’ve had in a long time,” reports columnist Roger Cohen in the New York Times. The world is looking on beyond the Bush administration, Cohen notes and, like US voters, is divided about...

The Three Revolutions

Henry A. Kissinger April 7, 2008
US policymakers must grapple with radical changes in the structure of international politics, suggests Henry A. Kissinger, US former secretary of the state. The upcoming presidential election has sparked lively debate over US foreign policy, yet this debate focuses on narrow, tactical concerns rather than the broad, strategic challenges. The European state system – the fundamental feature of...

After Bush

March 27, 2008
The Bush administration has been bedeviled by foreign-policy problems – and the Economist predicts that Bush’s successor will struggle likewise. To be sure, Democrats and Republicans have foreign-policy differences: Democrats oppose the war in Iraq, favoring multilateralism and diplomacy, while Republicans remain committed hawks. Inheriting an overburdened national-security establishment, the...

Democracy in Decline

Ayman El-Amir March 26, 2008
Most countries of the world are democracies, but recent elections demonstrate the challenges of the political system. The US promoted democracy in its battle against terrorism, and yet entrenched “regimes have borrowed America's fight against terrorism slogan as a way to stifle domestic dissent, arrest the dynamics of change, hamper the progress of basic freedoms and human rights and rig...

Democracy in Pakistan Might Bring Tension with Washington

Husain Haqqani February 22, 2008
Voting in Pakistan’s Feb 18 parliamentary elections was an act of courage. The people who turned out rejected extremist politics as well as the allies of President Pervez Musharraf. Instead, Pakistanis selected representatives from the center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led by Asif Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, and the center-right Pakistan Muslim League, led by Nawaz Sharif. The two...

Will Ballots Win Over Bullets in Pakistan?

Paula R. Newberg February 15, 2008
The world holds low expectations for fair elections in Pakistan. Tightening military rule and removing civil liberties in recent years have not restored stability in the terrorism-plagued country that is also a nuclear power. After a turbulent 2007 – including bitter conflict between courts and the current president and assassination of a leading candidate, Benazir Bhutto – uncertainty prevails...