In The News

Americans Hold Our Futures in Their Hands

Khalaf Ahmed Al Habtoor November 3, 2008
US voters in some states already wait in long lines to cast votes in a historic election, and the rest of the world can only wait and watch. The next US president will confront immense challenges and responsibility. “The person they decide upon this time literally has the power to make or break the futures of not only Americans but billions of their fellow global citizens,” writes Khalaf Ahmed Al...

Foreign Policy Challenges for the New US President – Part II

Joseph Chamie November 3, 2008
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained at center stage of the world's attention for a half century, with permanent resolution proving an elusive goal. In the second part of a two-part series examining foreign-policy challenges for the next US president, demographer Joseph Chamie shows how that conflict might present itself in the coming years based on population trends of Israel and...

Foreign Policy Challenges for the New US President – Part I

Imtiaz Ali October 31, 2008
States that ignore the aspirations of their people and neglect festering pockets of poverty, paying little heed to the need for education, health, jobs or fair wages, years later may discover a changed country, with new motivations and goals. This YaleGlobal series explores how poverty and demography can undermine democratic governments and bring security challenges not only to the government in...

Globalization and the New Nationalism Collide

Philip Stephens October 29, 2008
The global financial crisis has exposed mutual interdependence and the need for multilateral rules. Leaders like Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and George Bush plan international meetings, including leaders from emerging economies, and talk of the need for international regulations. Contradicting the internationalist spirit is nationalistic talk – opposition to foreign investment, immigration or...

Missing Links: After the Fall

Moisés Naím October 27, 2008
The attacks of 9/11 were a watershed event in the institutional makeup of US and global security institutions. The push for rejecting old, seemingly outdated frameworks, explains Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím, helped lead to the Iraq War, in addition to "the Guantánamo Bay prison, the erosion of civil liberties, disdain for the Geneva Conventions, and the belittling of mechanisms...

Do You Really Want This Job?

David Dapice October 24, 2008
An era of the US living beyond its means has come to an abrupt end, with a flailing stock market and credit freeze, mounting job losses, wages that do not keep pace with climbing housing prices, and the world’s costliest health care system that fails to cover all citizens. The next US president, to be decided in the November 4 election, will inherit a battered economy that restrains any US role...

The Glass Half Full

Nayan Chanda October 24, 2008
Neither candidate for US president, Barack Obama nor John McCain, wholly embraces globalization. McCain, a supporter of laissez-faire economics, emphasizes economic globalization, but not its “political and cultural components,” and his support base fiercely responds to the candidate’s message of “America first.” Meanwhile, Obama appeals to those who appreciate an international perspective and an...