In The News

Help Not Wanted

Moisés Naím February 15, 2007
China is stepping up in delivering foreign aid to impoverished African nations, but that is not good news for all Africans. “It is development assistance that is nondemocratic in origin and nontransparent in practice, and its effect is typically to stifle real progress while hurting ordinary citizens,” charges Moisés Naím, editor of “Foreign Policy” magazine. Some donors distribute billions, with...

America’s China Worries – Part III

Bertil Lintner February 13, 2007
In recent decades, the South Pacific has been a friendly region for the US and its interests, including islands that sit on Asia's doorstep. But the rise of China and its growing interest in the Pacific islands may be emerging as yet another area of possible concern. In this final article of a three-part series, author Bertil Lintner examines how China is moving in the region to fill the...

How Not to Inflame Iraq

Javad Zarif February 12, 2007
Speaking to the UN Security Council in 2003, just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, Iranian Ambassador Javad Zarif warned the world that, “extremism stands to benefit enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq.” As the US prepares to escalate troops in Iraq to confront an ever-growing insurgency, Zarif once again urges Washington to abandon shortsighted schemes, arguing that an “escalated...

America in Africa: Addressing a Mix of Islam and Oil

Ricardo Rene Laremont February 6, 2007
Amidst the lingering turbulence in the Middle East, US policymakers look to Africa as an alternative source of petroleum. Washington has launched military training operations in a number of African nations in an effort to combat Islamic terrorism and secure oil supplies. While there is no doubt that such military investments are necessary in the post-9/11 world, Ricardo Rene Laremont expresses...

America’s China Worries – Part I

Joan Johnson-Freese February 6, 2007
For more than a decade, the US was a lone superpower in terms of economic, diplomatic and military might. But China has steadily stepped up to the challenge, demonstrating its intent to serve as a counterweight to US influence when it comes to global affairs. In the first of this series of articles about challenges to US-China relations, Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the US Naval War College’s...

Obama's International Background an Asset, Not a Flaw

Donald K. Emmerson February 5, 2007
Global exchange of all sorts is a prerequisite for the future, and parents should prepare their children. An international education – attending public school with ordinary children, not cloistered away with children of the elite – can be the best preparation for a global career and an antidote for racism, xenophobia or other forms of social tension. Isolationists in the US try to stoke fear of...

Questioning Milton Friedman’s Free Market and Freedom

Pranab Bardhan January 30, 2007
Not only democracies but dictators and authoritarian governments pursue the benefits of economic freedom. The recent passing of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman provokes economist Pranab Bardhan to reflect on the connections that these two individuals represented: political control and economic freedom. Friedman and other economists have long...