In The News

Grand Strategy for a Divided America

Charles A. Kupchan August 1, 2007
The US has overextended itself on international security matters, failing to gain widespread cooperation with the international community in recent years. As a result, the US has failed in achieving some major goals – promoting democracy, defeating terror and encouraging free trade to alleviate poverty. US voters, observing mounting debt, with little results, are increasingly divided about how to...

Summer of Setbacks

Ernesto Zedillo August 1, 2007
Summer of 2007 may well be remembered for a string of bad financial news: increasing numbers of homeowners in the US struggling to pay home mortgages, the decline of the US dollar, and climbing oil prices as conflict and tension linger in the Middle East. Yet the world economy flourishes despite shocks in foreign exchange and the debt markets. Ernesto Zedillo, director of Yale Center for the...

Globalization Study Moves Past Rhetoric

David Wessel July 27, 2007
Corporations have long insisted that globalization delivers prosperity. But a report commissioned by the Financial Services Forum, an association of CEOs of 20 major financial firms, admits that most benefits have gone to a select few. International operations increasingly account for most sales and business conducted by multinational firms, writes David Wessel for the Wall Street Journal. But...

Does the UN Still Matter?

Joseph S. Nye July 27, 2007
The United Nations, with 192 member nations, has global authority to take action on problems ranging from climate change and famine to security matters. However, when corruption or problems emerge, such as former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein removing funds from the UN oil-for-food program, designed to protect ordinary Iraqis against international economic sanctions, many nations quickly blame the...

China Cancels Environmental Report

Mitchell Landsberg July 27, 2007
Governments around the globe continue to prioritize the short-term gains of economic growth over the long-term costs of environmental destruction. But with mounting property damage and increasing reports of illnesses such as asthma, nations can’t help but be embarrassed about the costs associated with environmental neglect. In early July, China convinced the World Bank to alter parts of a report...

On Paper It Is Writ

Nayan Chanda July 25, 2007
The prosperity and growth that comes with emerging economies in Asia have caused discomfort in Europe and the US. “The anxiety gripping US workers is a replay of countless such episodes in the millennial-long drama of globalization,” writes Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal Online, for Outlook India. “The word globalization is of recent origin, but the process of growing interconnectedness built...

Interrupting a History of Tolerance – Part II

Riaz Hassan July 24, 2007
The roots of anti-Semitism in the Middle East are based not in Islamic traditions, but in practical opposition to external intervention, argues Riaz Hassan, professor of sociology in Australia. The first two articles of this three-part series analyze historical events that allowed anti-Semitism to permeate the Middle East. In the early 20th century, Palestinians fiercely resisted Jewish settlers...