Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the United States-Japan Security Treaty, a central feature of stability in East Asia for half a century. But now, with...
Public-opinion polls show that citizens in many democracies are unhappy with their leaders. This is particularly true in the United Kingdom, where a number of...
President George W. Bush was famous for proclaiming the promotion of democracy a central focus of American foreign policy. He was not alone in this rhetoric....
The world economy will shrink this year for the first time since 1945, and some economists worry that the current crisis could spell the beginning of the end...
In an environment of mobile phones, computers, and Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, it is commonplace to say that we live in a networked...
Two years ago, Barack Obama was a first-term senator from a Midwestern state who had declared his interest in running for the presidency. Many people were...
National self-determination seems a straightforward moral principle, but it is fraught with problems. After Russia sent troops into Georgia in August 2008, it...
In August 2008, Russian troops moved into Georgia. Observers dispute who fired first, but there was a little noticed dimension of the conflict that will have...
One of the first challenges that President Barack Obama will face is the effects of the ongoing financial crisis, which has called into question the future of...
On November 4, Americans will elect their 44th president amid the worst financial turmoil the country has known since the onset of the Great Depression in...
China and Russia have just provided the world with sharp contrasts in the use of power. As the French analyst Dominique Moisi recently put it, "whereas China...
While George W. Bush has begun to acknowledge the risks of global climate change, his administration failed to lead on the issue for eight years. That may...
History is often written in terms of military heroes, but the enormous potential of human leadership ranges from Attila the Hun to Mother Teresa. Most...
George W. Bush is approaching the end of his presidency mired in low popularity ratings, which partly reflects his policies in the Middle East. But Bush...
For the first time in decades, a United States senator will become the next American president as all three of the remaining candidates - Hillary Clinton,...
The American presidential race commands attention around the world. The fact that the final three contenders included a woman, an African-American, and an...
Opinion polls indicate that one-third of Americans believe that China will "soon dominate the world," while nearly half view China's emergence as a "threat to...
The United States needs to rediscover how to be a "smart power." That was the conclusion of a bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard...
Joseph Stalin once dismissed the relevance of "soft power" by asking, "How many troops does the pope have?" Today, many self-styled realists dismiss the...
America is currently transfixed with the problem it has created for itself in Iraq, but the presidential candidates are also beginning to ask what principles...
For three decades, the rich world has talked about curbing its addiction to imported oil. But, despite the anxious rhetoric, the oil-supply problem has become...
With 192 members and a mandate that covers everything from security to refugees to public health, the United Nations is the world's only global organization....
Turkey will hold its parliamentary election in July, four months earlier than scheduled, thereby narrowly avoiding a constitutional crisis over the choice of...
With the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, French-American relations reached a low point. The Bush administration felt betrayed by French diplomatic tactics...
What comes after Iraq? If President George W. Bush's current troop "surge" fails to produce an outcome that can be called "victory," what lessons will the...