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The Political Power of Social Media

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Clay Shirky - Jan. 05 (Opinion) - (free subscription required) On January 17, 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him. Less than two hours after the decision was announced, thousands of Filipinos, angry that their corrupt president might be let off the hook, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila. The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response -- close to seven million text messages were sent that week -- so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented. Estrada's fate was sealed; by January 20, he was gone. The event marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader. Estrada himself blamed "the text-messaging generation" for his downfall.

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Labour Pains

Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Mark Blyth, Jonathan Hopkin - May. 04 (Opinion) - This election will be far from ordinary. It is not only a referendum on Brown, who became party leader and prime minister in 2007, after waiting ten years for the more charismatic Tony Blair to resign; it is also a referendum on Labour's 13 years in power and, on an even more basic level, on the economic principles that have guided the party's rule. It is in such moments that, as Karl Marx once mused, "all that is solid melts into air."

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Letter From Kabul

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Kim Barker - Dec. 04 (Special Report) - As the Obama administration prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan, what are the problems U.S. forces will face, and what, if anything, can they do to overcome them?

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Gorbachev Says Obama Should Start Afghan Withdrawal (Update2)

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:10:13 -0800

Bloomberg - Nov. 10 -

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Foreign Affairs - The Myth of the Autocratic Revival - Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Daniel Deudney, G. John Ikenberry - Jan. 01 (News Analysis) - Autocracies such as China and Russia do not represent a sustainable alternative to liberal democracy. In fact, the pull of liberal democracy is stronger than ever.

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Change They Can Believe In - Walter Russell Mead

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Walter Russell Mead - Jan. 01 (Research) - The twentieth century taught both the Jews and the Palestinians that the international community's grand moral claims are mostly hollow, that great powers are cynical and brutal, that international politics is a blood sport, and that, at the end of the day, a people can depend only on itself. And both survived thanks to dogged persistence, violent struggle, and a refusal to accept defeat.

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How to Leave a Stable Iraq

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O'Hanlon, Kenneth M. Pollack - Aug. 21 (Special Report) - If the prognosis in Iraq were hopelessly grim, it might make sense for the United States to threaten withdrawal, hold its breath, and hope for the best. But the prognosis is now much more promising than it has been in years, making a threat of withdrawal far from necessary. With a degree of patience, the United States can build on a pattern of positive change in Iraq that offers it a chance to draw down troops soon without giving up hope for sustained stability.

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China's Olympic Nightmare

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Elizabeth C. Economy, Adam Segal - Jul. 28 (Special Report) - ... even as Beijing has worked tirelessly to ensure the most impressive of Olympic spectacles, it is clear that the Games have come to highlight not only the awesome achievements of the country but also the grave shortcomings of the current regime. Few in the central leadership seem to have anticipated the extent to which the Olympic Games would stoke the persistent political challenges to the legitimacy of the Communist Party and the stability of the country. Demands for political liberalization, greater autonomy for Tibet, increased pressure on Sudan, better environmental protection, and an improved product-safety record now threaten to put a damper on the country's coming-out party. As the Olympic torch circled the globe with legions of protesters in tow, Beijing's Olympic dream quickly turned into a public-relations nightmare.

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The Price of the Surge

Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Steven Simon - May. 27 (Special Report) - The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

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The Future of American Power

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Fareed Zakaria - Apr. 25 (Special Report) - Through shrewd strategic choices and some sophisticated diplomacy, Britain was able to maintain and even extend its influence for decades. In the end, however, it could not alter the fact that its power position -- its economic and technological dynamism -- was fast eroding. Britain declined gracefully -- but inexorably. The United States today faces a problem that is quite different. The U.S. economy (despite its current crisis) remains fundamentally vigorous when compared with others. American society is vibrant. It is the United States' political system that is dysfunctional, unable to make the relatively simple reforms that would place the country on extremely solid footing for the future. Washington seems largely unaware of the new world rising around it -- and shows few signs of being able to reorient U.S. policy for this new age.

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How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By C. Ford Runge. Benjamin Senauer - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops

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Arctic Meltdown

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Scott G. Borgerson - Apr. 18 (Special Report) - The Arctic Ocean is melting, and it is melting fast. This past summer, the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than one million square miles, reducing the Arctic icecap to only half the size it was 50 years ago. For the first time, the Northwest Passage -- a fabled sea route to Asia that European explorers sought in vain for centuries -- opened for shipping. Even if the international community manages to slow the pace of climate change immediately and dramatically, a certain amount of warming is irreversible. It is no longer a matter of if, but when, the Arctic Ocean will open to regular marine transportation and exploration of its lucrative natural-resource deposits.

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America the Resilient

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Stephen E. Flynn - Mar. 27 (Opinion) - When it comes to managing the hazards of the twenty-first century, it is reckless to relegate the American public to the sidelines. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear weapons placed the fate of millions in the hands of a few. But responding to today's challenges, the threats of terrorism and natural disasters, requires the broad engagement of civil society.

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Kenya's Great Rift

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Joel D. Barkan - Feb. 20 (News Analysis) - The current violence threatens to roll back an impressive record of democratization and economic growth achieved in the five years since Kibaki succeeded longtime Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi. Whereas the Moi years were marked by economic stagnation and stubborn resistance to democratic reform, Kibaki's administration turned the country around on both fronts. The Kenyan economy grew by more than 6 percent in 2006, the highest growth rate in more than 30 years; foreign investors and tourists poured into the country; and civil society, the press, and parliament came together to advance democratization. Kenya, it appeared, had been reborn.

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A New Realism

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Bill Richardson - Dec. 22 (Opinion) - We defend ourselves best when we lead others, and the key to our history of effective leadership has been our willingness to seek and find common ground, to blend our interests with the interests of others. Truman and Eisenhower understood that defending Europe and America from the Soviets required a strong military, but they also understood that we could not lead our allies if they did not wish to follow.

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A Disciplined Defense

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Richard K. Betts - Dec. 18 (Special Report) - ... when pressed, one would have to concede that Washington spends so much and yet feels so insecure because U.S. policymakers have lost the ability to think clearly about defense policy.

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America's Priorities in the War on Terror

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Michael D. Huckabee - Dec. 15 (Comment) - A more successful U.S. foreign policy needs to better explain Islamic jihadism to the American people. Given how Americans have thrived on diversity -- religious, ethnic, racial -- it takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what Islamic terrorists are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it.

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Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:43:30 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Hillary Rodham Clinton - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - The tragedy of the last six years is that the Bush administration has squandered the respect, trust, and confidence of even our closest allies and friends. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States enjoyed a unique position. Our world leadership was widely accepted and respected, as we strengthened old alliances and built new ones, worked for peace across the globe, advanced nonproliferation, and modernized our military. After 9/11, the world rallied behind the United States as never before, supporting our efforts to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and go after the al Qaeda leadership. We had a historic opportunity to build a broad global coalition to combat terror, increase the impact of our diplomacy, and create a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.

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An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:10:40 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By John McCain - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - America needs a president who can revitalize our country's purpose and standing in the world, defeat terrorist adversaries who threaten liberty at home and abroad, and build enduring peace. There is an enormous amount to do. Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly in blood and treasure and in other less tangible ways as well. Our next president will need to rally nations across the world around common causes as only America can. There will be no time for on-the-job training. Given the present dangers, our country cannot afford the kind of malaise, drift, and fecklessness that followed the Vietnam War. The next president must be prepared to lead America and the world to victory -- and to seize the opportunities afforded by the unprecedented liberty and prosperity in the world today to build a peace that will last a century.

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The Battle Over Burma

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:45:44 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Michael Green, Derek Mitchell - Oct. 01 (News Analysis) - U.S. policy toward Burma is stuck. Since September 1988, the country has been run by a corrupt and repressive military junta (which renamed the country Myanmar). Soon after taking power, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), as the junta was then called, placed Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition party the National League for Democracy, under house arrest. In 1990, it allowed national elections but then ignored the National League for Democracy's landslide victory and clung to power. Then, in the mid-1990s, amid a cresting wave of post-Cold War democratization and in response to international pressure, the SLORC released Suu Kyi. At the time, there was a sense within the country and abroad that change in Burma might be possible.

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Musharraf is Still the Best Bet--for Now

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 10:29:27 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Daniel Markey - Jul. 02 (Opinion) - Even before the dust had settled on 9/11, U.S. policymakers were well aware that Pakistan was at the center of the world's worst Islamist terrorist networks. The Bush administration quickly moved to persuade once-sanctioned Islamabad to become an essential partner in the "global war on terror." But today, nearly six years after Secretary of State Colin Powell first announced that Washington and Islamabad stood "at the beginning of a strengthened relationship," the Taliban are still entrenched in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, al Qaeda's top leaders have found a secure hideout in Pakistan, and terrorist attacks within and beyond Pakistan's borders persist with deadly regularity.

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Containing Russia

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:12:22 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By Yuliya Tymoshenko - Apr. 30 (Special Report) - Sixty-one years ago, a telegram arrived at the State Department from the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Its purpose was to examine the sources of the conduct of the men who ruled in the Kremlin. Its impact was immediate. The "Long Telegram," penned by a young diplomat named George Kennan, became the basis for U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union for the next half century. Although the Soviet Union is long gone, the West is once again groping to understand what motivates the leaders in the Kremlin. Many believe that the principles behind Kennan's policy of "containment" are still applicable today -- and see a new Cold War, this time against Vladimir Putin's resurgent Russia, in the offing.

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How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 09:45:23 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By C. Ford Runge, Benjamin Senauer - Apr. 06 (Special Report) - Now, thanks to a combination of high oil prices and even more generous government subsidies, corn-based ethanol has become the rage. There were 110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of 2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being expanded, and another 73 were under construction. When these projects are completed, by the end of 2008, the United States' ethanol production capacity will reach an estimated 11.4 billion gallons per year. In his latest State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called on the country to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017, nearly five times the level currently mandated.

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Africa's Horn Erupts

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:05:28 -0700

Foreign Affairs - By John Prendergast, Colin Thomas-Jensen - Mar. 23 (Special Report) - The Greater Horn of Africa -- a region half the size of the United States that includes Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda -- is the hottest conflict zone in the world. Some of the most violent wars of the last half century have ripped the region apart. Today, two clusters of conflicts continue to destabilize it. The first centers on interlocking rebellions in Sudan, including those in Darfur and southern Sudan, and engulfs northern Uganda, eastern Chad, and northeastern Central African Republic. The main culprit is the Sudanese government, which is supporting rebels in these three neighboring countries -- and those states, which are supporting Sudanese groups opposing Khartoum. The second cluster links the festering dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea with the power struggle in Somalia, which involves the fledgling secular government, antigovernment clan militias, Islamist militants, and anti-Islamist warlords. Ethiopia's flash intervention in Somalia in December temporarily secured the ineffectual transitional government's position, but that intervention, which Washington backed and supplemented with its own air strikes, has sown the seeds for an Islamist and clan-based insurgency in the future.

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Time for Détente With Iran

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:55:30 -0800

Foreign Affairs - By Ray Takeyh - Mar. 08 (Special Report) - To tame the growing power of Iran, Washington must eschew military options, the prospect of conditional talks, and attempts to contain the regime. Instead, it should adopt a new policy of détente. By offering the pragmatists in Tehran a chance to resume diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, it could help them sideline the radicals and tip Iran's internal balance of power in their favor.

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