Articles by Foreign Policy
We found 205 results.
Kingdom of Slaves
Sam Badger and Giorgio Cafiero - Foreign Policy In Focus,
22 Sep 2014
In the smallest Gulf kingdoms, upwards of 90 percent of residents are immigrant laborers. Many face unspeakable abuse.
→ read full articleJapan Still Hobbled by Racism and Militarism
Michael Walker – Foreign Policy In Focus,
15 Sep 2014
Not only has Japan been unable to face its past, it’s weighed down by a staggering national debt.
→ read full articleMeet the Company Suing El Salvador for the Right to Poison Its Water
Robin Broad and John Cavanagh – Foreign Policy In Focus,
8 Sep 2014
In an obscure World Bank court, a multinational mining firm is suing El Salvador for attempting to protect its citizens from deadly mining pollution.
→ read full articleThe Myth of American Exceptionalism
Stephen M. Walt – Foreign Policy,
18 Aug 2014
The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it’s not true, says Harvard international relations professor.
→ read full articleHow Western Aid Bungled Syria’s Opposition & Paved the Way for ISIS
Hisham Safi – Foreign Policy In Focus,
11 Aug 2014
The U.S. and its allies have funded a host of Syrian opposition councils that are more interested in seeking Western aid than serving the Syrian people.
→ read full articleWhat the World Cup Can Teach Progressives about Corruption
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy In Focus,
21 Jul 2014
Fighting corruption is a proven means to reduce inequality. But the issue has often been co-opted by elites looking to do just the opposite.
→ read full articleSri Lanka’s Downward Spiral
Taylor Dibbert – Foreign Policy,
21 Jul 2014
Sometimes it takes time, but the truth has a way of finding people. Let’s hope it finds President Mahinda Rajapaksa — sooner rather than later.
→ read full articleIn Kyrgyzstan Ethnic Hostility Shows Few Signs of Abating
Sufyan bin Uzayr – Foreign Policy In Focus,
14 Jul 2014
The underlying issues that led to violence in Kyrgyzstan four years ago remain.
→ read full articleMilitarized Humanitarianism in Africa
Joeva Rock – Foreign Policy In Focus,
19 May 2014
Africa is the U.S. military’s next frontier, and it’s using humanitarian missions to get there.
→ read full articleBurma/Myanmar: Preventing the Next Genocide
Sir Geoffrey Nice , Francis Wade – Foreign Policy,
19 May 2014
The dehumanization process changes the mind of the perpetrators of genocide. The Rakhine may not know that they are at the receiving end of a common tactic that often precedes, and helps normalize, mass killing: the depiction of minority groups as animals. We saw this in Rwanda and we are seeing signs of it now in Burma.
→ read full articleThe Free-Trade Regime: Oligarchy in Action
Moritz Laurer – Foreign Policy In Focus,
19 May 2014
Economic elites and special interest groups enjoy tremendous sway in Washington, while “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
→ read full articleThe Right Rises Again in Europe
Stefan Haus – Foreign Policy In Focus,
5 May 2014
This May’s [2014] European Parliament elections are expected to bring about a new all-time record—not in voter turnout, not in enthusiasm for European institutions, but in support for right-wing, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU fringe parties. In many countries on the old continent, extremist parties have been on the rise and radical ideas are gaining traction.
→ read full articleObama in Asia: Washington Extracts Rent-free Basing from the Philippines
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy In Focus,
5 May 2014
What the agreement boils down to is that the Philippines will give the United States the right to operate bases in the country—for no rent—without the guarantee of U.S. protection of the country’s island territories.
→ read full articleIsrael Projects Its Own Nuclear Behavior on to Iran
Russ Wellen – Foreign Policy In Focus,
5 May 2014
As they say in support groups, you’re only as sick as your secrets. To play armchair psychoanalyst, it’s as if by forcing Iran to admit that it tried to develop nuclear weapons, Israel will absolve itself of its nuclear lies. The fly in the ointment, of course, is that Israel has a nuclear-weapons program and Iran none.
→ read full articleDunya Mikhail: Politics in Service of Poetry
Solmaz Sharif – Foreign Policy In Focus,
5 May 2014
Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail talks about her experiences writing provocative poetry in two different countries.
What good luck!
She has found his bones.
The skull is also in the bag
the bag in her hand
like all other bags
in all other hands.
American Media Distorts Venezuelan Protests
Nathalie Baptiste – Foreign Policy In Focus,
7 Apr 2014
Anti-government protests are being conducted by wealthier, right-wing Venezuelans, who have caused more deaths than security officials.
→ read full articleIt’s Not Just Uganda: Behind the Christian Right’s Onslaught on Africa’s Gays
Nathalie Baptiste – Foreign Policy In Focus,
7 Apr 2014
For years now, evangelical activists from the United States have been speaking out against homosexuality and cheering on antigay legislation all over Africa. In Uganda, being gay can now earn you a lifetime in prison. Pat Robertson’s entanglements in Africa go well beyond Zimbabwe and Kenya.
→ read full articleDoes the Academy Matter?
Foreign Policy – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Mar 2014
Do policymakers listen? Should you get a Ph.D.? And where are all the women? In mid-February, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof kicked over an ivy-covered hornet’s nest when he complained that too many professors sequester themselves in the ivory tower amid “a culture that glorifies arcane unintelligibility while disdaining impact and audience.”
→ read full articleU.S. Boycotts U.N. Drone Talks
Colum Lynch – Foreign Policy,
24 Mar 2014
Pakistan is pushing a resolution through the UN Human Rights Council for greater scrutiny of whether U.S. drone strikes violate international human rights law. Washington, though, doesn’t want to talk about it. The Geneva-based human rights council held its third round of discussions about the draft on Wednesday [19 Mar 2014], but the Obama administration boycotted the talks.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Preserving Western Domination
Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince – Foreign Policy In Focus,
24 Mar 2014
Despite the Western claim that the dispute with Iran over nuclear research rests on it, the NPT is largely a means of maintaining Western nuclear-weapons superiority.
→ read full articleDisaster Militarism: Rethinking U.S. Relief in the Asia-Pacific
Foreign Policy In Focus - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
Disaster relief has increasingly become part of the justification for increased U.S. troop deployments in the Asia-Pacific region.
→ read full articleU.S. Foreign Assistance: More Guns than Butter
James Kennedy – Foreign Policy In Focus,
10 Mar 2014
Aid to foreign militaries is quickly eclipsing development assistance in the U.S. foreign aid budget. Even as President Obama has promised to get the country off a permanent war footing, the United States continues to deliver more and more money, guns, equipment, and training to foreign military and police forces around the globe.
→ read full articleDid Nonviolence Fail in Egypt?
Mark Engler and Paul Engler – Foreign Policy In Focus,
10 Mar 2014
The Egyptian Revolution is a perfect case study for both the power and the limits of nonviolent mass movements.
→ read full articleUkraine: Out of the Frying Pan
John Feffer – Foreign Policy In Focus,
3 Mar 2014
In the end, the street triumphed over the elite. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych tried to hang on to power, and failed. Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to maintain Russian influence, and failed. The EU tried to mediate, and failed. And the United States tried to…well, I’ll get to that in a moment.
→ read full articleMilitary Humanitarian Intervention: The Shock Doctrine Applied to Syria
Rob Prince – Foreign Policy In Focus,
24 Feb 2014
What’s needed in Syria is not military intervention, but a global peace offensive. One must make a distinction between “humanitarian intervention” in times of war, and military intervention using humanitarian pretexts. The latter actually has a very long and sordid history going back several hundred years and has been used by virtually every colonial and neocolonial military intervention and massacre.
→ read full articleEver Wonder Exactly Why the U.S. Keeps Israel’s Nuclear Secret?
Russ Wellen – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
Hint: it’s not just the Israel lobby.
→ read full articleBrazil’s World Cup Evictions: An Insult to Soccer
Nathalie Baptiste – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
Forced evictions are happening throughout Brazil in advance of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, exacerbating the country’s growing inequality.
→ read full articleObama’s Arms Sales Policy: Promotion or Restraint?
William D. Hartung – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
The United States is far and away the world’s leading arms trafficking nation, with $60 billion in arms transfer agreements last year [2013] alone. In 2011, the last year for which full global statistics are available, U.S. companies and the U.S. government controlled over three-quarters of the international weapons trade.
→ read full articleGypsies-Roma: The Greatest Threat to Europe
John Feffer – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
Europe will never fully democratize until the Roma enjoy the same rights, privileges, and opportunities as their European brethren.
→ read full articleCountering Boycott Calls with Anti-Semitism Accusations: A Sure Way to Lose the Argument
Doron Pely – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
Many Israelis view almost any call for a boycott of Israel as a manifestation of a new type of virulent anti-Semitism. A return to the old “the whole world is against us, and they all hate us because we’re Jews” argument may not be the best strategy, neither for Jews in general, nor as a response to the boycott movement.
→ read full articleAbe Road
Nancy Snow – Foreign Policy In Focus,
17 Feb 2014
Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s chauvinistic surge has inflicted unmistakable damage on its national brand image.
→ read full articleHow the UN Can Ignore 8,000 Deaths in Haiti
Nathalie Baptiste – Foreign Policy In Focus,
10 Feb 2014
Many more Haitians will die from cholera, a disease brought to their country by the very people who were supposed to be saving them from disaster.
→ read full articleSouth Sudan: Colonialism’s Dead Hand
Conn Hallinan – Foreign Policy In Focus,
10 Feb 2014
The United States now has troops in some 35 countries in Africa. Washington has deployed somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 troops in Djibouti on the horn of Africa and at least 100 Special Forces in Uganda and Niger. It is training Kenyans to fight the Shabab in Somalia, Ugandans to track the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it is building a drone base in Niger.
→ read full articleThailand’s Deep Divide
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy In Focus,
3 Feb 2014
Thailand’s anti-corruption protesters appear to have lost faith in the key tenet of representative democracy: rule by people or parties elected by the majority of citizens.
→ read full articleHaiti: Billions in Aid, Pennies in Progress since Earthquake
Nathalie Baptiste – Foreign Policy In Focus,
3 Feb 2014
Four years since its devastating earthquake, progress in Haiti is slow and reconstruction efforts are lacking at best.
→ read full articleMissile Force: First Safety Violations, Then a Drunken Commander, Now Cheating
Russ Wellen – Foreign Policy in Focus,
27 Jan 2014
Yet another scandal for the ICBM launch force at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
→ read full articleNo, Really, the Sarin Attack Wasn’t Assad’s
Russ Wellen – Foreign Policy in Focus,
27 Jan 2014
A recent report by highly respected experts shows that it’s almost certain that the Assad regime wasn’t responsible for the sarin attack on the suburbs of Damascus.
→ read full articleNAFTA at 20: A Model for Corporate Rule
Manuel Perez-Rocha and Stuart Trew – Foreign Policy In Focus,
20 Jan 2014
NAFTA and treaties like it grant transnational companies total freedom of movement for capital, goods, and services, coupled with the ability to sue countries in secret courts when governments attempt to get in their way.
→ read full articleObama Ignores Morocco’s Illegal Occupation and Human Rights Abuses
Stephen Zunes – Foreign Policy in Focus,
23 Dec 2013
Defying a series of UN Security Council resolutions, a landmark World Court decision, and international mediation efforts, the Moroccans have continued to deny the people of the territory their right of self-determination through a UN-sponsored referendum. No country recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the territory, and more than 80 nations, as well as the African Union, have formally recognized Western Sahara as an independent state.
→ read full articleSpineless in Bali
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy In Focus,
23 Dec 2013
Developed countries are still using the WTO to squeeze small farmers in the developing world–and developing world governments are going along with the charade.
→ read full articleThe M23 Surrenders: A Pyrrhic Victory in Eastern Congo
David Zarembka – Foreign Policy In Focus,
25 Nov 2013
Given the roots of the ongoing conflict in North Kivu, military victory amounts to exchanging one group of exploiters for another.
→ read full articleBranding Japan
Nancy Snow – Foreign Policy In Focus,
25 Nov 2013
Shinzo Abe is back as prime minister, along with his special brand of Abenomics and a whole new politics of hype. Thankfully Halloween arrived just in time for Fox TV in Japan to stage a “zombie walk” as a promotional tie-in for a new season of The Walking Dead. Casual observers could be forgiven for mistaking this publicity stunt for just another visual representation of Japanese politics.
→ read full articleIncreased American Military Presence May Undermine Good Governance Efforts in Africa
Hilary Matfess - Foreign Policy in Focus,
4 Nov 2013
Africa Is Front and Center Now for the Pentagon – Ironically, increased partnerships with the world’s foremost democracy may undermine the democratic process by reducing the importance of public opinion, increasing ‘rent seeking behavior’ in governments, and strengthening autocratic aspects of governments.
→ read full articleGMO Wars: The Global Battlefield
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy In Focus,
4 Nov 2013
The GMO wars escalated earlier this month [October] when the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive VP and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, responsible for development of genetically modified organisms.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Orphaned Diplomacy
Moritz Laurer – Foreign Policy In Focus,
28 Oct 2013
America’s money-soaked political system simultaneously bolsters the military-industrial complex and undermines diplomacy.
→ read full articleHumanitarian Intervention: Destroying Nations to Save Them
Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince – Foreign Policy in Focus,
21 Oct 2013
Humanitarian intervention and pre-emptive military strikes go together like a horse and carriage. The notion of “humanitarian intervention” by former imperialist and now neo-colonial powers is as old as the hills. One can trace such pretexts back far in modern history.
→ read full articleAt the UN, a Latin American Rebellion
Laura Carlsen – Foreign Policy in Focus,
14 Oct 2013
One after another, Latin American leaders came to the podium to denounce the U.S. government. Most criticism was directed at the espionage programs that made Mexico and Brazil marks for political and industrial spying. The other target for regional antipathy was the signature U.S. security policy: the drug war.
→ read full articleLet’s Give War a Chance [In English and Arabic]
Faiza Sultan – Foreign Policy in Focus,
14 Oct 2013
So that / Politicians can be tattooed / With dark blotches / On their foreheads / Of religiosity…
→ read full articleThe Real North Korean Threat
Emanuel Pastreich – Foreign Policy in Focus,
7 Oct 2013
In North Korea, the threat of desertification should be raised to the same level as nuclear nonproliferation. I refer to the spread of deserts and semi-desert regions in North Korea as a result of the reckless logging of forests, the misuse of soil, and irresponsible farming practices. These ecological dead zones, where few plants can survive, are spreading.
→ read full articleHow Syria Brought the U.S. and Iran Together
Richard Javad Heydarian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
7 Oct 2013
This year’s UN General Assembly may well be remembered as the beginning of the end for Washington’s decades-long standoff with Tehran. And none of it would have been possible if the Obama administration had gone ahead with its plan to attack Syria.
→ read full articleMetadata May Not Catch Many Terrorists, But It’s Great at Busting Journalists’ Sources
Shane Harris – Foreign Policy,
30 Sep 2013
The National Security Agency says that the telephone metadata it collects on every American is essential for finding terrorists. And that’s debatable. But on Monday [23 Sep 2013], a former FBI agent and bomb technician pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to the Associated Press about a successful CIA operation in Yemen. As it turns out, phone metadata was the key to finding him.
→ read full articleOn the Fence about Syria? Read This!
Peter Certo – Foreign Policy in Focus,
11 Sep 2013
A quick reader on why military intervention in Syria is a big mistake–and what we should be advocating instead.
→ read full articleThe Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention (Revisited)
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
11 Sep 2013
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Events in Libya and Syria have again brought to the forefront the question of armed humanitarian intervention or the “responsibility to protect.”
→ read full articleA Brewing Storm in the Western Pacific
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Aug 2013
China’s aggressive territorial claims, Washington’s “pivot” to Asia, and Japan’s hawkish bluster add up to a volatile brew in the Asia-Pacific.
→ read full articleNSA Spying Leaves Washington Lonelier than Ever
Emma Lo – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Aug 2013
NSA spying is sullying Washington’s relationship with nearly every one of its global partners and competitors.
→ read full articleWashington and the Egyptian Tragedy
Stephen Zunes – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Aug 2013
As in El Salvador, Nicaragua, East Timor, Angola, Lebanon, and Gaza in previous years, the massive killing of civilians in Egypt is being done with U.S.-provided weapons by a U.S.-backed government. The last thing the United States should be doing is continuing to pour arms into this tragic and chaotic situation and rationalization for brutal repression.
→ read full article1,455,590 Iraqis Killed by US War and Occupation
Just Foreign Policy – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jun 2013
The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.
→ read full articleTake Syria Seriously–And Stay Out
Saul Landau – Foreign Policy in Focus,
10 Jun 2013
Obama’s spin language on Syria referring to the use of chemical weapons (calling it a “red line” and “game changer)” sounds like a moral imperative, but it overlooks key facts: the U.S. military used phosphorous bombs in attacks on Fallujah during the Iraq War, and U.S. Air Force planes dropped tons of Agent Orange on Vietnam.
→ read full articleIt’s Time to Delist Cuba
Arturo Lopez-Levy – Foreign Policy in Focus,
10 Jun 2013
A man convicted of bombing a civilian airliner in Cuba lives freely in Miami, but the U.S. State Department calls Cuba the “state sponsor of terror.” What’s wrong with this picture?
→ read full articleHow Democratic Is Turkey?
Steven A. Cook, Michael Koplow – Foreign Policy,
10 Jun 2013
Not as Democratic as Washington Thinks It Is – The ferocity of the protests and police response in Istanbul’s Gezi Park is no doubt a surprise to many in Washington. Turkey, that “excellent model” or “model partner,” repeated ad nauseum, misrepresents the complex and often contradictory political processes underway in Turkey.
→ read full articleTop Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Jeremy R. Hammond – Foreign Policy Journal,
13 May 2013
Although Arabs were a majority in Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there had always been a Jewish population, as well. For the most part, Jewish Palestinians got along with their Arab neighbors. This began to change with the onset of the Zionist movement, because the Zionists rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and wanted Palestine for their own, to create a “Jewish State” in a region where Arabs were the majority and owned most of the land.
→ read full articleThein Sein Faces Ethnic Cleansing Charge, Accepts Peace Prize on Same Day
Ty McCormick – Foreign Policy,
6 May 2013
Tonight [22 Apr 2013], at a black-tie gala in New York, the International Crisis Group is scheduled to honor Thein Sein, Burma’s president, with its top peace award. But today also a new report by Human Rights Watch accuses Burma’s government of complicity in the ethnic cleansing of 125,000 Rohingya Muslims in the country’s southwest. Something tells me tonight’s gala is going to be a little awkward.
→ read full articleGeopolitical Dimensions of the Syrian Crisis
Jamal Wakim – Foreign Policy Journal,
1 Apr 2013
Regime survival depends on a tight grip on Damascus and a delicate manipulation of regional and international contradictions.
→ read full articleI’ll Miss Hugo
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
18 Mar 2013
His was a life that was larger than life, from the Caracas riots against the IMF in 1989 to his failed coup in 1992, and from his victory in the 1998 presidential election to his reinstatement by the urban poor when the right removed him in a coup in 2002. Along with Nestor Kirchner in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Chavez put an end to the reign of neoliberal IMF policies that had impoverished the masses. Goodbye, Comandante Hugo. You were a class act, one impossible to follow. Wherever you are right now, give ’em hell.
→ read full articleThe Banal Militarism of Hollywood
Fouad Pervez – Foreign Policy in Focus,
18 Mar 2013
Appealing to jingoism is certainly easier than prompting national introspection, but is priming an audience for blood what we call art today?
→ read full articleWith Bus Segregation Israeli Apartheid Becomes More Blatant
Renee Lott – Foreign Policy in Focus,
18 Mar 2013
Israel seems to have fewer and fewer qualms about being branded apartheid. The continued disregard for Palestinians is yet again highlighted in Israel’s latest segregation of the region’s bus system—modern day apartheid at its finest. Especially problematic is the fact that the bus system is a public service and under law should employ nondiscriminatory practices.
→ read full articleWashington Debates the Pivot to Asia
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
25 Feb 2013
Over the last two years, the Obama administration has executed what the president has termed the “Pivot to Asia” strategy, whereby the United States’ global military force posture is being reconfigured to focus on the Asia-Pacific region as Washington’s central front. The truth of the matter is that, as in the Middle East and Latin America, there is more continuity with the Bush administration than rupture in the Obama administration’s approach toward Asia.
→ read full articleKorea: The Case for Withdrawal
Geoffrey Fattig – Foreign Policy In Focus,
25 Feb 2013
Withdrawing U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula could kickstart diplomatic progress in Northeast Asia and save billions of dollars to boot. How to wind down a war that’s lain dormant for nearly 60 years.
→ read full articleAnatomy of an Air Attack Gone Wrong
Letta Tayler – Foreign Policy,
31 Dec 2012
In rural Yemen, a botched attack on a terror suspect kills 12 civilians and destroys a community. A torched woman clutched her daughter in a lifeless embrace. Four severed heads littered the pavement. “The bodies were charred like coal. I could not recognize the faces.” It happened as they were coming from the market.
→ read full articleHow Israel Lost Europe
Jonathan Schanzer and Benjamin Weinthal – Foreign Policy,
3 Dec 2012
How Benjamin Netanyahu lost friends and Mahmoud Abbas influenced people. The big surprise of the event was that a number of key Western European countries did not join the United States and vote against the resolution. The Czech Republic was the only European country to vote against the upgrade, and shockingly, the normally staunchly pro-Israeli governments of Germany and Britain decided to abstain.
→ read full articleAttacks on First Responders Transform Criminality of Drone Strikes to Sadism
Russ Wellen – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Nov 2012
The term “double tapping” fails to do justice to a military tactic that’s arguably sociopathic. Attacking those coming to the assistance of the injured, which the military calls “double tapping” and doesn’t even attempt to hide, caught me off-guard with its cold-blooded cruelty. It’s not only used in helicopter attacks, but in drone strikes as well. A February article by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) provides more insight into this insidious practice.
→ read full articleIs the Cat Out of the Bag on Israel?
Emily Johanson – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Nov 2012
In his latest book, ‘Knowing Too Much: The American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to An End’, veteran activist Norman Finkelstein argues that the growing international awareness of the Israeli occupation has heralded a perceptible shift among the U.S. Jewish community away from a close identification with Israel. Criticism of Israeli policies from American Jews is growing far stronger than anything American politicians can muster.
→ read full articleChina’s Transformation: A Southeast Asian Perspective
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
26 Nov 2012
China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition will have major implications for China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia. Given this, it might be worthwhile to review the changing understanding of the momentous developments in China on the part of people in our region, using my generation—the so-called “baby boomers”—as an example.
→ read full articleRaising the Stakes in Asia
Richard Javad Heydarian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
12 Nov 2012
The U.S. pivot to Asia is motivated and shaped by both economic and military-strategic factors. Essentially, it is still an ongoing process that will depend on the cooperation of regional allies as well as the evolving patterns of Sino-American relations. The growing U.S. military presence may have boosted the morale of allies such as the Philippines, but it is also shifting the focus away from diplomacy and dialogue towards brinkmanship and competitive alliance-building.
→ read full articleOsprey Outrage on Okinawa
Seamus Murphy – Foreign Policy in Focus,
12 Nov 2012
The outrage shows no signs of waning, with Okinawans claiming their government is treating them like second-class citizens, breaking a promise to remove the U.S. military presence at Futenma. With the pace of Osprey operations increasing, so too is the catastrophic disparity between the U.S. military and the people of Okinawa.
→ read full articleEconomic Crisis Shakes Old Paradigms
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
29 Oct 2012
Many of the same people who brought you the global financial crisis are also behind the global ecological crisis, observes Walden Bello. To find a common solution to both, we need to search for new models.
→ read full articleStaunching Syria’s Wounds
Wadlen Bello and Richard Javad Heydarian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
1 Oct 2012
There is hardly an “international community” to speak of as far as Syria is concerned. There are basically three camps: The first camp is composed of anti-Assad hawks, mainly NATO countries and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia. The second camp is composed of Eastern powers and Syrian allies such as Russia, China, and Iran. The last camp, or the “third way,” is composed of developing countries, from India to Brazil, that are deeply disturbed by the ongoing violence in Syria.
→ read full articleThe Shots Heard Round the World
Rick Rowden – Foreign Policy,
23 Jul 2012
Why conservative economists are aghast at radical reforms by Argentina’s central bank. Argentina’s new central bank president, Mercedes Marcó del Pont, said the reforms challenge the conservative axiom that central banks should play a very limited role in the economy. She explained that some of the portraits on the bank’s hall of fame would be coming down — “beginning with Milton Friedman’s.”
→ read full articleIs the Threat of a “Mafia State” Real?
Michael Busch – Foreign Policy in Focus,
25 Jun 2012
Earlier this spring, Moisés Naím provocatively warned against an emerging menace facing our world today—the advent of what he terms the “mafia state.” Analyzing the role of transnational organized crime in the age of globalization has been Naím’s bailiwick for some years now, and familiar readers will find little that catches them off-guard.
→ read full articlePsychologists and Torture, Then and Now
Laura Melendez-Pallitto and Robert Pallitto – Foreign Policy in Focus,
5 Mar 2012
Psychologists’ involvement in torture has done damage to the reputation of the profession, and the boards’ unwillingness to act undermines the integrity of ethics rules. It is both unconscionable and absurd that a psychologist can lose his or her license for Medicaid fraud but not for involvement in torture.
→ read full articleThe Apple Connection
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
13 Feb 2012
Apple’s products are top of the line, distinguished by their superior design, engineering, and personality or “soul.” The iPad and iPhone are engineering masterpieces. But these commodities are not simply material. They also incarnate the social relations of production. They are the expression of the marriage between a demanding enterprise that has become the cutting edge corporation of our time and what Slavoj Zizek has called today’s “ideal capitalist state”: China, with the freedom it offers capital along with its unparalleled capacity to discipline labor.
→ read full articleThe Under-Examined Story of Fallujah
Hannah Gurman – Foreign Policy in Focus,
28 Nov 2011
Of the current problems in Fallujah, the most alarming is a mounting public health crisis. In the years since the invasion, doctors in Fallujah have reported drastic increases in the number of premature births, infant mortality, and birth defects – babies born without skulls, missing organs, or with stumps for arms and legs. But the crisis, and its possible connection to weapons deployed by the United States during the war, remains woefully under-examined.
→ read full articleDroning On
John Feffer – Foreign Policy in Focus,
28 Nov 2011
What’s happening today in Pakistan is beyond the law. It’s not even subject to the rules of war. The drone wars are conducted by the CIA. The spy agency doesn’t need to abide by the Geneva Conventions or acquire congressional approval for its actions. “The U.S. government simply cannot arrogate the right to wage an endless, global war against anyone it deems a threat to national security,” writes Paul Miller. “The prospect of such a war should trouble anyone who has the least acquaintance with history or political philosophy.” Miller was responsible for Afghanistan policy on the National Security council from 2007 to 2009. We thought that we would always be the hand on the joystick. But even in video games, tables turn, and the hunter becomes the hunted.
→ read full articleOf Bases and Budgets
Christine Ahn and Hyun Lee – Foreign Policy in Focus,
10 Oct 2011
Why, after 66 years, 28,500 U.S. troops remain on 87 bases and installations on the Korean peninsula and whose security they are safeguarding.
→ read full articleThe Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
15 Aug 2011
Events in Libya and Syria have again brought to the forefront the question of armed humanitarian intervention or the “responsibility to protect.” Perhaps there is no better way to sum up the tragic odyssey of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention than by invoking the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
→ read full articlePredator Drones and the International Mafia
Dr. Reza Pankhurst – Foreign Policy Journal,
25 Jul 2011
According to the Brooking Institution more than 90 percent of those killed have been civilians. Noor Behram, who has been documenting the aftermath of drone strikes in Waziristan on-site for the last three years concurs that “for every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant”. With more drone strikes carried out in Pakistan during the first year of President Barack Obama’s term in office than were carried out in the whole second term of his predecessor George W. Bush…
→ read full articleCrocodile Tears As Food Aid Blockade Continues in Horn of Africa
Thomas C. Mountain – Foreign Policy Journal,
25 Jul 2011
As predicted here in Foreign Policy Journal, crocodile tears have begun to run down the faces of the likes of Anthony Lake, CIA director nominee turned Executive Director of UNICEF, as some 15 million people starve in the Horn of Africa. Tony Lake appeals to the world for tens, no, hundreds of millions of dollars to save the starving people of Ethiopia and Somalia, never once telling you that the majority, some 10 million, are in the Ogaden and Oromia regions and being subjected to a Western-funded food aid blockade by the Ethiopian military.
→ read full articleIsrael: Impediment to a Nuclear-Free Middle East
Kourosh Ziabari – Foreign Policy Journal,
25 Jul 2011
You may have frequently heard of the Western mainstream media’s claims that Iran is pursuing a military nuclear program aimed at developing atomic weapons. Spreading falsehood and untruth about the nature of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program has been a constant, unchanging, and recurring theme of the Western corporate media’s coverage of Iran.
→ read full articleChad Signs Plan to End Recruitment and Use of Children in National Army and Security Forces
Cassandra Clifford – Foreign Policy Association,
4 Jul 2011
Last week on 16 June 2011 the government of the African nation Chad signed an action plan to end recruitment and use of children in its national army and security forces.
→ read full articleCapital Is a Fickle Lover
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
27 Jun 2011
“China is today the ideal capitalist state: freedom for capital, with the state doing the ‘dirty job’ of controlling the workers,” writes the prominent Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. “China as the emerging power of the twenty first century… seems to embody a new kind of capitalism: disregard for ecological consequences, disdain for workers’ rights, everything subordinated to the ruthless drive to develop and become the new world force.”
Capital, however, is a fickle lover.
After Osama: China?
John Feffer – Foreign Policy in Focus,
16 May 2011
But perhaps the only country in the world that has benefited from the last decade of war against al-Qaeda is China, and it has benefitted big time. Beijing has watched the United States spend more than $3 trillion on the war on terrorism, devote its military resources to the Middle East, and neglect pretty much every other part of the globe (except where al-Qaeda and its friends hang out). The United States is now mired in debt, stuck in a recession, and paralyzed by partisan politics.
→ read full articleThe Arab Revolutions and the Democratic Imagination
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
28 Mar 2011
Breaching the psychological barrier of fear was coupled with another feeling that ran through the crowds in both Tahrir Square and Manila: the sense that people were truly determining their destiny, that they were taking matters into their own hands. This was the primordial democratic moment, the pristine moment of self-rule that is so inadequately conveyed by theoretical treatises on democracy.
→ read full articleDid a U.S. Ambassador Accuse Sri Lanka’s President of War Crimes?
Charles Homans – Foreign Policy,
6 Dec 2010
Are we surprised to learn, via WikiLeaks, that American diplomats in Colombo blame Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his top officials for the massacre of tens of thousands (by most estimates) of Tamil civilians during the final months of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war? The goods are in a Jan. 15 cable sent by U.S. Amb. Patricia A. Butenis on the eve of Sri Lanka’s presidential elections (which Rajapaksa won handily).
→ read full articleLessons of the Obama Debacle
Walden Bello – Foreign Policy in Focus,
18 Oct 2010
The key problem is the failure of progressives to translate their vision and values into a program that is convincing and connects with the people trapped in the terrible existential conditions created by the global financial crisis. This fluid process is preeminently political. It requires translating a strategic perspective into a tactical program that takes advantage of the opportunities, ambiguities, and contradictions of the present moment to construct a critical mass for progressive change from diverse class and social forces.
→ read full articleWhat You Will Not Hear About Iraq
Adil E. Shamoo – Foreign Policy in Focus,
30 Aug 2010
Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.
→ read full articleBlackwater: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Fouad Pervez – Foreign Policy in Focus,
9 Aug 2010
Blackwater (rebranded as Xe in an effort to escape the negative publicity associated with their former name), recently received a $100 million contract from the CIA to secure its bases in Afghanistan. The State Department also awarded them $120 million to provide security for new diplomatic buildings, including consulates outside Kabul, giving the firm a total of $220 million in new contracts in Afghanistan. This seems remarkable, given the extremely negative image Blackwater has throughout the world. That people even know about a private security company is a bad sign in itself. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Leon Panetta had to go on the offensive to defend the contracts.
→ read full articleJeju and a Naval Arms Race in Asia
Kyoungeun Cha – Foreign Policy in Focus,
21 Jun 2010
Jeju Island has long been a focus of strategic and security interests in Northeast Asia. During World War II, the Japanese used the island to defend Japan from American forces. There were supply bases on the island for 75,000 Japanese soldiers. The U.S. military later attempted to fortify the island after the fall of Japanese empire. And today, Jeju Island is again the focus of attention. But this time, it is the latest escalation in a naval arms race in Northeast Asia.
→ read full articleDEMOCRACY THWARTS U.S. BASE PLANS
Christine Ahn and Gwyn Kirk – Foreign Policy in Focus,
16 Feb 2010
This March, the Obamas will touch down in the U.S. territory of Guam, en route to Australia and Indonesia. It’s a big deal for this tiny Pacific island seven-and-a-half hours by plane from Hawaii and, according to airport placards, “where America’s day begins.” Two senators from Guam, Judith P. Guthertz and Rory J. Respicio, have […]
→ read full articleINVITE NORTH KOREA TO THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT
Jae-Jung Suh – Foreign Policy in Focus,
10 Feb 2010
Denuclearize North Korea or end the Korean War? Here’s a proposal for doing both at the same time.North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into waters near the disputed western sea border with the South last week, and the South Korean military returned warning shots, heightening the already high tension on the peninsula. The rising […]
→ read full articleA PATH FOR PEACE IN SOUTH ASIA
Zia Mian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
12 Jan 2010
It has been a grim start to the New Year and the new decade in South Asia. Vested interests, hardened obsessions, and old habits continue to push India and Pakistan in the direction of ruinous conflict. While military planners in both countries plan and prepare for the next war, politicians and diplomats remain determined not […]
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