Foreign Affairs – Beyond Iraq: A New U.S. Strategy for the Middle East

To be successful in the Middle East, the Obama administration will need to move beyond Iraq, find ways to deal constructively with Iran, and forge a final-status Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

The Atlantic – Iran’s Postmodern Beast in Gaza

Robert D. Kaplan writes that Israel has, in effect, launched the war on the Iranian empire that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, in particular, can only have contemplated.

The Atlantic – Sea Change

Outstanding map showing how the Arctic is changing from an impenetrable wasteland into an oceanic crossroads.

Economist – Flying anything to anybody

The rise and fall of Viktor Bout, arms-dealer extraordinaire, shows a darker side of globalisation.

Washington Post – The Guns of Anarchy

Mark Bowden surveys the current situation in Somalia.

Wall Street Journal – The Ascent of Money

An excerpt from Niall Ferguson’s new book…

Washington Post – A Gentler Hegemony

Robert D. Kaplan writes that the US is declining slower than we think….

The Economist – Let the sun shine in

Satellites that beam solar power to earth have often appeared in science fiction. Will they ever become reality?

Foreign Affairs – The Latter-Day Sultan: Power and Politics in Iran

The real decision-maker in Iran is Supreme Leader Khamenei not President Ahmedinejad. Blaming Iran’s problems on President Ahmadinejad inaccurately suggests that Iran’s problems will go away when Ahmadinejad does.

New York Times – The other Middle East

Robert D. Kaplan writes that South Asia and the Middle East are now part of one long continuum…

The Atlantic – Behind Mumbai

Robert D. Kaplan offers insight into the Hindu-Muslim tensions festering within India

The Atlantic – Their Own Worst Enemy

James Fallows writes that as China prepares to take its place as the world’s dominant power, it faces confounding obstacles: its insularity and sheer stupidity in delivering the genuine good news about its own progress.

The Atlantic – Obama’s Foreign Policy: Buying in at the Bottom

Robert D. Kaplan writes that George W. Bush has poised America for a diplomatic rebound, which the next administration will get the credit for carrying out.

Foreign Affairs – What Has Moscow Done? Rebuilding U.S.-Russian Relations

The next president will have to reassess the U.S.-Russian relationship and find the right balance between pushing back and cooperating.

Washington Post – Team ‘Chimerica’

Niall Ferguson on how China+America=Chimerica.

Foreign Affairs – The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis

Politicians have it in their power to solve the food crisis, but they must be willing to end the biases against big commercial farms and genetically modified crops and do away with farm subsidies.

Vanity Fair – Wall Street Lays Another Egg

Not so long ago, the dollar stood for a sum of gold, and bankers knew the people they lent to. Historian Niall Ferguson charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world—call it Planet Finance—where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value had no meaning.

Vanity Fair – Empire Falls

Historian Niall Ferguson writes that they called it “the American Century,” but the past hundred years actually saw a shift away from Western dominance. Through the long lens of Edward Gibbon’s history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Rome 331 and America and Europe 2006 appear to have more than a few problems in common.

Aviation Week and Space Technology – Ben Bova, the prolific sci-fi novelist, has a big idea for the next president – enlist NASA in a crash program to launch a commercially viable space solar power industry in the U.S. “before the end of your second term.”

New Yorker – George Packer asks can the Burmese people rescue themselves and can the junta be circumvented?
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The Atlantic – Robert Kaplan writes that as China and India vie for power and influence, Burma has become a strategic battleground. Four Americans with deep ties to this fractured, resource-rich country illuminate its current troubles, and what the U.S. should do to shape its future.
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Washington Post – Robert Kagan succinctly places the Russian – Georgian War in proper perspective???

Daily Telegraph – Vladimir Putin sends emphatic message of global importance: Russia’s pounding of Georgia means it will use force to protect all 25 million Russians in states that belonged to the Soviet Union
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Financial Times – Niall Ferguson looks at the current state of China today and the challenges it faces.
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Foreign Affairs – Fareed Zakaria writes that despite some eerie parallels between the position of the United States today and that of the British Empire a century ago, there are key differences. Britain’s decline was driven by bad economics. The United States, in contrast, has the strength and dynamism to continue shaping the world — but only if it can overcome its political dysfunction and reorient U.S. policy for a world defined by the rise of other powers.
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Foreign Affairs – While the crisis in Darfur simmers, the larger problem of Sudan’s survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Old tensions between the Arabs of the Nile River valley, who have held power for a century, and marginalized groups on the country’s periphery are turning into a national crisis. Engagement with Khartoum may be the only way to avert another civil war in Sudan, and even that may not be enough.
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