Foreign Affairs – Washington has abandoned diplomacy in favor of military power. In Statecraft, Dennis Ross urges U.S. officials to resurrect the United States’ peacemaking tradition and restore its international reputation.
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The Economist – Political power in Russia now lies with the FSB, the KGB’s successor
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New Yorker – Niall Ferguson reviews how much did the Marshall Plan really matter?
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Foreign Affairs – Two new books discuss how Washington should fight the wars of tomorrow — and pay for them. But to balance the conflicting demands of strategy and finance, the next president ought to take a page from Eisenhower’s playbook.
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New York Times Magazine – After centuries of strife, the West has learned to separate religion and politics – to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command. There is little reason to expect that the rest of the world – the Islamic world in particular – will follow.
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Foreign Affairs – Robert Service’s Comrades! tells the story of world communism — but leaves the reader still hungry for explanations of why the movement lasted so long and what, if anything, it accomplished.
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Foreign Affairs – Robert and Isabelle Tombs’ superb chronicle of 300 years of Anglo-French rivalry reveals how the love-hate relationship between France and the United Kingdom has left an indelible mark on today’s world.
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Foreign Affairs – Americans are increasingly frustrated with Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, but the United States should resist the urge to threaten President Pervez Musharraf or demand a quick democratic transition. Getting Islamabad to play a more effective role in the war on terrorism will require that Washington strike a careful balance: pushing for political reform but without jeopardizing the military’s core interests.
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Esquire – A few years ago, with little fanfare, the United States opened a base in the horn of Africa to kill or capture Al Qaeda fighters. By 2012, the Pentagon will have two dozen such forts. The story of Africa Command, the American military’s new frontier outpost, by Thomas P.M. Barnett.
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American Enterprise Institute – Yegor Gaidar, Russian economist and market reformer, former acting Prime Minister of Russia, former Russian economic minister, and possible Putin poisoning victim, has written a book about the collapse of the Soviet economy in the 1980’s that has been extracted into this astonishing paper.
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Washington Post – Ahmed Rashid analyses the current situation in Pakistan.
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Foreign Affairs – Depending on whom you ask, Tariq Ramadan is either a brave Muslim moderate or an apologist for terrorism. Either way, his new book, which rethinks the Prophet Muhammad’s life for the modern world, is a step in the right direction.
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Foreign Affairs – Little-known heroes of the Holocaust were the rare diplomats who defied their superiors’ orders and issued visas to save lives. With Iraqis now scrambling to leave their own country, those examples are as relevant today as ever.
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Foreign Affairs – By rushing into Iraq instead of finishing off the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Washington has unwittingly helped its enemies: al Qaeda has more bases, more partners, and more followers today than it did on the eve of 9/11. Now the group is working to set up networks in the Middle East and Africa — and may even try to lure the United States into a war with Iran. Washington must focus on attacking al Qaeda’s leaders and ideas and altering the local conditions in which they thrive.
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Washington Post – The creation of the Defense Department Africa Command, with responsibilities to promote security and government stability in the region, has heightened concerns among African countries and in the U.S. government over the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.

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Los Angeles Times – Niall Ferguson documents how the Soviet Union is being recreated.
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Foreign Affairs – Global financial instability has sparked a surge in “monetary nationalism” — the idea that countries must make and control their own currencies. But globalization and monetary nationalism are a dangerous combination, a cause of financial crises and geopolitical tension. The world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.
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Foreign Affairs – The rift between U.S. military and civilian leaders did not start with George W. Bush, but his administration’s meddling and disregard for military expertise have made it worse. The new defense secretary must restore a division of labor that gives soldiers authority over tactics and civilians authority over strategy — or risk discrediting civilian control of the military even further.
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Foreign Affairs – Thanks to high oil prices and hefty subsidies, corn-based ethanol is now all the rage in the United States. But it takes so much supply to keep ethanol production going that the price of corn — and those of other food staples — is shooting up around the world. To stop this trend, and prevent even more people from going hungry, Washington must conserve more and diversify ethanol’s production inputs.
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Esquire – A special, in-depth examination of a post-Bush world by Thomas P.M. Barnett, covering the good, the bad, and the unknown.
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Foreign Affairs – Kenneth Pyle’s new book argues that a resurgence of Japan’s power and purpose has Tokyo poised to play a bigger role on the international stage. Pyle is right, and it is a good thing for Washington and Asian security.
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Foreign Affairs – Margaret MacMillan’s engaging narrative history shows how Nixon’s trip to visit Mao helped end the Cold War. But neither leader anticipated how fast China would rise or how that rise would force the U.S.-Chinese relationship to evolve.
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BBC – The U.S. military is increasingly focused on a potential national security threat: climate change.

Washington Post – Military Sharpens Focus on Climate Change.

Read the full report: Center for Naval Analyses – National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.
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New York Times Magazine – Thomas Friedman describes what America needs to regain its global stature – Environmental leadership. A fascinating, thoughtful peace on a possible strategy for winning The Long War.
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Foreign Affairs – Controversies over the war in Iraq and U.S. unilateralism have overshadowed a more pragmatic and multilateral component of the Bush administration’s grand strategy: its attempt to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy and international institutions in order to account for shifts in the global distribution of power and the emergence of states such as China and India. This unheralded move is well intentioned and well advised, and Washington should redouble its efforts.
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