From Foreign Policy, the world’s weakest states aren’t just a danger to themselves. They can threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away. The Failed States Index 2007 is a rank of countries where the risk of failure is running high. Debate on the prospects for continent-wide government in Africa is heating up ahead of the African Union summit that is scheduled to begin June 25, 2007, in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. An article on Bono and the complicated business of caring about Africa. The Americans Have Landed: 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.
From American Diplomacy, a review of America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked by Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes. From Foreign Affairs, Charles A. Kupchan (Georgetown) and Peter L. Trubowitz (UT-Austin): Grand Strategy for a Divided America; a review of Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World by Dennis Ross; Fighting and Funding America's Next Wars: A review of The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars by Robert D. Hormats and Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources.
From Foreign Policy, what happens when you take a 40-year-old CIA memo on losing a war and replace the word “Vietnam” with the word “Iraq”? The result is a set of conclusions that are just as true today. Crises of the middle east, 1914, 1967, 2003: The reverberations of the Iraq war will be as profound for the future of the middle east as were two epic dates in its 20th- century past, says Fred Halliday. The failure of public diplomacy: What the downfall of al-Hurra, America's Arabic language television station, says about US efforts to win hearts and minds in the Middle East.
My Marty Peretz Problem — And Ours: He bought The New Republic in 1974 and sold it this February. In between, he transformed America's most influential liberal weekly: Today, it is no longer as influential, or liberal, or even weekly. The time is waaaaay overdue to create a force of "trench liberals" and "leftnecks" — gun owning progressives who change their motor own oil — persuasive populist grassroots organizers. It'll be hard and they won't be pretty people. Back to the Future: John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira on the re-emergence of the emerging Democratic majority. Dragging Down the Democrats: The electorate is more pro-Democratic in theory than in practice. By quietly re-focusing on traditional values including American spirituality, the Democrats hope to draw enough votes to recapture the White House. When it comes to gun controls, Democrats fall silent. As with many hot-button social issues, they can't figure out how to reach people's emotions. Here's how they can regain their moral compass — and their power of speech.
