The National Interest articles from July 2007

The National Interest archives from July 2007

The dispensable nation?(The Realist)(United States)
July 1, 2007... WE ARE still slow to recognize how revolutionary the changes sweeping the globe are. The forces unleashed by globalization are as important to determining the shape of the coming age as industrialization was two hundred years ago. Will the...

The democracy crusade myth.(Debating Democracy)
July 1, 2007... AS ATTENTION in Washington begins to turn to the likely or desired shape of a post-Bush foreign policy, calls for a return to realism are increasingly heard. A common theme is that the United States should back away from what is often...

No disrespect to Canada....(Debating Democracy)(United States-Canadian relations)
July 1, 2007... THE OCCASION of his second inaugural address inspired the 43rd president of the United States to new heights of eloquence. "We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion", he announced: The survival of liberty in our land...

Not being with the program.(Debating Democracy)(Excerpt)
July 1, 2007... LINKING POLICY to democracy holds the potential for policy hypocrisy. Ninety years ago we declared war on Germany in part to "make the world safe for democracy." At the time, Wilhelmine Germany had a functioning parliament with legitimate...

Bush's rationale of success.(Debating Democracy)(George W. Bush)(Excerpt)
July 1, 2007... THE QUESTION of what actually fueled George W. Bush's determination to invade Iraq continues to generate debate four years after the tanks rolled in. Was it really about WMD and the presumed nexus between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda? Was it...

Democracy is not a suicide pact.(Debating Democracy)(Excerpt)
July 1, 2007... SOME REALISTS argue that if the United States promotes democracy in places such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the opening up of these polities would lead to more Islamist states. Thus democratization would damage U.S. interests, installing...

Liberte, fraternite ... modernite?(United States foreign policy)
July 1, 2007... UNTIL NOW, we have not given enough thought to an essential question: What should be the backbone of our foreign policy? This does not mean that I seek to wipe the table clean: On many points, Jacques Chirac's record in the area was exemplary....

Money, money everywhere....(A Fistful of Dollars)(evaluation of U.S. dollars)
July 1, 2007... IT IS TIME the United States wakes up to a serious problem. The dollar is increasingly losing the position it has enjoyed for nearly half a century as the world's currency of last resort. And as that happens, the advantages we have gleaned from...

No free lunch.(A Fistful of Dollars)(United States' economic challenges)
July 1, 2007... ON THE military side of things, the United States is unquestionably the world's pre-eminent power and will retain that position for the foreseeable future. However, as someone once said, when economics gets important enough, it becomes...

A World Without the West.(international relations)
July 1, 2007... FOR THE first time in a century, a set of large, populous and increasingly wealthy states--this time China, India and Russia--are on the cusp of achieving great-power status. The most important and most uncertain foreign-policy question facing...

A second look....(A World Without the West)(Brazil, Russia, India and China)
July 1, 2007... SINCE A team of Goldman Sachs economists popularized the term "BRICs" (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in October 2003, this group of emerging-market countries has assumed ever-greater importance in the international investment community's...

The panda menace.(Africa on My Mind)(Chinese economy)
July 1, 2007... I AM PRIMARILY an energy specialist--not a China specialist--but these days it is impossible to think about energy, the Middle East, the future of Africa or just about anything without thinking long and hard about China. Like everyone in...

The Somali model?(Africa on My Mind)(peacekeeping in Somalia)
July 1, 2007... IN EARLY 2002, once primarily American forces had overrun and ejected Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan, the Pentagon began to extol "the Afghan model"; following the precedent of Operation Enduring Freedom, the idea was that small...

Designated driver diplomacy.(French foreign policy)
July 1, 2007... IT HAS been rightly noted in literally hundreds of articles that the Iraq debacle has underscored not just the specific incompetence of the Bush Administration, but has revealed, more generally, the built-in failings of the neoconservative...

Kurdistandoff.(the Kurdistan Workers Party and Turkish-U.S. relations)
July 1, 2007... NORTHERN IRAQ has represented the one success of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It is quiet and prosperous, and American troops are welcomed by the population there. This can all crumble in the next six to nine months if Washington is not...

Re-occupy Iraq?(United States on the Iraq War)
July 1, 2007... THE U.S. occupation of Iraq has reached a dramatic turning point: The costs to America in blood and treasure dictate that a new president from either party will have to take the United States in a dramatically different direction. Admitting...

Notes from the Balkans.(politics and economy of the Balkan region)
July 1, 2007... LOST BENEATH the bloody headlines from Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq and Lebanon is the fact that the Balkans are undergoing their most profound period of change since Slobodan Milosevic's overthrow in 2000. Last June, Montenegro declared its...

Trading up.(trade liberalization)
July 1, 2007... AFTER DECADES of progress, the process of trade liberalization seems to be in danger of grinding to a halt. Both the political elite and average citizens express waning enthusiasm for freer trade. The World Trade Organization's (WTO) Doha...

A uniter, not a decider.(books on former U.S. President Ronald Reagan)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Jules Tygiel, Ronald Reagan and the Triumph of American Conservatism (New York: Pearson Longman, 2006), 392 pp., $14.95. Thomas W. Evans, The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to...

Beyond the illusions.(Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Steven Rosefielde and D. Quinn Mills, Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 568 pp., $34.00. AS AMERICA'S great experiment to refashion the greater Middle East appears to be...

Revolutionary DeLay.(No Retreat, No Surrender)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Tom DeLay and Stephen Mansfield, No Retreat, No Surrender (New York: Sentinel, 2007), 189 pp., $25.95. A SPECTER is haunting Americans--the specter of Tom DeLay. DeLay has sought to remain a major voice among conservatives after stepping...

Inconclusive India.(Reporter-at-Large)(Critical essay)
July 1, 2007... [India is] a living contradiction. Jewels may well be concealed in the cloaks of beggars.... India presents a paradox. It is profound and primitive, deeply spiritual and darkly superstitious, both universalistic and maddeningly provincial. ...