The National Interest articles from March 1998

The National Interest archives from March 1998

Europe on the brink: democratic values and the single currency. (includes related article on global polity and democratic ideals)
March 22, 1998... The process of European political integration is moving at speed, cheered on by the United States. Europe, the argument goes, has been the place where the wars start, wars into which America is ultimately dragged, and European political union...

The logic of covert action.
March 22, 1998... Few U.S. government activities are as controversial as covert action. Americans may disagree about the specifics of trade policy or defense spending, but covert action is controversial to the core. Many covert operations, if carried out by...

Running out of gas: this time the wolf is coming. (predictions of energy crisis)
March 22, 1998... In the not-yet-named era in which we now live beyond the Cold War, a philosophically edged disagreement has arisen among our literati and social seers as to just how dangerous the world really is. Much of the discussion seems to turn on...

The road not taken: Hayek's slippery slope to serfdom. (economist and author Friedrich Hayek)
March 22, 1998... This is another story about a book, a curious book that went from bestseller to oblivion and back several times over. The millions of copies it sold in a score of languages "completely discredited" its author, exactly as he foresaw it would....

Faking it and making it. (US campaign against proliferation of strategic weapons)
March 22, 1998... Tell Washington insiders that your work is focused on preventing the spread of strategic weapons - instead of reacting to it- and they'll think you're somewhat "intense" or at least unable to hold down a real job. Businessmen generally view this...

Rethinking N + 1. (proliferation of nuclear weapons)(includes related article on British politics)
March 22, 1998... In April 1961, one of the seminal think-pieces on proliferation appeared. This was Albert Wohlstetter's famous Foreign Affairs article analyzing the so-called "N + 1" problem. This formulation was Wohlstetter's way of characterizing the next...

The Khatemi factor: how much does it matter? (Iranian Pres Mohammed Khatemi)
March 22, 1998... Since early last year, an increasing number of voices have been calling for the relaxation of U.S. economic sanctions against Iran and, indeed, for a general ratcheting down of the U.S. effort to isolate Iran diplomatically. These have not been...

Korea: a time to be bold? (North Korea's relations with US and South Korea)
March 22, 1998... Pity poor Korea - and not, anymore, just the brooding North. On both sides of the feared demilitarized zone (DMZ), trends have taken a sharp turn for the worse. Start with Seoul: When the Asian financial crisis washed over it, South Korea's...

Conrad's 'Nostromo' and the Third World. (novelist Joseph Conrad)
March 22, 1998... The problem with bourgeois societies is a lack of imagination. A person raised in a middle or upper-middle class suburban environment, a place ruled by rationalism in the service of material progress, has difficulty imagining the psychological...

Isaiah Berlin.
March 22, 1998... The best known anecdote about Isaiah Berlin refers to the occasion during World War II when his work at the British embassy in Washington caught the attention of Winston Churchill. The Prime Minister expressed a wish to meet Berlin, and this was...

Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir.
March 22, 1998... For years, Kenya's image in the West was that of spectacular natural beauty, game parks over filled with wildlife, and safaris out of its handsome capital city, Nairobi. Close to a million tourists from Europe and the United States journeyed...