The National Interest articles from March 2005

The National Interest archives from March 2005

On liberty.(The Realist)
March 22, 2005... IS AMERICA about to launch a single-minded crusade to promote liberty around the globe, committing the blood and treasure of the United States to spread democracy in the Middle East and around the world at any cost? Some commentators seem to...

Friendly fire.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... In "Wagging the Dog" (Fall 2004), Gvosdev and Tanner are correct to bring up the problems with America rubber stamping controversial decisions made by its most vulnerable allies. But Gvosdev and Tanner would do well to take a look at the...

Drawing the lines.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 22, 2005... There is a great deal to recommend in James Bennett's "Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World" (Winter 2005/05). His description of the emerging "Anglosphere-plus-India-plus-Japan" alignment is borne out by the recent announcement by President...

American maximalism.
March 22, 2005... As long as you act daringly, you will be able to succeed very quickly.... You need to... feel superior to everyone, as if there was no one beside you.... [J]ust act recklessly and it will be all right. --Mao Zedong AMERICAN FOREIGN...

Imperial liberalism.
March 22, 2005... IT IS DIFFICULT both to be good and to be powerful. This seems to be the common view among statesmen, sages, poets and thinkers. A core thesis among thinkers of the realist persuasion has been that in foreign affairs, being good may in the end...

Reaganism v. neo-Reaganism.
March 22, 2005... SINCE THE end of the Cold War, conservatives have been at odds over the way forward for America in the world. September 11 and the new American orientation toward preventive defense have united most conservatives in strong support of President...

The schizophrenic superpower.
March 22, 2005... WHEN ROBERT Kagan famously wrote that, in their approach to power and security, Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus, what might he have said about Japan? In most respects, post-modern Japan has been more like Europe than America in...

Arafat's poisoned legacy.(Yasir Arafat)(Biography)
March 22, 2005... YASIR ARAFAT had a remarkable career. In all of modern history, no terrorist had such good press or was so internationally honored as he was at his funeral. But the story of Arafat is far from over. Of course, the most compelling question is...

Double-red-crossed.
March 22, 2005... THE INTERNATIONAL Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impressive edifice--both physically and morally. Its Swiss headquarters, once a Belle Epoch luxury hotel, is perched on a commanding height overlooking Lake Geneva. Just below is the...

Borderline insanity.
March 22, 2005... PRESIDENT BUSH has pledged to expend political capital to pass an immigration plan that would legalize illegal aliens currently in the United States as "temporary workers" and import an unlimited number of new workers from abroad--something he...

In defense of striped pants.
March 22, 2005... FROM THE day after the United States toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, it has run into one problem after another in Iraq. We failed to establish security. We steadily lost support from Arab Sunnis and Shi'a. We entered the war with limited...

Re-forming intelligence.
March 22, 2005... THE YEAR 2004 was a disruptive and frenetic one for the intelligence community. Intelligence officials were linked to the detainee abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq; it became clear that the Central Intelligence Agency's intelligence...

Two kinds of internationalism.
March 22, 2005... IT IS OFTEN said that a prime cause of the dissension between the United States and Europe is the differing views about international cooperation that prevail on opposite sides of the Atlantic: Europeans, shaped by their experience with EU...

Peace through conversation.
March 22, 2005... "WHAT WE'VE got here is a failure to communicate." Thus the captain of prison 36 addresses the eponymous hero of Stuart Rosenberg's 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke after his failed attempt to escape from the prison chain gang. Jurgen Habermas,...

Trading places.(Business & Economics)
March 22, 2005... THE NEW world economy is fundamentally different from that of the fifty years following World War II. The United States may well remain the political and military leader for decades to come. It is likely also to remain the world's richest and...

In the tsunami's wake.
March 22, 2005... IT WOULD have been reasonable, upon hearing the news of the earthquake-induced tsunami that devastated South and Southeast Asia on December 26, to wonder at the unfairness of disasters so often striking those countries that are least equipped...

The taxing of nations.
March 22, 2005... FOR THE last decade, the high-tax countries of the European continent have been engaged in an aggressive and largely unknown war against low tax-rate countries around the world. This is not just a war of rhetoric, but one in which Continental...

Who won the war?(Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons)(Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended)(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Paul Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (New York: Random House, 2005), 254 pp., $25.95. Jack F. Matlock, Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New York: Random House, 2005), 327 pp., $27.95. ...

How to fight terror.(America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies)(A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism)(The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam)(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... George Friedman, America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies (New York: Random House, 2004), 368 pp., $25.95. Adam Garfinkle, ed., A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism (Stanford,...

French without tears.(French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation)(Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France)(Le Requin et La Mouette)(Chirac contre Bush: l'Autre Guerre )(Un Autre Monde)(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Charles Cogan, French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2003), 344 pp., $14.87. John J. Miller and Mark Molesky, Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship...

Trouble in Tbilisi.(Reporter-at-Large)
March 22, 2005... ON THE eastern shore of the Black Sea, in the wine-soaked country where Jason and his Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece and Stalin felt his first dark impulses, a stark battle between the forces of good and evil has entered its second year. On...