The National Interest articles from September 1997

The National Interest archives from September 1997

Fragmentation and hubris: a shaky basis for American leadership.
September 22, 1997... Nations, like men, love that which flatters their passions - even more than that which serves their interests. - Alexis de Tocqueville As the century draws toward its close, America's position as the leading, if not the dominant, world power...

Four faces of global culture.
September 22, 1997... The term "globalization" has become somewhat of a cliche. It serves to explain everything from the woes of the German coal industry to the sexual habits of Japanese teenagers. Most cliches have a degree of factual validity; so does this one....

Yeltsin: the problem, not the solution. (Boris Yeltsin, current Pres of Russia)
September 22, 1997... The dead man grasps the living. The corpse of the old world is decomposing among us, poisoning everything alive. That corpse stinks! - V.I. Lenin It may be autumn, but metaphorically it seems to be springtime in Russia once again. Boris...

Why our hardliners are wrong. (detractors of US-Russia policy)
September 22, 1997... Critics of U.S. China policy have been enjoying unprecedented attention lately. Between those who want to get tough with China and those who want to be more accommodating, the Clinton administration's second-term project to consolidate and expand...

Balance, not containment. (US-China policy)
September 22, 1997... A Geopolitical Take from Canberra The Pages of The National Interest have abounded in recent months with analyses, prognostications, predictions, and arguments over what to do with and about China. Robert Zoellick argued persuasively for the...

Unsettled succession: China's critical moment.
September 22, 1997... Who will be the next leader of China? This question has been a perpetual preoccupation of scholars and journalists for decades, and the reason is clear: In one form or another, the succession issue has been the central drama of Chinese politics...

China.com? (China's policy towards media and Western telecommunications companies)
September 22, 1997... It has become clear in recent years that one of the most nerve-racking dilemmas that Chinese government officials face is reconciling the need for openness in the media with the inherent dangers such openness portends for party control. This is...

Tin cup diplomacy. (federal budget as a political bargaining chip in the post cold-war era)
September 22, 1997... Fifty years ago the United States entered a new international system armed with resources to meet the new challenge of communism. At the height of the Marshall Plan, for example, some 16 percent of the U.S. federal budget was dedicated to...

The man who ran Francafrique. (French politician Jacques Foccart's role in France's colonization of Africa under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle)(Obituary)
September 22, 1997... On the morning of March 19, 1997, an eighty-three year old Frenchman died in an apartment on the rue de Prony, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, after suffering for several years from Parkinson's disease. Such was the legend of Jacques Foccart...

Europe: A History.
September 22, 1997... It is unusual for a standard work issued by the Oxford University Press to be obscured by a fog of controversy. Unfortunately, it has happened with Norman Davies' huge history of Europe - for reasons that are not always easily comprehensible....

Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade.
September 22, 1997... Free trade is, as always, in trouble - the best tribute to its power and effectiveness. But, also as always, the centers of support for and opposition to free trade are shifting. Ross Perot focused his 1988 campaign on resistance to free-trade...

Radical Son: A Journey Through Our Times.
September 22, 1997... On May 1, 1997, the Nation Institute sponsored a meeting at Town Hall in New York City billed as "a look back at the most celebrated and controversial decade of the century" - the 1960s. The program featured some of the decade's most ardent...

Coming Apart: A Memoir of the Harvard Wars of 1969.
September 22, 1997... On May 1, 1997, the Nation Institute sponsored a meeting at Town Hall in New York City billed as "a look back at the most celebrated and controversial decade of the century" - the 1960s. The program featured some of the decade's most ardent...

You broker it, you buy it. (US policy on the Middle East)
September 22, 1997... The problem with common sense is not only, as Voltaire said, that it is not so common, but that it is often wrong. Much analysis of the recent shift in U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict is a case in point. While some of its errors...