Cover Stories

Slowing down

2012-05-15T11:03:58+10:00

This being an election year in America, reports of the death of its economic primacy are exaggerated, as are expectations of future Chinese dominance. The past 15 to 20 years have seen a huge Chinese catch-up with the advanced economies and many experts predict this trend to continue. But the distortions entailed by China’s… more»

Imperial temptations

2012-04-19T11:02:16+10:00

Talking tough on China is back in vogue. Republican candidate Mitt Romney has resorted to strong language and tough threats. “China steals our designs and patents and our know-how,” declared Romney. “They have walked all over him [Barack Obama]. If I am president that is going to end.” He has promised to brand China… more»

For God and country

2012-02-24T15:23:51+10:00

For well over 30 years, the Christian right, a loose coalition of fiscal and social conservatives predominantly from white evangelical and Catholic traditions, has played a significant role in US politics at home and abroad. From its emergence during the late 1970s as a reaction to perceived moral decline and… more»

Constitutional protest

2012-02-24T12:32:12+10:00

The Tea Party movement gets plenty of support from established right-wing financiers and media, but the mood that drives it is as real as it is sometimes bizarre. In 2010, nearly one-third of Republicans told pollsters they believed Barack Obama was a Muslim, and a quarter affirmed the astonishing thought… more»

Jacksonian Republicans

2012-02-23T16:00:17+10:00

Respectable journalistic opinion in the United States and abroad has coalesced in recent months around several points of agreement regarding the current foreign policy tendencies of the Republican Party. First, that the Republican or Grand Old Party (GOP) has no foreign policy approach today—at least nothing worthy of the name.… more»

Understanding populism

2012-01-31T10:45:23+10:00

Populism is an ambiguous term: it is at once an insult and a description.… more»

Obama's big game

2011-10-24T15:18:22+10:00

Something remarkable happened in Washington in October. After three years of recession and inaction on free trade, amid America’s vituperative partisan gridlock, and with rising fears of a double dip recession, a battered and beleaguered Barack Obama managed to convince Congress to pass free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and… more»

The Pacific power

2011-10-17T16:01:09+10:00

So I don’t think there is any doubt, if there were when this administration began, that the United States is back in Asia. But I want to underscore that we are back to stay.… more»

Red capitalism

2011-10-17T15:25:38+10:00

What seemed impossible five years ago is a reality today; China has risen more rapidly and in different ways than most had anticipated. This has profoundly affected the region, the West and the concept of the West. China has chosen its own path; it will not become a member of… more»

Indispensable India

2011-10-17T15:17:04+10:00

The Obama Administration might have returned the United States to East Asia, but it was George W. Bush who brought America back into South Asia at the turn of the millennium. When he came to power in January 2001, Bush was determined to deal with the rise of China and… more»

The fruits of terror

2011-09-28T14:17:18+10:00

It is never easy to judge the significance of any major event, especially one as momentous as September 11. Looking back, it is perhaps surprising that we were quite as shocked as we were. After all, there had been at least one serious attack on the United States itself in… more»

Vigilance in a mad, messy world

2011-09-12T09:00:15+10:00

Terrorism isn’t a 20th-century phenomenon, but the circumstances of September 11—the way al Qaeda organised and funded itself and conducted its operations—could only have come out of the globalising world of the 1990s.… more»

A costly diversion

2011-09-09T09:00:25+10:00

From Lincoln’s Gettysburg address to FDR’s “righteous might” response to Pearl Harbour, wartime speeches by presidents of the United States have been enduring snapshots of history. The most obvious candidates from the 9/11 decade would be George W. Bush’s address to Congress on 20 September 2001 saying “our war on… more»

Surviving a decade of trauma

2011-08-20T08:35:34+10:00

The terrorist attacks of September 11 on New York and Washington led to a remarkably unanimous response, not just from the West but from the entire international community. For the only time in its history, NATO invoked the principle of collective defence enshrined in Article 5 of its founding treaty.… more»

Seven lessons for America

2011-08-20T08:29:50+10:00

A year after atomic bombs flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein said: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." This was much quoted after September 11, 2001. Although it has been 10 years since that tragic… more»

The perils of people power

2011-08-20T08:21:26+10:00

Like most terrorist attacks launched by little-known underground groups, al Qaeda's September 11 attacks were an attempt to capitalise on wide-ranging social and political frustrations. Al Qaeda's goal was to paint itself as heroic, thereby attracting a broad following. Such endeavours can only be successful—to various degrees—where deep frustrations already… more»

Identity at the crossroads

2011-08-20T08:10:05+10:00

The September 11 strikes continue to profoundly influence American foreign and national security policy choices.… more»

Life after bin Laden

2011-05-04T10:07:27+10:00

The essays in this collection were written well before Osama bin Laden was killed by the US Navy SEALs in early May. His death marked the end of the September 11 decade, even though the 10th anniversary was still over four months away. Though the themes explored in this volume… more»

Paradise lost

2011-05-03T18:04:20+10:00

It is tempting to view the events of September 11, 2001, as having shattered the faith in historical progress that had been the secular faith of the West since the Enlightenment. Its late 20th-century iterations dominated the thinking of American policymakers across the political spectrum, and its intellectual underpinnings ranged… more»

Star-spangled anger

2011-05-02T10:42:15+10:00

As with the bombing of Pearl Harbour and the assassination of President Kennedy, all adult Americans know where they were on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning I was five blocks from the White House at the 5th-floor offices of National Affairs in Washington, an office that housed both… more»