All World Affairs Content
1 Apr 2016
Ukraine's Needed Media Offensive
Vladislav Davidzon | essay
The Kremlin's efforts to undermine and subordinate Ukraine should be countered, in part, by viable English-language reporting from Ukraine and the West should support it.
10 May 2016
EU Sanctions on Russia Still Needed
Christopher A. Hartwell | essay
Russia’s economic woes are the result of structural defects and over-reliance on oil, not Western sanctions. However the EU will lose substantial credibility if it lifts sanctions now. 30 Apr 2015
Imperial Ambitions: Russia’s Military Buildup
Stephen J. Blank | essay
Russian defense spending has increased significantly in the last decade—and shows no sign of slowing. The security of Europe requires more than sanctions and goodwill. 10 Feb 2016
Editor’s Introduction
James S. Denton | essay
and international crises and bring us safely to land. Will it happen again now, when ...
29 Sep 2014
ISIS Jihadists Returning to Europe
Olivier Guitta | essay
The Islamic State didn’t initially target the West, but that has changed—and hundreds of jihadists will soon be returning home with their European passports. 17 Jun 2014
Year Four: The Arab Spring Proved Everyone Wrong
Michael J. Totten | essay
Tunisia surprised the pessimists, just as Egypt devastated the optimists. Syria is on its way to becoming another Afghanistan, while Morocco holds some hope for slow reform. 21 Dec 2015
Darkness at Noon: FDR and the Holocaust
Jay Winik | essay
What did the era’s most prominent symbol of humanitarianism think when confronted with the world’s most compelling moral outrage? History records only a question mark. 1 Mar 2011
AfPak 2020: A Symposium
Victor Davis Hanson | essay
Where will Afghanistan and Pakistan be in ten years if the US continues on its current course? We put the question to a group of experts. Their answers might surprise you. 1 Jan 2011
The No-Show: Why Values Should Have Mattered in Iraq
Melik Kaylan | essay
The US took its blood and treasure to Iraq to topple a tyrant and build a democracy. But it forgot its most appealing asset, its liberal cultural values, allowing lesser forces to fill the void. 22 Feb 2016
North Korea: Why Human Rights Must Come First
Carl Gershman | essay
It’s now time for US policy on North Korea to adopt a comprehensive approach that treats human rights as a practical requirement, and not as a negotiations obstacle. 5 Oct 2015
From the Archive: Prophets and Poseurs
The Editors | essay
“The predicaments in which the United States finds itself enmeshed today,” Andrew Bacevich wrote in 2008, “demand that we let Niebuhr speak for himself.” It is still the case now. 
Sea Power: The Rise of the Aircraft Carrier in the Asia-Pacific
Sarosh Bana | essay
With China’s maritime aggression provoking a regional arms buildup, countries from India to Japan and South Korea to Australia are rushing to buy and build aircraft carriers. 1 Sep 2010
The Real Reset: Moscow Refights the Cold War
Stephen J. Blank | essay
Washington thinks it's gotten a fresh start with Moscow. In fact, our old adversary has merely fallen back into its old Cold War habits. 1 Mar 2015
Let Iraq Die: A Case for Partition
Michael J. Totten | essay
The violence set off by the Islamic State has once again dispelled the myth of a unified Iraq. For those living there, and the outside powers hoping stability will prevail, division is the best option. 30 Dec 2012
Bibi’s Bomb: The Iranian Threat Is No Joke
Alan Johnson | essay
Perhaps Benjamin Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb at the UN was a trifle silly, but there’s no laughing off the very real prospects for an Iranian nuclear weapon and how the reigning mullahs will use it. 28 Jun 2013
Islamic Terror: Decentralized, Franchised, Global
Joel Brinkley | essay
As President Obama scales back on the War on Terror, al-Qaeda and its mutations have decentralized and spread, and by now are poised to strike in unexpected places. 10 Feb 2016
Moscow on the Tigris: Russia Joins the Terror Nexus
Michael J. Totten | essay
While an exhausted United States simply wishes international migraines like the Syrian civil war would just go away, Russia is energized by the prospect of filling the vacuum. 27 Oct 2013
Rights in Russia: Navalny and the Opposition
Michael Weiss | essay
Vladimir Putin’s regime no longer bothers to varnish its relentless campaign to silence dissent, as evidenced by the brazen Soviet-era show trials and tactics used against Aleksei Navalny and others.
18 Jan 2016
Slovakia’s Illiberal Future?
Dalibor Rohac | essay
Though there are few immigrants in Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico is manipulating the issue to distance himself, his party, and country from Europe's mainstream and western values. 26 Feb 2014
China and Russia: An Axis of Weak States
Gordon G. Chang | essay
Economic weakness has driven Vladimir Putin’s Russia into a “strategic entente” with the Chinese, who in turn get a powerful global ally. The alliance could prove formidable for the West. 5 Oct 2015
Iranian Devolution: Tehran Fights the Digital Future
Ilan Berman | essay
In the wake of the Green Movement and the Arab Spring, the Iranian government has undertaken a major effort to isolate the Islamic Republic’s cyberspace from the outside world. 20 Mar 2012
Sudan's Continuing War on Religious Freedom
Leonard A. Leo | essay
Sudan's split with the South last year should have taught Khartoum that violating human rights leads to endless strife and division. 31 Oct 2014
Dispatch from Vietnam: Will the US Foster a Natural Ally?
Michael J. Totten | essay
Nearly forty years after the war, most Vietnamese welcome friendly ties with America. With tensions mounting between Hanoi and Beijing, Vietnam is Washington’s to lose. 12 Feb 2016
Four Reasons Why the Syria Cease-fire Won't Work
Ulrich Speck | essay
The so-called Syria cease-fire agreement is a poorly disguised diplomatic ruse by the Kremlin to break down Western unity and resolve as it accomplishes its brutal ends in Syria and Ukraine. 5 Jan 2015
The Big Chill: The Battle for Central Europe
Peter Pomerantsev | essay
Those who see Vladimir Putin’s expansionism as a regional problem miss the point: the Kremlin’s strategic goal is to degrade transatlantic ties, not just dominate neighboring lands. 29 Apr 2013
The Game Changer: Syria, Iran, and Kurdish Independence
Oray Egin | essay
The shifting fortunes of Middle Eastern politics have delivered Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan and the country’s Kurds to the brink of a lasting settlement. 10 Feb 2016
The Ukraine Example: Nuclear Disarmament Doesn’t Pay
Andreas Umland | essay
Washington’s failure to fulfill its explicit security assurances in exchange for Ukraine dismantling its nuclear arsenal has greatly undermined US credibility and global nonproliferation. 23 Dec 2014
Reaffirming US-European Commitment to Democratic Universalism
Carl Gershman | essay
On the anniversary of Vaclav Havel’s death, President of the National Endowment for Democracy Carl Gershman warns of the creeping threats to historic democratic achievements around the world.
2 Jul 2015
Continental Drift: Europe at a Crossroads
Michael Zantovsky | essay
The future of the EU depends on its leaders adapting to harsh realities—such as the fact that the bigger and more integrated the union gets, the less appealing it seems to be to its citizens. 10 Feb 2016
After the Shake-Up: Rhetoric vs. Reform in Sri Lanka
Taylor Dibbert | essay
The window for Washington to walk back some of its soaring rhetoric about Sri Lanka and instead focus on helping push the country toward real change is quickly closing. 1 Mar 2015
The Breakup: American Foreign Policy in the 1970s
Jordan Michael Smith | essay
When Henry Kissinger came to the White House in 1969, America’s global supremacy was in crisis. A new book recounts how he and the presidents he served fared in these troubled waters. 11 Jan 2015
Editor’s Introduction
James S. Denton | essay
to providing ideological and financial support most notably to far-right ...
29 Dec 2015
Democracy's Retreats and Tentative Advances in 2015
Carl Gershman | essay
2015 saw important, yet fragile, democratic gains around the world. But, as the West is now preoccupied with domestic challenges, the future of democratic reform will be determined by those on the frontlines.
26 Feb 2014
A Losing Game: America’s Postwar Arabists
Jordan Michael Smith | essay
The sentiments of Truman’s State Department toward the Middle East are well documented. Hugh Wilford’s engaging new book convincingly explores similar sentiments in the early CIA. 1 Jul 2011
Learning Curve: American Culture and the Muslim World
Peter Skerry | essay
Ten years after 9/11, hearts and minds still matter just as much on the home front as on the battlefield.
5 Jan 2015
State of Mind: A Future Russia
Walter Laqueur | essay
Change will come to today’s nationalistic and conspiratorial Russia, but when, how, and what it will mean are yet unknown in a country whose leaders frequently boast of their nuclear arsenal. 28 Jun 2013
Terror Data: US vs. UK
Robin Simcox | essay
There’s no single counterterrorism solution, but recent studies of more than a decade of attacks in the US and the UK might reveal patterns that will aid law enforcement going forward. 25 Sep 2015
Undeterred and Defiant, Vladimir Kara-Murza Returns
James S. Denton | essay
We at World Affairs are very pleased to announce that our friend and colleague, Vladimir Kara-Murza , has returned to his weekly blog after prevailing through the enormous challenges of recent months. We are most ...
5 Oct 2015
The New Cuba Policy: Fallacies and Implications
José Azel | essay
President Obama’s new approach to Cuba reflects a basic misunderstanding of life under the Castro regime—and sends harmful signal to tyrants around the world. 25 Jun 2014
Defeat ISIS, but Let Iraq Split
Jamsheed K. Choksy | essay
Everyone in the region has known for centuries that Iraq is not a single country, and the question of what will happen to Sunni Iraq in the face of ISIS aggression is now especially dire. 16 Apr 2014
Hollande the Hawk? An Unlikely Ally Emerges
Kenneth R. Weinstein | essay
Despite his domestic troubles, President Hollande of France has built upon the robust foreign policy of his predecessor and even been a more committed global leader than Washington at times. 5 Oct 2015
Shattered Hopes: A Farewell to European Arms Control?
Richard Weitz | essay
Even before the Ukraine crisis, European arms control was in trouble. Now, with the tensions raised, existing treaties could easily fail, without any effort made to renew or replace them. 16 Sep 2014
American Conservatives Find Common Cause with Israel
Joshua Muravchik | blog
American conservatives are more pro-Israel than ever, but not for religious reasons: They see Western civilization under assault from radical Islam, just as they once saw it threatened by Communism. 27 Feb 2013
Erdogan’s Grand Vision: Rise and Decline
Hillel Fradkin | essay
Prime Minister Erdogan’s aspirations to restore Turkey’s national glory and to unify the Islamic world have been unhinged by rebellion in Syria and the region’s ferocious rivalries and inflexible dogma. 31 Oct 2014
A Break with Beijing?: Hanoi Considers Its Options
Hai Hong Nguyen | essay
Hanoi’s days of deference to China may be ending—and a new strategic alignment emerging—in the wake of increased tensions between over Beijing’s aggressive maritime claims. 30 Apr 2015
The New Containment: Undermining Democracy
Christopher Walker | essay
As the West once used containment to halt the spread of communism, the world’s authoritarians now use it to curtail democracy in the hope of guarding their power and spoils. 21 Nov 2014
Senator Calls For Strategy to Confront Putin
Rob Portman | essay
“Events in Ukraine are a direct challenge to the entire U.S.-led international order,” says US Senator Portman in a speech delivered to the Senate. The Ohio senator has called for significant military aid to Ukraine, stressing the importance of ongoing US support.
27 Aug 2014
Editor’s Introduction
James S. Denton | essay
of US-Europe relations and the West’s ability to deter Russian aggression. ...
2 Apr 2014
Tunisia at the Crossroads
Oussama Romdhani | essay
Tunisia could be an engine for democracy and economic growth south of the Mediterranean, but it needs help from the US to tamp down corrosive instability and radicalization. 1 Sep 2011
The Defector’s Tale: Inside North Korea’s Secret Economy
Kim Kwang Jin | essay
The “Royal Court Economy,” begun as a stopgap as Soviet funding dried up, has grown into a hidden mechanism to keep the Kim dynasty in power.
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