How the United States looked the other way while Bahrain crushed the Arab Spring’s most ill-fated uprising.
foreign policy
Posted inBooks, Government, January/February 2012, Magazine
The Spy Who Came In from the Heat
How an idealistic spy in Asia challenged the American way of war, and what his tragedy teaches us about finding allies today.
Posted inGovernment, January/February 2012, Magazine
Fighting the Last War
As president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe triumphed over a fierce narco-insurgency. Then the U.S. helped to export his strategy to Mexico and throughout Latin America. Here’s why it’s not working.
Posted inJanuary/February 2012, Magazine, Politics
Foreign Affairs
The “more enemies, fewer friends” doctrine.
Posted inMagazine
The Wins of War
World War II would rank right at the top of the list of subjects most likely to defeat any attempt to fulfill the writer’s basic mission: “make it new.” The war is too immense (could it be the single most extensive human endeavor in the history of the world?) and too well written about already by […]
Posted inMagazine
Busting Our Mental Blocks on Foreign Aid
During the fall of 1971 my wife and I were living in West Africa, working with Ghanaians on construction projects in the bush. Shortly before we were to head back to a more familiar life, news came that the U. S. Senate had voted to cut off foreign aid programs, apparently as a slap at […]
Posted inMay 1969
The Culture of Bureaucracy: The Missing Ambassador
Three years ago Dean Rusk is said to have complained to a staff aide that “some young men around here think we’re going to change our China policy. I can tell you,” he added with a flash of anger, “they’re dead wrong.” As it turned out, Secretary Rusk was proved right at the time. What […]
