The National Interest - NUMBER
105, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
by Maurice R. GreenbergThe former head of AIG takes on the people who destroyed his company, the bankers who accepted too many bonuses and the bureaucrats trying to fix the financial system. Obama must cut taxes, pour money into infrastructure and promote entrepreneurship.
by Joost R. HiltermannKirkuk is about to bring Iraq back into civil war. The Obama administration is moving toward a settlement of this disputed region that will anger everyone.
by Randall L. SchwellerWe are living in a world of increasing randomness. Competing versions of the truth, whether from YouTube, the blogosphere or the million-channel universe, cause states and the people who live within them to become more polarized in their positions. National and international narratives in turn become more incoherent and more uncompromising. Our current shroud of apathy will only lead to violent extremism and fierce global economic competition.
by Ashraf GhaniA military surge will not win Afghanistan. Karzai and his corrupt clan have failed the Afghan people. Former presidential candidate Ghani shows us a way out: counterinsurgency economics.
by Ali AnsariIran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has become a fractured entity. As the Islamic Republic degenerates into a security state, the fight for supremacy among the hard-line elite can only lead to a crisis in Tehran.
by Philip JenkinsFor millennia, the Catholic Church has been a predominantly Western institution. Yet as Europe secularized and the global South becomes the new market for potential converts, Christianity is undergoing a painful evolution. Millions of believers will be tempted by charismatic preachers, who combine anticapitalist fervor with staunch social conservatism. Roman Catholicism must now compete in this marketplace. Westerners may well not like the new version of their faith.
by Andrew J. NathanMartin Jacques’s just-released tome breathlessly informs us that China will soon rule the world. Its culture will dominate the West. Its military will threaten our own. Its authoritarian system will become an alternative to liberal democracy. This is alarmism at its best. Far from being a looming hegemon, Beijing is a status quo power. It will rule the world only if America—for reasons unknown and hardly likely—decides to put a halt to its own economic, technological and military growth.
by Richard OveryWestern society tends to see disaster all around, from climate change to terrorism. But we live in a time of unbridled prosperity. Our age has nowhere near as great a measure of crisis as the age of total war.
by Gordon S. WoodObama’s attack on the Supreme Court is just the latest in a long history of presidential power grabs. Gordon Wood dissects John Yoo.