World Policy Journal

Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation says, "The most likely scenario, unfortunately, is the business as usual one which carries with it the attendant risks of possible escalation and deterioration that come with this unresolved conflict and will futher erode the viability of a two-state outcome (and would erode America's own security). ... But such bleak scenarios are not inevitable." ... Original Article

Dear Mr. President:

At first glance, the international arms trade seems to be one of those problems that will always be with us, like death and taxes. But just as life can be prolonged and tax rates can be reduced, the traffic in weapons can be reined in, given the political will to do so, as I first suggested in two contributions to World Policy Journal-- the first, "Curbing the Arms Trade: From Rhetoric to Restraint" in the spring of 1992, and "Why Sell Arms?" a year later.

The United States is “fighting a different kind of enemy” in its War on Terror, or so says President Bush. He’s right. For the first time since the days of the Barbary pirates, America is doing active battle not with a rival nation, but with a non-state actor (al Qaeda) that lacks a geographical home, is motivated by ideology more than territorial ambition, and whose victories are defined in non-military terms. It is an enemy that uses communication technology, public opinion, and the global 24-hour news cycle to wage its battles.

Over the past decade and half, two developments in the world economy have come together to create conditions for what could be a new era of faster economic growth and rising prosperity. One development involves the integration of China, India and the former Soviet Union into the global economy. The inclusion of these three populous regions into the global economy has created what economists call positive supply-side shocks, resulting in surpluses in labor, capital, and productive capacity.

The Middle East diplomatic Quartet (composed of the United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation, and the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nation) authored and put forward its Road Map to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on April 30, 2003. The Road Map outlined steps to be taken by the parties.

Earlier this year, Muhammad Zaki Amawi and Marwan Othman el-Hindi, Jordanianborn U.S. citizens, and Wassim I. Mazloum, a Lebanese citizen, stood in a federal district court in Ohio, accused of conspiring to wage jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq. According to the indictment against them, Amawi had flown to Jordan last August carrying laptop computers that he intended to donate to the mujahidin in Iraq. Amawi, the indictment stated, had "unsuccessfully attempted to enter Iraq to wage violent jihad, or "holy war,' against the United States and coalition forces"...

In August 2000, a motley array of democracy activists, politicians, and fringe nationalists trudged into a hotel in Budapest. The assembled figures constituted the leading members of Serbia’s political opposition movement -- a fractured and increasingly desperate group. Only weeks earlier, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, hoping to catch his erstwhile opposition off guard, had announced snap presidential elections. After watching his domestic opponents spend eight years repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Milosevic was confident.

Out of the national trauma of September 11 has emerged a new grand strategy for American foreign policy, comparable in scale and ambition to the strategy of containment that guided American foreign policy for much of the Cold War. Championed by neo-conservatives in and around the Bush administration, this grand strategy -- which I call muscular dominance -- has won the acceptance of neo-liberal hawks associated with the Democratic Party as well.

As the Cold War came to an end, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama heralded the "End of History." Decades earlier, the sociologist Daniel Bell had predicted the "End of Ideology." While we wait for these grand visions to be universalized in practice, we can anticipate a change that, although more mundane, is more likely to occur sooner: the end of alliances.