Foreign Affairs

NORTH KOREA’S NEW NUCLEAR OPTIONS
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 • VOLUME 100 • NUMBER 5 •
WHO WON THE WAR ON TERROR?

F O R E I G N A F F A I R S .C O M
“ Mamá, I did this
for you, for us, so
we can have more
opportunities
and a better life.”
Susana Chávez juggled numerous jobs throughout

school to provide for her family. But with the help
of accessible and affordable broadband, she was
able to keep focused on her studies, and now, she’s
valedictorian of International High School at
Langley Park.
We are dedicated to helping close the digital divide

with a $2 billion, 3-year commitment, so we can
connect low-income families like Susana’s, and
more communities, with their American Dream.
To learn more, visit att.com/connectingcommunities
© AT&T 2021. All rights reserved.

Volume 100, Number 5

Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success 10
Al Qaeda Changed the World—but Not in the Way It Expected
Nelly Lahoud
Them and Us 22
How America Lets Its Enemies Hijack Its Foreign Policy
Ben Rhodes
The Good Enough Doctrine 32

Learning to Live With Terrorism
Daniel Byman
Resistance Is Futile 44
The War on Terror Supercharged State Power
C OV E R: PAO L O P E L L E G R I N / MAG N U M P H O T O S
Thomas Hegghammer
From 9/11 to 1/6 54

The War on Terror Supercharged the Far Right
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Winning Ugly 66
What the War on Terror Cost America
Elliot Ackerman
September/October 2021
LEAD THE CHANGE
YOU WANT TO SEE.
Master of Global Affairs
Work directly with public and private sector leaders,
meet with policymakers through our Washington Office,
and partner with international organizations tackling
global challenges on the ground. Emerge with the skills
you need to be an agent of change.
nd.edu/globalaffairs
ESSAYS
Beijing’s American Hustle 102
How Chinese Grand Strategy Exploits U.S. Power
Matt Pottinger
North Korea’s Nuclear Family 115

How the Kims Got the Bomb and Why They Won’t Give It Up
Sue Mi Terry
Strategies of Restraint 128

Remaking America’s Broken Foreign Policy
Emma Ashford
The United States of Sanctions 142

The Use and Abuse of Economic Coercion
Daniel W. Drezner
Iran’s War Within 155

Ebrahim Raisi and the Triumph of the Hard-Liners
Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar
The COVID Charter 179

A New Development Model for a World in Crisis
Rajiv J. Shah
The Center Cannot Hold 192

Will a Divided World Survive Common Threats?
Thomas Wright
ON FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM
Husain Haqqani on Bernie Sanders on Jacqueline Hazelton
Pakistan’s Pyrrhic Washington’s danger- on America’s counter-
victory in Afghanistan. ous new China policy. insurgency mistakes.
REDESIGNING
GLOBALIZATION
Discover our degrees in

International Affairs & Public Policy
The UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy provides analytical
training for the next generation of policymakers, utilizing the latest science
and technology to solve the world’s greatest challenges.
gps.ucsd.edu
REVIEWS & RESPONSES
The Case for Complacency 204
Does Washington Worry Too Much About Threats?
Tanisha M. Fazal
How Democratic Is the World’s Largest Democracy? 209

Narendra Modi’s New India
Sadanand Dhume
Strait of Emergency? 216

Debating Beijing’s Threat to Taiwan
Rachel Esplin Odell and Eric Heginbotham; Bonny Lin and David
Sacks; Kharis Templeman; Oriana Skylar Mastro
Masters and Commanders 230

Are Civil-Military Relations in Crisis?
Kori Schake; Peter D. Feaver; Risa Brooks, Jim Golby, and Heidi Urben
Recent Books 239
“Foreign Affairs . . . will tolerate wide differences of opinion. Its articles will not represent any consensus
of beliefs. What is demanded of them is that they shall be competent and well informed, representing
honest opinions seriously held and convincingly expressed. . . . It does not accept responsibility for the
views expressed in any article, signed or unsigned, which appear in its pages. What it does accept is the
responsibility for giving them a chance to appear there.”
Archibald Cary Coolidge, Founding Editor
Volume 1, Number 1 • September 1922
September/October 2021 · Volume 100, Number 5
Published by the Council on Foreign Relations
DANIEL KURTZ-PHELAN Editor, Peter G. Peterson Chair
STUART REID, JUSTIN VOGT Executive Editors
TY M C CORMICK, KANISHK THAROOR, KATHERINE ZOEPF Senior Editors
LAUREL JAROMBEK Engagement Editor
RHYS DUBIN Staff Editor
ROHAN PALACIOS Social Media and Audience Development Editor
JULIA FLEMING-DRESSER Assistant Editor
ANN TAPPERT Copy Chief
SARAH FOSTER Business Operations Director
CHRISTIAN GIBBONS Editorial Assistant
Book Reviewers
LISA ANDERSON, BARRY EICHENGREEN, RICHARD FEINBERG, LAWRENCE D. FREEDMAN, G. JOHN IKENBERRY,
MARIA LIPMAN, JESSICA T. MATHEWS, ANDREW MORAVCSIK, ANDREW J. NATHAN, NICOLAS VAN DE WALLE
STEPHANIE SOLOMON Chief Revenue Officer

JONATHAN CHUNG Circulation Operations Director
CHRISTOPHER MATHER Director of Product
NORA REVENAUGH Marketing Director
CARLOS A. MORALES Director, Digital Analytics and Audience Development
MICHAEL PASUIT Advertising Director
GRACE FINLAYSON, FAIZA CHOWDHURY Assistant Managers, Marketing Operations
ANASTASIA FISCHER Marketing Coordinator
HALEY ARNDT Assistant Manager, Customer Retention
ALEXA SOLORIO Production and Business Coordinator
GABRIELA VIEIRA Marketing Promotions Associate
NICOLE CEBALLOS Advertising Operations Associate
ERIC SPECTOR Deputy Director, Digital Development
ANGEL TRAJKOV Manager of Web Development
TIM WASSON Front End Web Developer
KAREN MANDEL Quality Assurance Manager
LISA SHIELDS, IVA ZORIC, DALIA DAGHER Media Relations
Board of Advisers
JAMI MISCIK Chair
JESSE H. AUSUBEL, PETER E. BASS, JOHN B. BELLINGER, DAVID BRADLEY, KENNETH CHENAULT, SUSAN CHIRA,
JESSICA P. EINHORN, FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, THOMAS H. GLOCER, ADI IGNATIUS, JEH CHARLES JOHNSON,
CHARLES R. KAYE, WILLIAM H. M C RAVEN, MICHAEL J. MEESE, COLIN POWELL, MARGARET G. WARNER,
NEAL S. WOLIN, DANIEL H. YERGIN
SUBSCRIP TION SERVICES: Foreign Affairs

ForeignAffairs.com/services 58 E. 68th Street, New York, NY 10065
T ELEPHONE: ADVE RT ISIN G: Call Michael Pasuit at 212-434-9528 or visit
800-829-5539 U.S./Canada www.foreignaffairs.com/advertising
845-267-2017 All other countries WEBS IT E: ForeignAffairs.com
EMAI L: support@ForeignAffairs.com N EWS LET T E R S: ForeignAffairs.com/newsletters
MAIL : P.O. Box 324, Congers, NY 10920 FAC E BOOK : Facebook.com/ForeignAffairs
REPRO DUCTION : The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted. No part of the magazine may be reproduced, hosted,
or distributed in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Foreign Affairs. To obtain permission, visit
ForeignAffairs.com/permissions
Foreign Affairs is a member of the Alliance for Audited Media and the Association of Magazine Media.
GST Number 127686483RT
Canada Post Customer #4015177 Publication #40035310
CONTRIBUTORS
NELLY LAHOUD is a leading scholar of extremist ideology
and has written extensively on political Islam and the
process of radicalization. Fluent in Arabic and French,
she has held research and teaching positions at the
University of Cambridge, Harvard, the Library of
Congress, and West Point and is now a senior fellow at
New America. In “Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success”
(page 10), Lahoud plumbs a massive trove of Osama bin
Laden’s personal papers to show how the “war on terror”
looked through the eyes of its chief target.
After working as a China correspondent for The Wall

Street Journal, MATT POTTINGER joined the U.S. Marine
Corps and served three tours of duty in Afghanistan and
Iraq. In 2017, he accepted a position in the Trump admin-
istration, first as senior director for Asia on the National
Security Council staff and then as deputy national secu-
rity adviser. He resigned his position on January 6, 2021,
the day pro-Trump rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol. Now
a senior adviser at the Marathon Initiative, Pottinger
argues in “Beijing’s American Hustle” (page 102) that
U.S. officials are still failing to appreciate how China is
taking advantage of the United States.
Born in Seoul and raised in Hawaii and Virginia, SUE MI

TERRY joined the CIA after receiving her Ph.D. in interna-
tional relations from Tufts University. An analyst focused
on Northeast Asia, she served on the National Security
Council staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack
Obama. She is now a senior fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. In “North Korea’s
Nuclear Family” (page 115), Terry argues that after decades
of missed opportunities, Washington is rapidly running out
of options to contain the North Korean nuclear threat.
Both a doctor and an economist by training, RAJIV SHAH

served as the administrator of the U.S. Agency for Interna-
tional Development from 2010 to 2015. During his tenure,
the agency responded to an earthquake in Haiti, an Ebola
outbreak in West Africa, and a famine in South Sudan.
Today, Shah is president of the Rockefeller Foundation. In
“The COVID Charter” (page 179), he calls for a new
approach to economic development focused on narrowing
the gap between rich and poor.
Return to Table of Contents
T
“ his battle will take time and ington imposes the same us-versus-
resolve,” President George W. them construct on new threats.
Bush declared on September 12, American counterterrorism, mean-
2001. “But make no mistake about it: while, has settled into what Daniel
we will win.” For much of the next two Byman calls a “good enough doctrine,”
decades, pursuing victory in the “war on meant to “manage, rather than elimi-
terror” would serve as the central nate, the terrorist threat”—with a
fixation of American foreign policy. Yet degree of effectiveness that few imag-
even as the United States invaded two ined possible in the aftermath of 9/11.
countries and launched drone strikes in Other outcomes would have seemed
others, as governments around the equally surprising. Thomas Heggham-
world erected vast security structures mer traces how the fight against jihadi
and attackers plotted with mixed terrorism fueled “the steadily growing
success to evade them, as jihadi groups coercive power of the technocratic
rose and fell and rose again, a basic state.” Cynthia Miller-Idriss traces how
question was never answered: What it fueled a different strain of extremist
would it mean to “win”? violence: 2020 saw a record number of
Drawing on thousands of al Qaeda domestic terrorist plots and attacks in
documents seized in the 2011 raid that the United States, and “two-thirds of
killed Osama bin Laden, Nelly Lahoud those were attributable to white suprem-
reveals that the other side struggled acists and other far-right extremists.”
with the same question. The 9/11 attacks “If the goal of the global war on
were meant, in bin Laden’s words, to terror was to prevent significant acts of
“destroy the myth of American invinci- terrorism, particularly in the United
bility.” Ultimately, Lahoud writes, “bin States, then the war has succeeded,”
Laden did change the world—just not in Elliot Ackerman concludes from his
the ways that he wanted.” survey of the expansive use of U.S.
One factor he failed to anticipate was military power in that war. “But at
the overwhelming U.S. response. “By what cost?” In the last few years,
any measure,” writes Ben Rhodes, “the terrorism may have vanished from the
‘war on terror’ was the biggest project top tier of American national security
of the period of American hegemony concerns almost as quickly as it ap-
that began when the Cold War ended—a peared. Yet the costs continue to
period that has now reached its dusk.” accrue—leaving the question of what
The vast scale and consequences of winning means as unsettled now as it
that project, Rhodes argues, continue was on September 12, 2001.
to shape U.S. foreign policy, as Wash- —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Editor
For two decades, pursuing
victory in the “war on
terror” has served as the
central fixation of
American foreign policy.
Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success From 9/11 to 1/6

PAO L O P E L L E G R I N / MAG N U M P H O T O S
Nelly Lahoud 10 Cynthia Miller-Idriss 54
Them and Us Winning Ugly

Ben Rhodes 22 Elliot Ackerman 66
The Good Enough Doctrine

Daniel Byman 32
Resistance Is Futile
Thomas Hegghammer 44
I L L U ST R AT I O N S BY T K
Bin Laden’s worldview and the

Bin Laden’s
thinking behind the 9/11 attack are laid

bare in a trove of internal communica-
Catastrophic tions that were recovered in May 2011,
when U.S. special operations forces
Success killed bin Laden during a raid on the
compound in the Pakistani city of
Abbottabad where he had spent his final
Al Qaeda Changed the years hiding. In the years that followed,
World—but Not in the U.S. government declassified some
the Way It Expected of the documents, but the bulk of them
remained under the exclusive purview
Nelly Lahoud of the intelligence community. In
November 2017, the CIA declassified an
additional 470,000 digital files,
O
n September 11, 2001, al Qaeda including audio, images, videos, and
carried out the deadliest foreign text. With the help of two research
terrorist attack the United States assistants, I pored over 96,000 of
had ever experienced. To Osama bin those files, including nearly 6,000
Laden and the other men who planned it, pages of Arabic text that form a record
however, the assault was no mere act of of al Qaeda’s internal communications
terrorism. To them, it represented between 2000 and 2011, which I have
something far grander: the opening salvo spent the past three years analyzing.
of a campaign of revolutionary violence These documents consist of bin Laden’s
that would usher in a new historical era. notes, his correspondence with associ-
Although bin Laden was inspired by ates, letters written by members of his
religion, his aims were geopolitical. family, and a particularly revealing
Al Qaeda’s mission was to undermine the 220-page handwritten notebook con-
contemporary world order of nation- taining transcripts of discussions
states and re-create the historical umma, between members of bin Laden’s
the worldwide community of Muslims immediate family that took place in the
that was once held together by a common compound during the last two months
political authority. Bin Laden believed of his life. The documents provide an
that he could achieve that goal by deliver- unparalleled glimpse into bin Laden’s
ing what he described as a “decisive mind and offer a portrait of the U.S.
blow” that would force the United States “war on terror” as it was seen through
to withdraw its military forces from the eyes of its chief target.
Muslim-majority states, thus allowing By the time of 9/11, bin Laden had
jihadis to fight autocratic regimes in been contemplating an attack inside the
those places on a level playing field. United States for decades. Many years
later, in conversations with family
NELLY LAHOUD is a Senior Fellow in the members, he recalled that it was in 1986
International Security Program at New America
and the author of the forthcoming book The Bin that he first suggested that jihadis
Laden Papers. “ought to strike inside America” to
10 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S PACKAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN STAUFFER

Nelly Lahoud
address the plight of the Palestinians, turning point in the history of the
since, in bin Laden’s mind, it was U.S. umma’s ascent toward greater eminence.”
support that allowed for the creation of The Abbottabad papers include
the state of Israel on Palestinian land. handwritten notes that bin Laden
Bin Laden’s concern for the Palestinians composed in 2002, disclosing “the birth
was genuine; their suffering, he often of the idea of 11 September.” They
reminded his associates, was “the reason reveal that it was in late October 2000,
we started our jihad.” But the Palestin- within weeks of the USS Cole attack,
ians mostly served as a convenient that bin Laden decided to attack the
stand-in for Muslims all over the world, American homeland. They also reveal
whom bin Laden portrayed as the his reasoning at the time: bin Laden
collective victims of foreign occupation believed that “the entire Muslim world
and oppression. In his “Declaration of is subjected to the reign of blasphemous
Jihad,” a 1996 public communiqué that regimes and to American hegemony.”
came to be known among jihadis as the The 9/11 attack was intended to “break
“Ladenese Epistle,” bin Laden grieved the fear of this false god and destroy
for Muslims whose “blood has been the myth of American invincibility.”
spilled” in places as far-flung as Chech- About two weeks after the attack, bin
nya, Iraq, Kashmir, and Somalia. “My Laden released a short statement in the
Muslim brothers of the world,” he form of an ultimatum addressed to the
declared, “your brothers in the land of United States. “I have only a few words
the two holiest sites and Palestine are for America and its people,” he de-
calling on you for help and asking you clared. “I swear by God almighty, who
to take part in fighting against the raised the heavens without effort, that
enemy, your enemy: the Israelis and the neither America nor anyone who lives
Americans.” This collective battle, bin there will enjoy safety until safety
Laden hoped, would be the first step in becomes a reality for us living in
reviving the umma. Palestine and before all the infidel
It soon became clear that bin Laden armies leave the land of Muhammad.”
was ready to back his words with deeds. The attack had an electrifying effect,
In 1998, al Qaeda carried out simulta- and in the years that immediately
neous bombings of the U.S. embassies followed, thousands of young Muslims
in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 around the world committed themselves
people and wounding more than 4,000. in various ways to bin Laden’s cause.
Emboldened by the international But a close reading of bin Laden’s
attention those strikes received, bin correspondence reveals that the world’s
Laden became more ambitious. On most notorious terrorist was ignorant of
October 12, 2000, al Qaeda rammed a the limits of his own métier.
small boat filled with explosives into the Bin Laden was born in 1957 in Saudi
USS Cole as it was refueling in the port Arabia. His father was a wealthy con-
of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 U.S. Navy struction magnate whose company was
personnel. Soon after that, bin Laden renowned not just for the opulent
told a large gathering of supporters palaces it built for the Saudi royal family
that the attacks represented “a critical but also for its restoration of the Islamic
12 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s
Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success
holy sites in Mecca and Medina. Bin captured. The rest sought refuge in the
Laden was raised in comfort, wanting Federally Administered Tribal Areas of
for nothing. He grew into a poised Pakistan, an autonomous area bordering
young man who yearned to take part in Afghanistan. Hiding became a way of
political causes around the Muslim life for them. Their communications
world. In his early jihadi exploits, which reveal that for the rest of bin Laden’s life,
involved fighting in Afghanistan in the the al Qaeda organization never recov-
1980s and helping finance and coordi- ered the ability to launch attacks abroad.
nate the mujahideen battling the Soviet (The group did carry out attacks in
occupation of that country, he demon- November 2002 in Kenya but was able to
strated that he had learned something do so only because the operatives tasked
about entrepreneurship and manage- with planning them had been dispatched
ment from the family business. And to East Africa in late 2000 and early
yet, although bin Laden’s correspon- 2001, before everything fell apart for
dence indicates that he was well versed al Qaeda in Afghanistan.) By 2014, bin
in Islamic history, particularly the Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
seventh-century military campaigns of found himself more preoccupied with
the Prophet Muhammad, he had only a delegitimizing the Islamic State (or isis),
perfunctory understanding of modern the jihadi group that eventually overtook
international relations. al Qaeda, than with rallying Muslims
That was reflected in the 9/11 attack against American hegemony. Still, it is
itself, which represented a severe impossible to look back at the past two
miscalculation: bin Laden never antici- decades and not be struck by the degree
pated that the United States would go to to which a small band of extremists led
war in response to the assault. Indeed, by a charismatic outlaw managed to
he predicted that in the wake of the influence global politics. Bin Laden did
attack, the American people would take change the world—just not in the ways
to the streets, replicating the protests that he wanted.
against the Vietnam War and calling on
their government to withdraw from LETTERS TO A MIDDLE-AGED
Muslim-majority countries. Instead, TERRORIST
Americans rallied behind U.S. President After fleeing to Pakistan following the
George W. Bush and his “war on terror.” Taliban’s defeat, many al Qaeda fighters
In October 2001, when a U.S.-led and operatives were arrested by authori-
coalition invaded Afghanistan to hunt ties there. Fearing the same fate, the
down al Qaeda and dislodge the Taliban remaining al Qaeda leaders and many
regime, which had hosted the terrorist members of bin Laden’s family covertly
group since 1996, bin Laden had no plan crossed the border into Iran in early
to secure his organization’s survival. 2002. Once there, they were assisted by
The 9/11 attack turned out to be a Sunni militants who helped them rent
Pyrrhic victory for al Qaeda. The group houses using forged documents. But by
shattered in the immediate aftermath of the end of 2002, the Iranian authorities
the Taliban regime’s collapse, and most had tracked down most of them and had
of its top leaders were either killed or placed them in a secret prison under-
September/October 2021 13
Nelly Lahoud
ground. They were later moved into a ically outlined plans to carry out
heavily guarded compound, along with “martyrdom operations akin to the 9/11
their female relatives and children. New York attack.” If these proved too
In 2008, bin Laden’s son Saad es- difficult, he had alternative plans to
caped from Iran and wrote a letter to his target rail lines.
father detailing how Iranian authorities His associates quickly set him
had repeatedly ignored the al Qaeda straight: al Qaeda had been crippled,
detainees’ medical conditions and how and such operations were out of the
“the calamities piled up and the psycho- question. In September 2004, a second-
logical problems increased.” When tier leader known as Tawfiq wrote a
Saad’s pregnant wife needed to be letter to bin Laden describing just how
induced, she was not taken to a hospital difficult things had been in the immedi-
until after “the fetus stopped moving”; ate aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion
she was forced “to deliver him after he of Afghanistan. “Our afflictions and
died.” Saad was convinced that the troubles were heart-rending, and the
Iranians “were masters at making us lose weakness, failure, and aimlessness that
our nerve and took pleasure in torturing befell us were harrowing,” he wrote. He
us psychologically.” So desperate were lamented that bin Laden’s “absence and
their conditions that when a Libyan inability to experience [their] painful
jihadi leader, Abu Uns al-Subayi, was reality” had itself fed the turmoil. “We
eventually released in 2010, he wrote to Muslims were defiled, desecrated, and
bin Laden that Iran is where the “great- our state was ripped asunder,” he
est Satan reigns.” Detention there felt reported. “Our lands were occupied;
like being “exiled from religion,” he our resources were plundered. . . . This
wrote, admitting that he had even is what happened to jihadis in general,
begged his Iranian captors to deport him and to us in al Qaeda in particular.”
to “any other country, even to Israel.” Another second-tier leader, Khalid
Bin Laden was completely unaware al-Habib, explained in a letter to bin
of these travails while they were hap- Laden that during his three-year
pening. The Abbottabad papers show absence, their “battlefield achievements
that in the wake of the U.S. invasion of were negligible.” He counted a total of
Afghanistan, bin Laden disappeared three “very modest operations, mostly
from the scene and was not in com- with [rockets], and from a distance.”
mand of al Qaeda for three years, even Another correspondent told bin Laden
though he continued to release public that al Qaeda’s “external work”—that is,
statements cheering jihadi attacks in attacks abroad—had been “halted”
Indonesia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia, because of the unrelenting pressure that
Tunisia, and Yemen. It was not until Pakistan was exerting on the jihadis. As
2004 that bin Laden was finally able to if this weren’t bad enough, bin Laden
resume contact with second-tier leaders learned that al Qaeda had been sold out
of al Qaeda. He was eager to launch a by most of their erstwhile Afghan
new campaign of international terror- sympathizers and the Taliban—“90
ism. In one of the first letters he sent percent of whom,” Habib complained,
after reestablishing contact, he method- “had been lured by the shiny dollars.”
POLICY.
CULTURES.
LANGUAGES.
LEADERSHIP.
The Hamilton Lugar School of Global & International Studies at Indiana

University is a national leader in the study of international affairs and the strategic
languages, cultures, and perspectives shaping our world. #
1
FOREIGN LANGUAGE &
You’ll take a multidisciplinary approach to graduate education with courses in AREA STUDIES (FLAS)
global affairs, area studies, hard skill acquisition, and more than 80 languages. FELLOWSHIPS
Standout programs include the one-year Master of International Affairs—a joint
degree with the #1 ranked O’Neill School of Public & Environmental Affairs, as
well as MAs in International Studies, Russian & East European Studies, East Asian #
1
Languages & Cultures, and Central Eurasian Studies. LANGUAGE FLAGSHIP
PROGRAMS IN THE US
You can also take advantage of prestigious FLAS awards and other generous
fellowship packages, meaning you’ll be able to focus on what matters most:
developing the global knowledge and regional expertise needed to succeed in #
2
fields ranging from academia to diplomacy to human rights. BOREN FELLOWS
Learn more and apply at hls.iu.edu.
HAMILTON LUGAR SCHOOL

OF GLOBAL AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Nelly Lahoud
A LIFELINE FOR AL QAEDA Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, to merge

But around the time that bin Laden was with al Qaeda. In a series of missives to
able to reestablish contact, things bin Laden, Zarqawi made clear that his
started looking up for al Qaeda. After followers were “the sons of the Fa-
the U.S.-led coalition had ousted the ther”—that is, bin Laden—and that his
Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the group was a mere “branch of the
next phase of Bush’s war on terrorism original.” Zarqawi also assured al Qaeda’s
was the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country leaders that he was collaborating with
ruled by a secular tyrant, Saddam and seeking to unite all the jihadi
Hussein, who viewed jihadis with factions in Iraq.
hostility. The U.S.-led invasion put a Zarqawi’s enthusiasm pleased bin
swift end to Saddam’s brutal reign but Laden. “The merger of the group
also led to the disbanding of the Iraqi [Jamaat] al-Tawhid wal-Jihad [would be]
army and the hollowing out of other tremendous,” bin Laden wrote to his
secular government institutions. Ini- deputy Zawahiri and Tawfiq, urging
tially, Arab Sunnis, the minority group them “to give this matter considerable
that had dominated Iraq under Saddam, attention, for it is a major step toward
bore the lion’s share of the sectarian vio- uniting the efforts of the jihadis.” In De-
lence that followed the invasion. This cember 2004, bin Laden formalized the
proved to be a lifeline for al Qaeda and merger by publicly appointing Zarqawi
other jihadi groups, which were able to as the leader of a new group, al Qaeda in
position themselves as the defenders of Mesopotamia (often referred to in
the Sunnis. As Habib put it in his 2004 Western media as al Qaeda in Iraq).
letter to bin Laden: “When God knew Zarqawi’s initiative eventually
of our afflictions and helplessness, he spurred jihadi groups in Somalia,
opened the door of jihad for us and for Yemen, and North Africa to formally
the entire umma in Iraq.” align themselves with al Qaeda. These
Habib was referring, specifically, to groups did not directly grow out of the
the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a original organization, but their leaders
Jordanian jihadi who had come to saw many benefits in acquiring the
prominence in the aftermath of the internationally feared al Qaeda brand,
U.S. invasion. By 2004, Zarqawi, and especially the chance to improve their
not bin Laden, was the leader of the standing in the eyes of their followers
world’s most powerful jihadi group. and to gain international media atten-
Aside from their shared commitment to tion, which they hoped would help
violent jihad, the two men had little in them raise money and recruit new
common. Bin Laden had enjoyed a adherents. It worked.
privileged upbringing; Zarqawi had Fixated on al Qaeda, counterterrorist
grown up poor, had done time in authorities all over the world often
prison, and had emerged not just as a subsumed all jihadis under a single
religious extremist but also as a hard- umbrella, unwittingly giving individuals
ened ex-convict and a brutal thug. who wanted to associate themselves
Despite the vast gulf between the two with bin Laden a larger selection of
men, Zarqawi was eager for his group, groups to potentially join. Thus, al-
though the al Qaeda organization was the leader of a notoriously extremist

broken, its brand lived on through the Algerian group who had been killed in
deeds of groups that acted in its name. 2002 and whom many jihadis had consid-
All of this flowed from Zarqawi’s ered to be overzealous even by their
alliance with bin Laden. In early 2007, a standards. “Can you imagine?!” he fumed.
Saudi jihadi cleric, Bishr al-Bishr, More disturbing for al Qaeda than
described the merger in a letter to a Zarqawi’s vain whining, however, were
senior al Qaeda leader as an instance of his group’s indiscriminate attacks, which
God having “shown mercy on al Qaeda,” resulted in massive Iraqi casualties,
which would have come to an end had particularly among Shiites. Bin Laden
it not been for “the amazing jihadi wanted al Qaeda to make headlines by
victories in Iraq, which raised the value killing and injuring Americans, not Iraqi
of al Qaeda’s stocks.” It was a divine civilians—even if they were Shiites,
intervention, he assessed: “God’s way of whom Sunni jihadis saw as heretics.
repaying the people of jihad for their From their hideouts in Pakistan and
sacrifices in his path.” the tribal areas, al Qaeda’s leaders
struggled to unify the militant groups in
THINGS FALL APART Iraq that were now at the center of
Bin Laden had assumed that those who global jihadism. But the divisions
pledged their allegiance to him would among them became even more en-
pursue the kind of attacks against the trenched. Zawahiri tried to mediate
United States that al Qaeda had pio- between Zarqawi and Ansar al-Sunna,
neered. Their success, he hoped, would but his efforts failed. Ansar al-Sunna
“raise the morale of Muslims, who made it clear to al Qaeda that unity
would, in turn, become more engaged with Zarqawi was conditional on “cor-
and supportive of jihadis,” as he put it recting the ways of al Qaeda in Meso-
in a letter to Zawahiri and Tawfiq in potamia.” Atiyah Abd al-Rahman
December 2004. (generally referred to as Atiyah), who
Once again, bin Laden had miscalcu- oversaw al Qaeda’s external contacts and
lated. The decision to bestow the al Qaeda relations at the time, grew ever more
imprimatur on groups that he did not dismayed with Zarqawi’s leadership and
control soon backfired. Zarqawi failed wrote to bin Laden that “we cannot
to unite Iraq’s jihadi groups under his leave the brother to act on the basis of
banner, and the country’s most estab- his judgment alone.” In a December
lished jihadi group, Ansar al-Sunna 2005 letter intercepted by U.S. intelli-
(also known as Ansar al-Islam) refused gence, Atiyah urged Zarqawi “to lessen
to merge with him. Before long, bin the number of attacks, even to cut the
Laden and his followers found them- current daily attacks in half, even less,”
selves at the receiving end of letters that pointing out that “the most important
chronicled the squabbles among their thing is for jihad to continue, and a
new associates. “Ansar al-Sunna have protracted war is to our advantage.”
been spreading lies about me,” Zarqawi Things went from bad to worse for
complained in one. “They say that I al Qaeda after Zarqawi was killed by a
have become like [Antar] al-Zawabiri,” U.S. airstrike in 2006. His successors
Nelly Lahoud
declared themselves the Islamic State of brothers responded, and in the midst of
Iraq without consulting bin Laden, this reactive battle, it occurred to you
Zawahiri, or any other senior al Qaeda that you should persist?” Wuhayshi’s
figures. In 2007, isi leaders stopped letters to bin Laden show that he was
responding to al Qaeda’s letters altogether, vexed by the guidelines that the leader-
a silence that reflected, in part, the fact ship had given him. Despite backing
that the Iraqi jihadis had begun losing down from declaring an Islamic state,
ground to what became known as the Wuhayshi defied senior al Qaeda
Sunni Awakening, which saw U.S. forces leaders’ instructions to refrain from
forge ties with Sunni tribal sheikhs in sectarian attacks targeting Houthis in
order to confront the terrorists. Yemen and to curb military confronta-
tions with the Yemeni government.
ON THE SIDELINES For bin Laden, the least problematic
Al Qaeda’s management struggles were of the new al Qaeda spinoffs was the
hardly limited to Iraq. In 2009, a group North African group al Qaeda in the
of jihadis in Yemen dubbed themselves Islamic Maghreb. Unlike the other
al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula affiliates, it did not want to proclaim a
without alerting the parent group or state and instead focused on taking
even publicly pledging allegiance to bin Westerners hostage for ransom or for
Laden. They were to prove a persistent the freeing of jihadi prisoners held by
source of headaches. In or around 2009, Western governments. Bin Laden saw
an aqap leader named Qasim al-Raymi this tactic’s potential for influencing
admitted in a letter to al Qaeda’s Western publics and seemed to appreci-
leadership that he and the group’s other ate the pragmatic approach of aqim’s
top members suffered from inexperi- leader, Abu Musab Abdul Wadud. Still,
ence and “deficiencies concerning because bin Laden could not communi-
leadership and administration.” He cate with aqim in a timely fashion
conceded that he himself was not (since his communications depended on
equipped “to judge when, how, and the schedule of a courier), his interven-
where to strike.” But inexperience did tions often arrived too late and some-
not deter aqap’s top leader, Nasir times even proved counterproductive.
al-Wuhayshi, from announcing in 2010 On at least one occasion, negotiations
that he wanted to proclaim an Islamic over the release of Western hostages
state in Yemen. It took a great deal of that could have benefited aqim fell
finesse on the part of senior al Qaeda apart because of bin Laden’s meddling.
leaders to dissuade him. By 2009, most of al Qaeda’s senior
For his part, bin Laden was dis- leaders were fed up with their unruly
mayed that aqap even considered itself affiliates. That year, bin Laden hardly
a jihadi group at all, much less an rejoiced when Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr,
affiliate of al Qaeda. “Did you actually the leader of the Somali jihadi group
plan and prepare for jihad?” he tartly al Shabab, sought a public merger with
asked in a draft letter to Wuhayshi. “Or al Qaeda. Zubayr, too, wanted to proclaim
is your presence a result of a few an Islamic state. In a letter to Zubayr,
government attacks to which the Atiyah delicately explained that it
would be best to “keep your allegiance response to the Arab Spring went
to Sheikh Osama secret.” For his part, through at least 16 drafts before he
bin Laden declined the public merger made an initial recording of it. And his
and suggested that Zubayr downsize daughters Sumayya and Maryam, who
from a state to an emirate, and do so had effectively co-authored most of the
quietly. “Our inclination,” he wrote, “is public messages that bin Laden deliv-
that your emirate should be a reality to ered over the years, did much of the
which the people grow attached without heavy lifting in composing the text. In
having to proclaim it.” Zubayr complied late April 2011, they were planning to
with their wishes, but his response give it one more round of edits before
shows that he was troubled, rightly the final recording, but they ran out of
pointing out that he and his group were time: U.S. Navy seals raided the
“already considered by both our enemies Abbottabad compound before they had
and our friends to be part of al Qaeda.” a chance to polish it. It was the U.S.
A few years later, Zawahiri, who suc- government that ended up releasing the
ceeded bin Laden after his death, finally statement, probably to help establish
admitted al Shabab into al Qaeda. that the raid had actually occurred and
During the last year of his life, bin undermine the claims of conspiracy
Laden lamented that his “brothers” had theorists to the contrary.
become a “liability” for global jihad. The raid was masterfully planned and
Some of their attacks, he bemoaned, executed. “Justice has been done,” U.S.
resulted in “unnecessary civilian casual- President Barack Obama declared in
ties.” Worse yet, “the Muslim public announcing bin Laden’s death. With the
was repulsed” by such attacks. The new man behind the 9/11 attack eliminated
generation of jihadis, he concluded, had and with mostly peaceful and secular
lost their way. protesters on the march against Middle
In the winter of 2010–11, the revolts Eastern tyrants, it seemed for a moment
that became known as the Arab Spring that the jihadi movement had run its
initially gave bin Laden some hope. He course. But that moment proved fleeting.
reveled in the success of what he called
the “revolutionaries” (thuwar) who A SHORT-LIVED CALIPHATE
brought down autocratic regimes in Back in Washington, the Obama
Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. But soon, he administration had dropped Bush’s “war
grew troubled. In conversations with his on terror” moniker. But Obama main-
family, he worried that “the revolutions tained his predecessor’s excessive focus on
were born prematurely” and lamented al Qaeda, and his team failed to discern
that al Qaeda and other jihadi groups divisions within jihadism that proved
were mostly on the sidelines. He was consequential. In choosing to go to war in
resigned that “we cannot do anything Iraq, the Bush administration had exag-
except intensify our prayers.” gerated al Qaeda’s connections to the
Yet bin Laden was determined to country and overestimated the counter-
“protect these revolutions” and intent terrorism benefits of toppling Saddam’s
on advising the protesters through his regime. The Obama administration, for
public statements. His one and only its part, overestimated the positive effects
Nelly Lahoud
that bin Laden’s death and the U.S. Baghdadi to be the leader of a new
withdrawal from Iraq would have on the caliphate, and the group renamed itself
fight against jihadism. “The drawdown in the Islamic State, dropping all geo-
Iraq allowed us to refocus our fight graphic references from its name. Its
against al Qaeda and achieve major territorial expansion led jihadi groups in
victories against its leadership, including more than ten countries to pledge
Osama bin Laden,” Obama claimed in allegiance to the new caliph. In turn, the
October 2011. At that very moment, Islamic State (also known as isis)
however, the isi, al Qaeda’s erstwhile ally designated these groups as either
in Iraq, was being energized by a new “provinces” or “soldiers of the caliphate.”
generation of leaders. The Obama After bin Laden’s death, al Qaeda
administration and other Western govern- continued to operate under Zawahiri’s
ments failed to see the growing danger. command, but it had now been fully
In 2010, the isi had come under the eclipsed by isis. Still, just as bin Laden
leadership of a formerly obscure Iraqi had been ignorant of terrorism’s limits,
who called himself Abu Bakr al-Bagh- Baghdadi proved to be clueless when it
dadi. The Iraqi government’s sectarian- came to running a state, let alone a
ism and corruption offered fertile “caliphate” that aimed to conquer other
ground for the isi to rebuild and grow. countries without possessing so much as
In 2010–11, Baghdadi unleashed a wave a single fighter jet. In September 2014,
of terrorist assaults on Iraqi Chris- the Obama administration formed a
tians and Shiites. This campaign enraged coalition of 83 countries “to degrade
al Qaeda’s leaders. “I do not understand,” and ultimately defeat isis.” By 2016,
Zawahiri chafed in a letter he wrote to isis had begun to collapse. The admin-
bin Laden a few months before the istration of U.S. President Donald
Abbottabad raid. “Are the brothers not Trump kept up the fight, and the
content with the number of their coalition eventually wrested control of
current enemies? Are they eager to add all of isis’s territory. Baghdadi had
new ones to their list?” He urged bin spurned bin Laden’s strategy of fighting
Laden to write to the isi’s leaders and from the shadows in favor of empire
instruct them to stop “targeting the building and had managed to replace
Shiites indiscriminately” and to “end bin Laden as the face of global jihad-
their attacks against Christians.” But bin ism. But the two men had similar fates.
Laden no longer had any influence over In October 2019, U.S. forces raided
the isi. The Iraqi group had moved on. Baghdadi’s compound in Idlib Province,
Between 2011 and 2013, the isi in northwestern Syria. U.S. military
expanded into Syria, inserting itself into dogs chased Baghdadi into a dead-end
the bloody civil war that had begun tunnel. Cornered, the caliph detonated
there after the regime of Bashar al- a suicide vest. “The world is now a safer
Assad crushed an Arab Spring uprising. place,” Trump declared.
In June 2014, after the isi had conquered
vast swaths of territory in both Iraq and THE FUTILITY OF TERROR
Syria, the group’s spokesperson, Abu In the two years since Baghdadi’s
Muhammad al-Adnani, proclaimed demise, Trump’s pronouncement has
held up. The jihadi landscape is still ance with the terms of their agreement
divided. Jihadi organizations continue to with the United States.
proliferate, but no group dominates in The Taliban’s factionalism may prove
the way that al Qaeda and isis once did. to be an intractable problem for the
Their capabilities range from merely United States. But al Qaeda’s experi-
howling threats, to throwing Molotov ences after 9/11 suggest that the same
cocktails, to carrying out suicide opera- factionalism will also complicate mat-
tions or blowing up cars, to seizing ters for terrorists seeking refuge in
control of territory—at least for a time. Afghanistan. Even a sympathetic host
When it comes to the next phase of regime is no guarantee of safe haven.
the struggle, all eyes are on Afghani- Bin Laden learned that lesson the hard
stan. Al Qaeda, isis, and a number of way, and Baghdadi later found out that
other groups maintain operations in the controlling territory was even harder.
country, but they are overshadowed by But Washington and its allies have
the larger conflict playing out between come to realize (or at least they should
the Afghan government and the Tali- have) that an open-ended war on
ban, which are both struggling for terrorism is futile and that a successful
control of the country in the wake of counterterrorism policy must address
the United States’ withdrawal. In 2020, the legitimate political grievances that
the United States and the Taliban al Qaeda claims to champion—for
reached a peace agreement in which the example, U.S. support for dictatorships
Taliban promised “to prevent any group in the Middle East.
or individual, including al-Qa’ida, from Washington cannot quite claim
using the soil of Afghanistan to victory against al Qaeda and its ilk,
threaten the security of the United which retain the ability to inspire
States and its allies.” deadly, if small-scale, attacks. The past
Will the Taliban make good on their two decades, however, have made clear
promise? Judging by the Abbottabad just how little jihadi groups can hope to
papers, not all Taliban members were accomplish. They stand a far better
equal in the eyes of al Qaeda, which chance of achieving eternal life in
had long suspected that some Taliban paradise than of bringing the United
factions had been seeking rapproche- States to its knees.∂
ment with the United States. As early
as 2007, Atiyah wrote to bin Laden that
“forces within the Taliban are distanc-
ing themselves from al Qaeda to elude
the terrorism accusation.” And in 2010,
Zawahiri expressed alarm in a letter to
bin Laden that the Taliban seemed
“psychologically prepared” to accept a
deal that would render al Qaeda impo-
tent. Owing to the Taliban’s factional-
ism since 9/11, it may be difficult for
the group’s leaders to enforce compli-
the management of immigration to the

Them and Us
construction of government facilities to

community policing—have become
heavily securitized, as have aspects of
How America Lets everyday life: travel, banking, identifica-
Its Enemies Hijack Its tion cards. The United States has used
Foreign Policy military force in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia,
Yemen, and a number of other countries.
Ben Rhodes Terrorism has become a prominent issue
in nearly all of Washington’s bilateral and
multilateral relationships.
N
o twenty-first-century event The war on terror also reshaped
has shaped the United States American national identity. After the
and its role in the world as collapse of the Soviet Union, the
much as 9/11. The attacks pierced the United States was a country bereft of
complacency of the post–Cold War the unifying sense of purpose that the
decade and shattered the illusion that Cold War had fostered. Gone was the
history was ending with the triumph of clarity of the ideological struggle
American-led globalization. The scale of between capitalist democracy and
the U.S. response remade American communist autocracy, the free world
government, foreign policy, politics, and and closed societies. After 9/11, Presi-
society in ways that continue to gener- dent George W. Bush marshaled the
ate aftershocks. Only by interrogating aspiration for a unifying American
the excesses of that response can Ameri- identity and directed it toward a new
cans understand what their country has generational struggle. The war on
become and where it needs to go. terror, he declared, would be on par
It is difficult to overstate—and in fact with the epochal struggles against
easy to understate—the impact of 9/11. fascism and communism.
By any measure, the “war on terror” was Bush’s framing of counterterrorism
the biggest project of the period of as a defining, multigenerational, and
American hegemony that began when the global war represented an effective form
Cold War ended—a period that has now of leadership after an unprecedented
reached its dusk. For 20 years, counter- national tragedy, but it led inexorably to
terrorism has been the overarching overreach and unintended conse-
priority of U.S. national security policy. quences. The U.S. government soon
The machinery of government has been abused its powers of surveillance,
redesigned to fight an endless war at detention, and interrogation. The wars
home and abroad. Basic functions—from in Afghanistan and Iraq became about
far more than taking out al Qaeda.
BEN RHODES is the author of After the Fall: American democracy was linked to mili-
Being American in the World We’ve Made and a tarized regime change in ways that
co-host of the podcast Pod Save the World. From
2009 to 2017, he served as U.S. Deputy National undermined its health at home and
Security Adviser in the Obama administration. legitimacy abroad. The victories Bush
22 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Them and Us
Ben Rhodes
and his administration promised—and global revitalization of democracy, and

that conservative media relentlessly buttress a rules-based international
predicted—never materialized, sapping order. A true pivot will require more
Americans’ confidence in government dramatic steps: reconfiguring or dis-
and provoking a search for internal mantling aspects of the U.S. post-9/11
scapegoats. The jingoistic nationalism enterprise and changing a securitized
of the immediate post-9/11 era morphed mindset that has encouraged authori-
into a cocktail of fear and xenophobia tarianism at home and abroad. The U.S.
that eventually produced a president, government cannot end forever wars if
Donald Trump, who paid lip service to it is designed to fight them; it cannot
ending wars abroad and repurposed the revitalize democracy if democracy
rhetoric of the war on terror to attack a consistently winds up on the losing end
shifting cast of enemies at home. of national security tradeoffs.
The United States now has a presi- Meanwhile, what the United States
dent more genuinely committed to represents and what it means to be an
ending the country’s “forever wars.” American are far more contested today
President Joe Biden’s determination to than when the nation reflexively rallied
do so is demonstrated by his decision to after 9/11. The debate about American
remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan, identity has become so acute that the
and even more clearly by his administra- country has been rendered more vulner-
tion’s global agenda. In Biden’s first able to the kinds of violent extremism
address to the U.S. Congress, in April, that its post-9/11 posture was built to
and in a speech he made at the G-7 prevent. There was a time when a deadly
summit in June, terrorism was sup- assault on the U.S. Capitol would have
planted by the challenges of stamping been a sobering wake-up call to action;
out a pandemic, fighting climate change, today, it has been interpreted largely
revitalizing democracy, and preparing through the prism of tribal politics
the United States and its allies for an characterized by right-wing denialism
enduring competition with an assertive and deflection. The same Republican
China. After 20 years, Biden is taking Party that led the establishment of a
steps to move the country into a new multitrillion-dollar security state after
period of history: the post-post-9/11 era. September 11 doesn’t even want to
Yet the vast infrastructure of the war investigate what happened on January 6.
on terror remains in place, and its In this context, one way to redefine
prerogatives continue to influence the the United States’ purpose in the
organization of the U.S. government, world—and reshape American identity
the deployment of the U.S. military, the at home—would be to focus on competi-
operations of the U.S. intelligence tion with the Chinese Communist Party.
community, and Washington’s support That contest is the one major concern in
for autocratic regimes in the Middle U.S. politics that evokes broad biparti-
East. As was the case in the Obama san agreement. And there are good
administration, those realities constrain reasons to be concerned about the ccp.
the United States’ ability to move Unlike al Qaeda, it has both an alterna-
decisively past the post-9/11 era, lead a tive view of governance and society and
the power to remake much of the world
to suit its own purposes. Ironically,
China’s ascent in global influence
accelerated rapidly after 9/11, as the
United States was too often consumed
by its focus on terrorism and the Middle
East. In terms of geopolitical influence,
the CCP has been the biggest beneficiary
of the war on terror. There are also good
reasons, however, to be wary of how a DIPLOMACY
U.S.-Chinese confrontation might play
out. Defining the United States’ pur-
CASE
pose in the world and American identity STUDIES
through a new “us versus them” con-
struct risks repeating some of the worst
mistakes of the war on terror. Bring the
REAL WORLD
THE OCEAN LINER
President Barack Obama used to call the to your classroom
U.S. government “an ocean liner”: a
massive, lumbering structure that is foreign policy
hard to turn around once pointed in a International organizations
certain direction. After 9/11, the Bush Conflict resolution
administration pointed the ship in a new Terrorism and security
direction and generated an enormous Global ealt
amount of momentum. The national
security apparatus was refocused on International trade
fighting terrorism: vast new bureaucra- Women, peace, and security
cies were established, organizational And more.
charts redrawn, new authorities granted,
budgets rewritten, priorities upended. Instructors: Join our Faculty Lounge
After U.S. forces routed the Taliban in
for free access to this unique online
Afghanistan in 2001, a delirious trium-
phalism took hold in Washington. U.S. library of over 250 case studies and
global influence never seemed stronger, simulations — and make diplomacy
and the politics of being tough on part of your course
terrorism was resoundingly validated at
the ballot box in the 2002 midterm
elections, when the GOP swept control casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu
of Congress. Ever since, the United
States has been cleaning up the wreck-
age left behind in the ocean liner’s wake.
Today, the countries that experi-
enced the most intense fighting of the
12 advertising space - long.indd 1 7/14/2017 2:31:53 PM
Ben Rhodes
war on terror are mired in various resources and that bandwidth over the
degrees of conflict. Afghanistan is last two decades, as the country struggled
returning to the state of civil war and to keep pace with climate change, epi-
Taliban ascendancy that preceded 9/11. demics, widening inequality, technologi-
Iraq has weathered a lengthy insurgency cal disruption, and diminished U.S.
that generated al Qaeda in Iraq (aqi), influence—especially in places enticed by
which later morphed into the Islamic the ccp’s growing economic clout and
State (also known as isis); the country promises of infrastructure improvements.
remains riven by intercommunal rivalry Of course, the party that instigated
and Iranian influence. Libya, Somalia, the war on terror was al Qaeda. After
and Yemen all lack governing authori- 9/11, the United States and other
ties and host brutal proxy wars. There countries faced the risk of further
was certainly a basis for U.S. military catastrophic terrorist attacks and had to
action after 9/11, and certain threats respond. To their credit, the U.S. mili-
necessitate a military response. Yet the tary and the U.S. intelligence community
conditions in these countries demon- decimated al Qaeda and took out its
strate the limits of military intervention leader, Osama bin Laden. Isis has
and raise uncomfortable questions been similarly rolled back through a
about whether, on balance, the people campaign that involved a limited U.S.
of these countries would have been presence on the ground. My personal
better off without it. experience with the Americans who
The costs of the post-9/11 wars have carry out U.S. counterterrorism policies
been staggering. Over 7,000 U.S. service has led me to overwhelmingly admire
members have died in Afghanistan and them. They have served their country
Iraq, more than 50,000 were wounded in bravely through administrations with
action, and more than 30,000 U.S. veter- shifting priorities, helping prevent
ans of post-9/11 conflicts have taken attacks and save lives. Aspects of the
their own lives. Hundreds of thousands country’s counterterrorism apparatus
of Afghans and Iraqis lost their lives, and have certainly been necessary.
37 million people, as estimated by That reality, however, does not erase
Brown University’s Costs of War Proj- the enormous excesses and warped risk
ect, have been displaced by the post-9/11 calculations that defined Washington’s
conflicts that have involved U.S. forces. response to 9/11. The kinds of attacks
Meanwhile, the price tag of those that the country spent trillions of
wars—and for caring for those who dollars to prevent would have caused
fought them—is approaching $7 trillion. only a fraction of the deaths that could
Counterterrorism has also consumed have been prevented by a more compe-
an incalculable amount of the limited tent response to covid-19, by the
bandwidth of the U.S. government—eve minimal gun safety measures that have
rything from the time and attention of been blocked by Congress, or by better
the president and senior officials to preparation for deadly weather events
staffing and prioritization within agen- intensified by climate change—all of
cies. Consider what else the United which were neglected or stymied in part
States could have done with those because of Washington’s fixation on
Them and Us
terrorism. The scale of the costs—and casualties, cast aside concerns about
opportunity costs—of the post-9/11 human rights, fully embraced autocratic
wars suggests that the country needs a allies and partners, and deprioritized
structural correction, not simply a climate change and global health.
change of course. The clear lesson is that it won’t be
enough to merely redirect the ocean
EASY TO START, HARD TO END liner; Biden and Congress should
From the president on down, nearly all redesign it. Take climate change. Under
of the Biden administration’s top offi- Obama, the effort to achieve the Paris
cials played a role in the Obama admin- agreement to limit global warming drew
istration’s efforts to extricate the United on scarce climate expertise scattered
States from its post-9/11 wars, a complex across agencies and a fraction of the
and politically fraught task that ulti- resources allotted by Congress for coun-
mately reduced the number of U.S. terterrorism. The Obama White House
troops in Afghanistan and Iraq from went to great lengths to connect that
nearly 180,000 in 2009 to roughly 15,000 climate expertise with the machinery of
by 2017. And during Obama’s second U.S. foreign policy: the bilateral and
term, Washington’s global agenda looked multilateral relationship management
something like the one that Biden required to achieve anything substantial
described in his address to the G-7: in international politics. Once the
organizing the world to combat climate Trump administration took office, this
change, strengthening global health nascent prioritization of the climate was
systems, and pivoting to Asia while halted. The same thing happened to a
trying to contain a revanchist Russia. White House office dedicated to
With the benefit of hindsight, pandemic preparedness that Obama had
however, it is clear that the Obama established after the Ebola outbreak in
administration—whose critics usually 2014. Trump shuttered that office,
fault it for excessive restraint—actually folding its portfolio into a directorate
erred in the opposite direction by focused on weapons of destruction:
sustaining aspects of the post-9/11 pandemic preparedness was quite
project. A 2009 troop surge in Afghani- literally absorbed into the infrastructure
stan prolonged the war despite dimin- of the war on terror.
ishing returns. The expanded use of Today, the Biden team has the
lethal drones achieved tactical successes advantage of two decades’ worth of
but institutionalized a capability to kill evidence that the focus on terrorism has
people in many countries. Acquiescence warped national priorities, with rising
to authoritarian allies, including a Saudi public concerns about pandemics, a
regime that launched a catastrophic war warming climate, and challenges from
in Yemen, undermined U.S. rhetoric China and Russia. To truly prioritize
about democracy. After Trump took those issues, Biden and his Democratic
office, his administration deployed tens allies in Congress should work to
of thousands of U.S. troops to the dismantle parts of the post-9/11 enter-
Middle East to confront Iran, relaxed prise. The 2001 congressional Authori-
restrictions meant to limit civilian zation for Use of Military Force, which
Ben Rhodes
has been used to give legal standing to a far-right conspiracy theories with
wide range of military interventions Republican attempts to delegitimize
since 9/11, should be repealed and any foreign policy initiative supported
replaced by something far more nar- by the Democratic Party. The Iran
rowly tailored, with a built-in sunset nuclear deal—designed to prevent both
before the end of Biden’s term. Drone an Iranian nuclear weapon and yet
strikes should cease to be routine and another war—proved to be more
should be used only in circumstances in contentious (and drew less congressional
which the U.S. government is prepared support) than did the authorization of
to publicly reveal and justify its actions. an open-ended war in Iraq.
The U.S. military’s global force posture Yet Biden is in a post-Trump,
should reflect the diminishing prioriti- post-pandemic moment. The gop’s
zation of the Middle East; the Pentagon embrace of Trumpism clearly endan-
should reduce the oversized presence of gered the lives of Americans and
U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, destroyed the party’s claim to a foreign
which escalated in the Trump years. policy that promotes American values.
To make permanent the focus on Biden and his team are uniquely suited
issues such as climate change and global to make the case to the public that they
health, the Biden administration should are more trustworthy, competent, and
increase federal investments in clean capable of securing the country and
energy, pandemic preparedness, and strengthening its democracy.
global health security and should To do so, the United States must
accompany that spending with major abandon the mindset that undermines
reforms. For instance, agencies such as democratic values. Consider the experi-
the State Department and the U.S. ence of Mohamed Soltan, an Egyptian
Agency for International Development American who took part in the 2011
should ramp up their climate expertise, protests in Tahrir Square. He celebrated
and the intelligence community and the the downfall of the Egyptian dictator
military should devote more resources Hosni Mubarak and the democratic
to understanding and responding to opening that followed. But after a 2013
truly existential dangers that threaten military coup ousted Egypt’s elected
the American people. president, Mohamed Morsi, Soltan
The Biden team will encounter joined protesters in Cairo’s Rabaa
resistance to those steps, just as the Square. Security forces opened fire,
Obama administration often found killing at least 800 people. Soltan was
itself swimming against the tide of shot. He was then imprisoned, tortured,
American politics. The effort to close and encouraged by interrogators to
the costly and morally indefensible U.S. commit suicide. He went on a hunger
prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was strike that lasted almost 500 days and
stymied by members of Congress from resisted the appeals of isis recruiters
both parties. The cynical extremity of who were allowed to enter his cell. He
the Republican response to the 2012 was released only after a personal
attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, appeal from Obama to Egypt’s dictator,
Libya, blended a growing penchant for Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Them and Us
This dystopian scenario reveals the were not sufficiently committed to the
dysfunction of a post-9/11 U.S. foreign war on terror and hyped the threat of an
policy that provides billions of dollars encroaching Islamic “other.” But as the
in military and economic aid to a brutal 9/11 attacks receded into memory and it
regime that allows isis recruiters to became clear that no grand victories
roam its overpopulated prisons, foster- would take place in Afghanistan or Iraq,
ing the very radicalization that justifies the nature of that “other” shifted.
both the regime’s brutality and U.S. Fear-mongering about terrorism and
assistance. The war on terror was conspiracy theories about “creeping
always at war with itself. The United sharia” morphed into fear-mongering
States subsidizes Egyptian repression about immigrants at the southern
while paying lip service to democratic border, anger at athletes who took a knee
values, just as Washington continues to during the national anthem to protest
sell weapons to a Saudi government police violence, and conspiracy theories
that silences dissent and has waged a about everything from Benghazi to voter
brutal war in Yemen. It is no coinci- fraud. More often than not, this dy-
dence that the governments of key U.S. namic targeted minority populations.
partners in the war on terror—not just Ironically, this redirection of the
Egypt and Saudi Arabia but also Israel xenophobic currents of the country’s
and Turkey, among others—have grown post-9/11 politics ended up fueling
more repressive since 9/11, contributing terrorism rather than fighting it, with
to the rising tide of authoritarianism white nationalists running over a
around the world that the United counterdemonstrator in Charlottesville
States wants to roll back. and killing 11 people at the Tree of Life
Revitalizing global democracy is not synagogue in Pittsburgh. It also con-
compatible with a permanent global war tributed to once unthinkable authori-
on terror. The balance of tradeoffs has tarian scenarios. When fellow citizens
to shift. U.S. military assistance should are relentlessly cast as enemies of the
be conditioned on respect for human state, even a violent American insurrec-
rights. Washington should cast off the tion can become real.
hypocrisy that has weighed down Amer- When a superpower embraces a
ican foreign policy for too long. belligerent strain of nationalism, it also
ripples out around the world. The
THE WAR AT HOME excesses of post-9/11 U.S. policies were
The war on terror not only accelerated repurposed by authoritarians elsewhere
authoritarian trends elsewhere; it did so at to target political opponents, shut down
home, too. The jingoism of the post-9/11 civil society, control the media, and
era fused national security and identity expand the power of the state under the
politics, distorting ideas about what it guise of counterterrorism. Of course,
means to be an American and blurring the this is not Washington’s doing. Yet just
distinction between critics and enemies. as Americans should recoil when Russian
After 9/11, an us-versus-them, right- President Vladimir Putin indulges in
wing political and media apparatus whataboutism to excuse his abuses, they
stirred up anger against Americans who should not blithely ignore their own
Ben Rhodes
country’s overreach and belligerent can Senator Lindsey Graham of South

nationalism, which undermines Wash- Carolina and Senator Joe Lieberman,
ington’s effort to push back against an independent from Connecticut, led
Putin, defend democratic values, and the charge, releasing a joint declaration
reinforce a rules-based order. that claimed that the Uyghurs “have
Like Putin, Chinese President Xi radical religious views which make it
Jinping has embraced the American war difficult for them to assimilate into our
on terror as a template for repression population”—a statement that sounded
and a justification for abuses. In 2014, precisely like ccp propaganda regarding
Uyghur terrorists took dozens of lives its actions in Xinjiang.
in the autonomous territory of Xin Americans rightfully take pride in
jiang, in western China. State media their country’s tradition of global
referred to the attacks as “China’s 9/11.” leadership and its aspiration to be “a
Xi urged ccp officials to follow the city upon a hill” that sets an example
American post-9/11 script, setting in for the world. But why would they
motion a crackdown that would eventu- think that others will follow their
ally lead to a million Uyghurs being example only when it reflects positive
thrown into concentration camps. At a values and qualities? When Americans
meeting in 2019, Trump reportedly told invade another country for no good
Xi that detaining the Uyghurs in camps reason, support autocracy out of
was “exactly the right thing to do.” convenience, and stigmatize minorities
Although nothing in the United in their own country, they should not be
States’ response to 9/11 approaches the surprised when other countries emulate
scale of the ccp’s repression, Trump’s those misdeeds or use them to justify
comment was far from the only validation their own authoritarian excesses.
that the ccp would find in the post-9/11 Americans must confront this un-
era. In the years following 9/11, several comfortable reality not because Wash-
Uyghurs were held in the U.S. prison at ington should retreat from the world but
Guantánamo Bay. None were found because it cannot cede the field to
guilty of terrorism or deemed to pose a leaders like Putin and Xi. The United
serious danger to the United States. States must live up to the better story it
When Obama tried to close the prison at tells itself as the leader of the free world.
the outset of his presidency, there was a Ultimately, this is the most important
plan to release a few Uyghur detainees in lesson that Americans must learn from
the United States to show that the Ameri- the post-9/11 period. Restoring Ameri-
can government was willing to do its part, can leadership requires rebuilding the
since it was asking other countries to example of American democracy as the
repatriate some of their citizens who had foundation of the United States’ foreign
been detained at Guantánamo but cleared and national security policy.
for release, and the Uyghurs could not be
safely repatriated to China. Obama’s MORE US, LESS THEM
proposal was met with hyperbolic opposi- All these lessons must be applied to an
tion that resulted in restrictions that intensifying competition with China.
prevented the prison’s closure. Republi- Biden is justifying huge outlays on
Them and Us
infrastructure by pointing to the need the world’s democracies, and set a

to prove that democracies can outcom- better example to the world.
pete the ccp’s state-controlled capital- In addition to delivering on big-
ism. Congress is investing substantial ticket items, such as infrastructure,
resources in science and technology to American democracy must be fortified
keep pace with Chinese innovation. and revitalized. Protecting the right to
The Biden White House is proposing vote and strengthening democratic
industrial policies that would favor institutions at home must be the
certain U.S. industries and refining cornerstone of the United States’
export-control regimes to disentangle democratic example. Addressing in-
critical supply chains that link the equality and racial injustice in the
United States and China. U.S. defense United States would demonstrate that
spending is increasingly shaped by democracies can deliver for everyone.
future contingencies involving the Rooting out corruption that flows
People’s Liberation Army. The State through the U.S. financial system would
Department has prioritized the fortifi- help clean up American politics and
cation of U.S. alliances in Asia and choke off resources that flow to auto-
enhanced contacts with Taiwan. Wash- crats in other countries. Stemming the
ington has become increasingly critical flood of disinformation and hate speech
of Chinese human rights violations in on U.S. social media platforms would
places such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang. curb radicalization and undermine
On trade, technology, and human authoritarianism all over the world. For
rights, the United States is working 30 years, the U.S. government has
with partners and through multilateral prioritized economic interests over
organizations, such as the G-7 and human rights in dealings with the ccp,
nato, to forge the firmest possible and so have many American companies,
united front against China. These cultural institutions, and individuals.
efforts will create their own political This must change—not because of
incentives and pressures; they will also Washington’s geopolitical opposition to
create momentum for the expansion of Beijing but because of the United
resources and bandwidth within the States’ support for democratic values at
U.S. government. Already, one can home and around the globe.
sense the ocean liner adjusting course. The world is a difficult and some-
Yet although each of these initiatives times dangerous place. The United
has its own justification, it would be a States must assert itself to defend its
mistake to simply focus on the new interests. But the post-post-9/11 era
“them”—an impulse that could facilitate should be defined not by a confrontation
another wave of nationalist authoritari- with the next enemy in line but rather
anism of the kind that has poisoned by the revitalization of democracy as a
American politics for the past 20 years. successful means of human organiza-
Better to focus more on “us”—a democ- tion. To replace the war on terror with a
racy resilient enough to withstand a better generational project, Americans
long-term competition with a rival have to be driven by what they are for,
political model, forge consensus among not what they are against.∂
and even backfired. Although al Qaeda

The Good Enough
and ISIS are far weaker than they were

at their peak, they have persisted in the
Doctrine face of tremendous pressure, and their
reach, albeit at times more ambitious
than their grasp, has only grown since
Learning to Live With 2001. Today, other countries face potent
Terrorism terrorist threats, and al Qaeda, ISIS, and
their various affiliates and allies remain
Daniel Byman active in civil wars around the world.
Instead of a decisive victory, the
United States appears to have settled for
I
n the 20 years since the 9/11 attack, something less ambitious: good enough.
U.S. counterterrorism policy has It recognizes that although jihadi
achieved some striking successes terrorism may be impossible to fully and
and suffered some horrific failures. On permanently eradicate—or the costs of
the positive side, jihadi organizations trying to do so are simply too high—the
such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State threat can be reduced to the point where
(also known as ISIS) are now shadows of it kills relatively few Americans and no
their former selves, and the United longer shapes daily life in the United
States has avoided another catastrophic, States. As Washington has grown more
9/11-scale attack. The worst fears, or skeptical of large-scale counterinsur-
even the more modest ones, of U.S. gency operations designed to reshape
counterterrorism officials have not been whole societies, the most recent three
realized. With terrorism less of an administrations—Barack Obama’s,
immediate concern, U.S. President Joe Donald Trump’s, and now Biden’s—have
Biden has turned Washington’s focus focused on keeping jihadi organizations
toward China, climate change, and weak and off balance. Through a mix of
other issues—even withdrawing U.S. intelligence gathering, military opera-
troops from Afghanistan as part of an tions, and homeland security efforts,
effort to end the so-called forever wars. they have mostly succeeded in keeping
At the same time, however, many of the fight “over there.” To a remarkable
the United States’ more ambitious degree, the United States itself has been
foreign policy efforts done in the name insulated from the threat. Jihadism
of counterterrorism since 9/11, such as remains alive and well abroad and is not
effecting regime change in the Middle going away anytime soon, but the
East and winning the goodwill of current U.S. doctrine is a politically
Muslims around the world, have failed feasible and comparatively effective way
of managing the issue. Good enough, it
DANIEL BYMAN is a Professor at the Walsh turns out, is good enough.
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown
University and a Senior Fellow at the Center for ON THE RUN
Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
He is the author of Road Warriors: Foreign The severity of the threat posed by
Fighters in the Armies of Jihad. jihadi groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS
Daniel Byman
depends on where you are. Data from community. After 9/11, U.S. officials
the think tank New America indicate feared that the country was home to an
that 107 Americans have died in jihadi angry Muslim population riddled with
terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, al Qaeda sympathizers and sleeper agents.
almost half of whom were killed at the In 2003, Robert Mueller, the director of
Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the fbi, warned that the country’s
2016 by Omar Mateen, who declared “greatest threat is from al Qaeda cells in
allegiance to isis during his rampage. the United States that we have not yet
Europe, by contrast, has suffered far been able to identify.” This fear turned
more such violence. In one gruesome out to have no basis in fact. Compared
2015 evening in Paris alone, isis suicide with European Muslims, American
bombers and shooters killed 130 people Muslims are well integrated into society.
in a coordinated series of attacks. Indeed, their average educational and
Europe has also seen far more stabbings income levels are equivalent to or higher
and other low-casualty attacks, in part than those of non-Muslims. Although
because it has stricter gun laws. As isis’s some have attempted to travel abroad to
strength has waned, however, attacks on join isis, they have done so at far lower
both sides of the Atlantic have sub- rates than European Muslims. Most
sided. As of mid-July 2021, the United important, American Muslims have
States had not endured a jihadi attack cooperated closely with law enforcement
since December 2019, when a Saudi and the fbi, making it hard for cells and
student linked to al Qaeda in the radicalized individuals to organize and
Arabian Peninsula killed three sailors at plan operations.
a U.S. Navy base in Florida. Europe The jihadi movement also suffers
has suffered fewer casualties than from numerous weaknesses that ham-
during the peak years of 2015 and 2016. per its ability to carry out attacks. Even
These numbers pale in comparison at the height of al Qaeda’s power, for
to those of Africa, the Middle East, and instance, the movement the group
South Asia, where jihadi groups are far sought to lead had conflicting priori-
more active than they were before 9/11. ties: Should it fight foreign invaders,
Al Qaeda has a presence in, among topple supposedly apostate regimes in
other countries, Afghanistan, Algeria, the Middle East, or take the war to the
Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Libya, United States? These divisions are
Mali, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, more pronounced today. Different
Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yemen. Isis factions disagree on whether and when
is present in most of those countries, to declare an Islamic state, how to
plus Cameroon, Chad, Iraq, Mozam- handle nonbelievers and the insuffi-
bique, Nigeria, and Russia. Many of ciently pious, which enemy to target
these countries suffer from civil wars in first, and, of course, who should be the
which jihadi groups are among the overall leader of the movement. In Iraq,
active participants. Hundreds of thou- these disputes led some fellow jihadis
sands have died in these conflicts. to condemn al Qaeda, and in Syria,
One crucial factor keeping the United they led to a rift that gave rise to isis
States safe is the American Muslim and a jihadi civil war.
NOT-SO-SAFE HAVENS tions. Consider al-Nusra Front, once

The movement also lacks a sanctuary al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the most
akin to what it enjoyed on the eve of important war zone for the jihadi
9/11. More than 10,000 volunteers movement in the last decade. In 2016, it
traveled to Afghanistan when it was publicly distanced itself from al Qaeda.
under the Taliban’s rule to train in Al-Nusra’s leader, Abu Mohammad
camps run by al Qaeda and other al-Julani, declared that he and his
militant organizations. This safe haven organization rejected attacks on the
was a powerful unifying force that made United States and Europe. For al Qaeda,
al Qaeda more lethal. It allowed its this was a major military setback and
leaders to bring jihadi groups and an even larger reputational blow,
individuals together from across the threatening its status as the would-be
globe, train them to fight, indoctrinate leader of the broader jihadi movement.
them into a common agenda, and give Iran is another second-rate safe haven
those with special language skills or for al Qaeda. As the U.S. State Depart-
particular promise additional training. ment noted in its 2020 annual report on
Today, the movement tries to make terrorism, since 9/11, Tehran had “con-
do with multiple smaller safe havens, tinued to permit an [al Qaeda] facilita-
but none has proved as effective a tion network to operate in Iran, sending
launching pad as pre-9/11 Afghanistan money and fighters to conflict zones in
did. Al Qaeda, isis, their affiliates, and Afghanistan and Syria, and it still
other jihadi groups are present in war allowed [al Qaeda] members to reside in
zones around the Muslim world. In the country.” Because Iran has an
those wars, members of these organiza- effective air defense system and Wash-
tions learn to use weapons and forge ington wants to avoid a broader conflict
intense bonds with one another. But with Tehran, the United States does not
they engage primarily in civil war, not carry out drone strikes or other direct
international terrorism. As a result, they attacks against al Qaeda figures there,
do not receive the same training as giving them a degree of protection. But
previous generations of jihadis did—and the group still must worry about other
local leaders often assign the most counterterrorism operations in the
promising local recruits and foreign country. In 2020, Israeli assets—operat-
volunteers to important roles in local ing at the behest of the United States,
conflicts rather than give them interna- according to interviews of intelligence
tional terrorist assignments. The vast officials conducted by The New York
majority of the over 40,000 foreign Times—killed Abu Muhammad al-Masri,
fighters who joined isis during the a top al Qaeda official living in Iran.
Syrian civil war, for instance, fought to The Iranian government itself also
defend the caliphate in Iraq and Syria, places numerous restrictions on al Qaeda
not to project terror abroad. figures in the country. Al Qaeda
The United States and its allies, documents captured by U.S. forces
moreover, exert constant pressure on revealed that some members of the
most local affiliates—often to the point group moved to Iran after 9/11 only out
where they reject their mother organiza- of desperation, and the organization’s
Daniel Byman
relationship with the Iranian governments will not fully replace a direct
ment has been marked by hostility and U.S. presence in Afghanistan, but they
suspicion. For much of the post-9/11 could make it difficult for al Qaeda to
period, al Qaeda members in Iran have plot freely or run large-scale training
often been considered captives or at camps in the country. In short, although
least potential bargaining chips, not the United States’ departure is unques-
welcome guests. In addition, ties to tionably a victory for al Qaeda, it is not
Iran—a Shiite power that many reli- yet clear how big a win it will prove.
gious Sunnis loathe—are unpopular Beyond geographic safe havens,
among jihadis and discredit al Qaeda jihadis often use virtual sanctuaries.
when publicized. Isis, which is not Even these, however, are less secure
based in Iran and supports attacks on the than they once were. Al Qaeda ex-
Islamic Republic, has criticized al Qaeda ploited the Internet for many years after
for its links to the country. 9/11, using email, chatrooms, and
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghani- websites to communicate with follow-
stan could restore some of al Qaeda’s ers, publicize the movement, and direct
freedom of action in the country. As it operations. Isis put that approach on
did before 9/11, the Taliban might once steroids, using platforms such as Face-
again support or tolerate a large al Qaeda book, Twitter, and YouTube to recruit
leadership presence and give the widely and spread propaganda. When
group free rein to train, plot, and recruit isis reemerged during the Syrian civil
there. Alternatively, the Taliban may war, electrifying jihadi extremists
simply work with al Qaeda fighters worldwide with its beheading videos,
against their mutual enemies in Afghan- Twitter hashtag hijackings, and other
istan but discourage broader interna- social media successes, it seemed that
tional terrorist operations. For now, it technology was on the terrorists’ side.
remains unclear which Afghan Taliban Not so today: although jihadi groups
leaders support direct attacks against the remain active on mainstream platforms,
United States. Even before 9/11, several the companies that control them now
staunch Taliban supporters did not remove jihadi content and ban users
appear to approve of such operations, who promote it. Many governments, for
even if they did little to stop them. their part, now aggressively monitor
Moreover, the United States’ with- terrorist-linked accounts to identify
drawal from Afghanistan will not end followers and disrupt potential plots.
its ability to affect the situation on the For the would-be terrorist, social media
ground. Washington will retain diplo- has become a risky place to reside.
matic options, such as sanctions and
multilateral pressure, to influence the WHAT’S WORKED?
Taliban’s behavior. The United States is After years of grand designs with ambi-
also working on an array of basing and tious goals, the United States has settled
access arrangements that would allow on a set of policies designed to weaken
the U.S. military to strike targets in foreign jihadis while protecting the U.S.
Afghanistan and Pakistan after the with- homeland. Perhaps the most important
drawal of all U.S. troops. Such arrange- but least appreciated of these policies is
IS YOUR CAREER READY FOR WHAT
COMES NEXT?
X In 2022 (and beyond), you will face myriad X At The Fletcher School, our interdisciplinary
challenges uncontemplated at the start of analysis and training is being re-imagined
your career, whatever your professional path. for the post-pandemic, dislocated, and
increasingly complex world.
X From the implications of race and gender, to
the intensifying impacts of climate change, X Our integrated approach and commitment to
digital transformation, and the reframing international cooperation across government,
of security - whether by mass migration, business and civil society will equip you with
disease or cyber threats, you will be expected the knowledge, skills and networks deemed
to understand a growing range of issues and essential by employers as you lead the search
how they intersect. for solutions.
Make Fletcher a part of your future.
fletcher.tufts.edu/prospective-students
fletcheradmissions@tufts.edu
+1 617-627-3040
Daniel Byman
the U.S.-led global intelligence cam- the West. Washington and its allies
paign against terrorist groups. After 9/11, have also assassinated al Qaeda’s new
the United States developed or expanded leader in Yemen, Qasim al-Raymi; the
security partnerships with more than 100 leader of the group’s North African
countries. Local intelligence agencies branch, Abdelmalek Droukdel; and the
have the manpower, legal authority, leader of its unofficial affiliate in Syria,
language skills, and other vital resources who was known as Abu al-Qassam. The
to monitor, disrupt, and arrest suspected United States launched a similar cam-
terrorists. Jihadis now find themselves paign against isis, killing its self-
hunted when they try to establish cells, proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
recruit new members, raise money, or in 2019, among many other leaders.
otherwise prepare for attacks. The Such efforts, of course, do not end
discovery of a terrorist cell in one terrorism, and they often kill innocent
country, moreover, often leads to arrests people caught in the crossfire. They are,
in another if the jihadis try to communi- however, effective at keeping jihadi
cate, share funds, or otherwise work groups weak. Decapitation strikes create
together across borders. U.S. intelligence constant churn within organizations,
agencies, for their part, share relevant and many terrorist groups do not have a
information, push partners to act on it, deep bench of would-be leaders, making
and, when these partners do, gain new it difficult for them to replace experi-
information that continues the cycle. enced commanders.
Some governments, however, are too The constant fear of drone strikes
weak for such intelligence cooperation and raids also undermines terrorist
to function effectively. In such cases, the groups’ effectiveness—perhaps more
United States uses drone strikes and than the death of individual leaders.
airstrikes, along with raids by special Members cannot gather in significant
operations forces, to attack al Qaeda, numbers for fear of detection, making it
isis, and associated groups. Washington hard to sustain large training camps. If
usually conducts these operations with groups communicate, they risk being
the approval of local governments, as it tracked. Isolated and dispersed, terrorist
does in Pakistan, or by taking advantage groups then risk splintering into dispa-
of the lack of a functioning government, rate cells that are difficult to coordinate.
as it does in Somalia and Yemen. In Cells may go against the wishes of senior
addition to the al Qaeda leader Osama leadership and even compete with one
bin Laden, the United States and its another. Without the ability to commu-
allies have killed the al Qaeda in the nicate, leaders also lose their relevance.
Arabian Peninsula leader Nasir al- When the Arab Spring protests, the
Wuhayshi, the leading English-language most important event in the Arab
jihadi propagandists Anwar al-Awlaki world in a generation, began in late 2010,
and Adam Gadahn, and the South al Qaeda waited weeks before comment-
Asian al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri, as ing. In contrast, rival voices across the
well as important operational figures, Arab world offered their views constantly,
such as Rashid Rauf and Saleh al-Somali, particularly on social media. At the height
both of whom orchestrated attacks in of the Syrian civil war, Ayman al-Zawa-
hiri, bin Laden’s successor as the leader REIMAGINING 9/11

of al Qaeda, went incommunicado for To understand the cumulative effect of
long stretches of time—prompting the these counterterrorism measures, it is
al-Nusra Front leader Julani and other helpful to consider the problems al Qaeda
affiliated members to distance them- or another jihadi group would face if it
selves from the core organization. For its sought to carry out a spectacular terror-
part, isis has managed to remain more ist attack similar to 9/11. Al Qaeda
active, both on the battlefield and in its began planning that strike in late
propaganda efforts. But it, too, is dimin- 1998 or early 1999 from bases in Af-
ished. U.S. pressure has forced the ghanistan and Pakistan, where the group
group’s leaders into hiding, making it had deep networks and the support of
difficult for them to coordinate and local governments. After receiving
direct global operations. approval from bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh
A separate set of U.S. efforts to track Mohammed, an experienced senior
terrorists’ travel activities, share data- jihadi and the overall architect of the
bases of suspects, and tighten borders attack, started recruiting members in
has also made it harder for terrorists to 1999. Mohammed initially tried to draw
penetrate the United States. After 9/11, heavily on veteran fighters, but their
the fbi undertook a far-reaching cam- inexperience in the West made them
paign to identify, disrupt, and arrest poor candidates to lead the operation.
potential terrorists on U.S. soil—a Al Qaeda leaders instead identified
campaign that continues unabated to Mohammed Atta, who had lived in
this day. Many terrorist plots would Germany for several years, as an ideal
have come to nothing regardless, but cell leader. Commanders noticed Atta’s
some might have reached fruition if not English fluency, religious fervor, and
for government intervention. Alert comfort operating in the West when he
citizens and law enforcement officers traveled to Afghanistan in 1999.
have caught other potential terrorists. The hijackers prepared for the
The police foiled a plot to bomb mili- operation in Afghanistan, where some
tary installations at Fort Dix in 2007, learned to hijack planes and disarm air
for example, when the jihadis went to a marshals. A group of the planners held
Circuit City store to transfer from a a meeting in Malaysia in January 2000,
vhs tape to a dvd videos of themselves where U.S. intelligence picked up
shooting weapons and shouting “Allahu fragments of their trail, but not enough
akbar.” The employee making the to detect the plot. The hijackers them-
transfer contacted law enforcement. selves began entering the United States
Travel is also far harder for would-be that same year, although some first
jihadis than it was in decades past. traveled to Germany. In California, two
Unlike in the 1990s, potential terrorists members with weaker English-language
cannot travel to a sanctuary such as skills probably received some support
Afghanistan for training without a high from the local Muslim community via
risk of detection and arrest. As a result, area mosques. Others prepared by
many Western jihadis are untrained, taking flight lessons and going on
making them far less dangerous. practice runs—traveling first class
Daniel Byman
cross-country on the type of aircraft home countries and in transit. If they

they would later hijack. In the summer eventually made it to a war zone or other
of 2001, Atta traveled to Spain to meet haven, they would also find it far harder
with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the to gather safely or communicate without
attack’s coordinators. There, Atta being detected by local or foreign intel-
received further instructions and ligence agencies. Authorities in the
finalized plans for the attack. Money for United States or elsewhere could capture
expenses flowed through accounts in the senior figures who might give up impor-
United Arab Emirates. Throughout this tant operational details. And leaders such
planning process, al Qaeda enjoyed a as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed might be
crucial advantage in Europe and the killed by a drone strike. Governments
United States: official neglect. Intelli- might detect meetings in other countries
gence and law enforcement services in or funding flows through foreign banks—
both places were focused on other revealing not just the plot but also the
priorities, allowing the jihadis consider- identities of many other group members.
able freedom of movement. If terrorists tried to recruit, raise money,
On September 11, 2001, the opera- or conduct operations via social media,
tion proceeded like clockwork—aided the platforms’ moderators might ban
by an airport security system unaware them from the sites or report them to
that such an attack was possible. The the fbi. Their social media followers
hijackers boarded four planes without might, in turn, come under suspicion.
arousing suspicion. Although authori- The visa applications of would-be flight
ties selected some of the hijackers for students from the Middle East now
extra scrutiny, that simply meant that receive far more scrutiny. If plotters
their bags received a slightly more managed to make it to the United
thorough screening. They likely carried States, a wary public and a cooperative
utility knives or pocketknives permis- Muslim community would be more likely
sible under the guidelines of the time, to report suspicious activity. Al Qaeda
and several reports indicate that the could not tell its operatives to seek
hijackers also had Mace and box cutters, support from locals without the risk of
which the screeners may not have detection. Even if terrorists managed to
detected. After takeoff, the attackers overcome all these obstacles, carrying
forced their way into the planes’ cock- out an actual attack would still be far
pits and successfully turned three of the harder: civil aviation and other sensitive
four airliners into massive suicide targets are much better guarded than
bombs, killing almost 3,000 people. they were before 9/11.
Every step of the way, a plot on the No single measure by itself can make
scale of 9/11 would be far harder to carry a repeat of a 9/11-scale plot impossible.
out today. With no sanctuary on a par But the cumulative effect of these
with pre-2001 Afghanistan, volunteers policies and changes has made a sophis-
have few training opportunities—and ticated and high-impact scheme much
even fewer chances to plot direct attacks less likely to succeed. It is not an
against the United States. Indeed, accident that most attacks in the United
would-be terrorists risk arrest in their States and even Europe in the last
decade have been so-called lone-wolf States is for Muslims. As a result,

incidents—inspired, rather than di- anti-American groups continue to find
rected, by groups such as al Qaeda and it easy to recruit followers, and the
isis. These kinds of attacks are usually incentive for targeting the United
less deadly, but they are harder to stop. States remains high.
Jihadi-linked insurgencies are also far
WHAT’S FAILED? more prevalent now than they were
With the risk of 9/11-scale violence before 9/11. This is partly because of the
significantly reduced, it is tempting to collapse of governments throughout
declare victory and return to the pre- Africa and the Middle East and partly
2001 level of vigilance. This would be a because of the weakness of many
mistake. The United States has failed in surviving regimes. It takes only a small
many of its more ambitious attempts to band of fighters to establish an insur-
fight jihadi groups, suggesting that gency in a weak state such as Mozam-
terrorism will remain a threat for years bique and even fewer in a failed state
to come. Although the danger these such as Yemen. The jihadi cause, more-
groups pose will remain manageable, over, offers local fighters a compelling
preventing attacks will still require brand, enabling them to sell their
ongoing counterterrorism efforts. movements to the community as pro-
The need for continued vigilance viders of law and order and defenders
stems in part from Washington’s failure of the faith. With jihadi bona fides, they
to win over the Muslim world. After can also tap into transnational networks,
9/11, U.S. leaders sought to cultivate gain support from like-minded fighters
goodwill among Muslims through in neighboring states, and, at times,
advertising campaigns; new broadcast- acquire resources such as money, weap-
ing entities, such as the Arabic-language ons, and access to propaganda.
station Radio Sawa and the television In the past, the United States turned
channel Al Hurra; and, eventually, to counterinsurgency to combat these
social media initiatives. But polling data groups—deploying tens of thousands of
suggest that these efforts have had little its own forces to fight the Taliban in
impact. Public opinion of the United Afghanistan and various Sunni jihadi
States in the Arab world is still largely groups in Iraq. With public support for
negative, although it has varied some- such efforts declining, however, and
what over the years. In 2015, over 80 jihadi groups spreading to more coun-
percent of poll respondents in Jordan— tries, the U.S. military and intelligence
a close U.S. ally—had an unfavorable agencies now often resort to training
opinion of the United States. This is and equipping local forces that can act
damning, but it should not come as a as the tip of the counterterrorism spear.
surprise. Unpopular U.S. policies, such Such U.S. proxies have battled al Shabab
as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which in Somalia, an isis offshoot in Libya,
many throughout the Muslim world and al Qaeda–linked Abu Sayyaf in the
opposed, and U.S. support for Israel, Philippines, among other groups.
have overshadowed fine-tuned messages In a few places, the United States has
about how wonderful life in the United managed to make headway against
Daniel Byman
jihadis by partnering with local govern- about terrorism remains high and has
ment forces. In many others, however, even grown in recent years. Political
the defeat of one jihadi group has simply leaders continue to use this fear as a
made room for the emergence of an- cudgel, criticizing one another when
other. After 9/11, U.S. forces helped the attacks occur and using these rare
government of the Philippines rout Abu incidents to advance particular agendas
Sayyaf; today, the Philippines is fighting on issues such as immigration. When
an isis-linked organization. Elsewhere, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an opera-
even that limited level of success is tive for al Qaeda in the Arabian Penin-
elusive. The enormous amount of sula, almost blew up a plane over
money, time, and equipment the United Detroit in 2009, Republicans blasted
States poured into helping anti-isis Obama for this near failure. As a
fighters in Syria and the governments of candidate and in office, Trump used the
Afghanistan and Iraq appears to have asylum status of the 2013 Boston
achieved, at best, only modest results. Marathon bombers to bolster his calls
Training successes are limited to some for a border wall, among other anti-
small elite units such as Iraq’s Counter- immigrant measures.
terrorism Service. Efforts to stand up As a result, the U.S. legal system and
large armies have largely failed. public discourse often single out Ameri-
U.S. attempts to improve the quality can Muslims as a potential threat. Many
of governance in states with jihadi Americans now associate Islam with
terrorist problems have an equally violence, even though very few Ameri-
mixed legacy. Some countries, such as can Muslims have been involved in
Yemen, have slipped into civil war, terrorist activities, and even though the
while corruption, poor economic larger American Muslim community
growth, and undemocratic political has proved willing to work with U.S.
systems plague many others, such as law enforcement. In 2020, Muslims
Egypt and Pakistan. Where progress reported the highest level of discrimina-
toward democratization has occurred, tion of any religious group in the
such as in Indonesia and Tunisia, it was United States. Many American Mus-
the work of indigenous movements and lims worry that the police do not treat
leaders, not U.S.-led efforts. them equally. This state of affairs is
Counterterrorism policies within the both unjust and counterproductive. If
United States suffer from a different set community members fear law enforce-
of problems. Politicians should level ment, they may not seek out the author-
with the American people about the real ities if a problem arises.
risk of terrorism—which is low com-
pared with many other dangers—as a LEARNING TO LIVE WITH SUCCESS
way of inoculating the public against Twenty years after 9/11, U.S. policy is
the psychological effect of small attacks. stuck—but not necessarily in a bad way.
Despite 20 years of limited terrorist The mix of intelligence cooperation,
violence in the United States, however, military pressure on groups in their
polls show that the number of Ameri- havens, and better homeland security
cans “very” or “somewhat” concerned has largely insulated the United States
from terrorist violence. Still, Washing- ers, including police officials, should
ton has failed to permanently solve the reach out to their Muslim communities
problem. Today, the United States is to show support and guard against any
still bombing and raiding the ideologi- retaliatory violence. Unfortunately, the
cal descendants of the original 9/11 last 20 years have shown that politicians
planners. There is no end in sight, and will reliably exploit fear, even when the
groups such as al Qaeda remain com- actual threat is limited. Such behavior
mitted to attacking the United States. only helps terrorist groups as they strive
Even so, constant pressure keeps these to stay relevant.
organizations weak, and as a result, they Israeli officials have a useful phrase
will conduct fewer and less lethal to describe their own good-enough
attacks. Jihadi terrorism will not go counterterrorism strategy: “mowing the
away, but its biggest impact is felt grass.” The idea is that by conducting
mainly in parts of the world where U.S. regular raids against terrorists and
interests are limited. Washington must continually gathering intelligence, the
therefore think hard about where to government can keep terrorist groups
deploy its counterterrorism resources. such as Hamas weak, even if those
Although violence in Chad or Yemen is groups’ attacks will always continue.
catastrophic for those countries, its The goal is to manage, rather than
impact on U.S. security is small. Efforts eliminate, the terrorist threat, and this
to promote democracy or improve frees the government to focus on other
governance may be valuable for other concerns. Having found a similarly
reasons, but they are unnecessary for imperfect but largely effective solution
heading off potential terrorist threats. to the problem of jihadi violence,
In some cases, such efforts may actually Washington should do just that, priori-
make the situation worse. tizing China, Russia, climate change,
The United States also needs to do and other pressing issues. With its
more to manage the domestic politics of post-9/11 counterterrorism toolkit, the
counterterrorism. Public fear keeps United States can keep terrorist groups
support for robust defense programs in remote countries weaker and off
strong, but it also makes it easier for balance while accepting that at least
terrorists to gain attention and sow some threat will always remain.∂
panic. Politicians must therefore tread
cautiously in the aftermath of terrorist
attacks and condemn extreme reactions
of all kinds. When (not if) the next
attack occurs, it will be vital for the
president and other leaders to react
responsibly. They must not only stress
the need to help the victims and punish
the killers but also explain that such
events are rare and that the American
Muslim community is part of the
solution, not the problem. Local lead-
attacks, in Europe or North America.

Even the most notorious of the separa-

tist movements and far-right militias
that have originated in Western coun-
The War on Terror tries, and whose rhetoric can seem
Supercharged State Power menacing, are comparatively small-scale
operations; they survive because they
Thomas Hegghammer kill relatively few people and never
manage to attract the authorities’ full
W
“ hat,” I sometimes ask stu- attention. The last high-impact terrorist
dents in a class I teach on organizations based in the West—the
the history of terrorism, Basque separatists of ETA in France and
“was the name of the Islamic State’s Spain and the loyalist and republican
branch in Europe?” It is a trick ques- paramilitaries in Northern Ireland—ef-
tion: the Islamic State (also known as fectively collapsed in the 1990s under
ISIS) never set up a full-fledged Euro- the weight of state countermeasures.
pean branch. The group’s self-proclaimed In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it
caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, knew seemed that was all going to change.
better than to try. By 2014, when ISIS And of course, the past two decades
formalized its split from al Qaeda and have witnessed some horrific attacks on
established itself as the dominant Western soft targets: the bombing of a
player in the global Salafi-jihadi move- train station in Madrid in 2004, the
ment, Western security services had attack on a concert venue in Paris in
figured out how to make it effectively 2015, the assault on a nightclub in
impossible for the group to establish a Orlando, Florida, in 2016, among
base of operations in Europe or North others. But such crimes were not the
America. Like al Qaeda before it, ISIS work of locally based organizations, and
was only ever present in the West in the none of the perpetrators was able to
form of disparate cells and sympathiz- strike more than once. Although for a
ers. A traditional terrorist organiza- time such swarms of weakly connected
tion—with a functioning bureaucracy, attackers periodically outmaneuvered
regular meeting places, and in-house Western security and intelligence
propaganda production—would, Bagh- services, the latter have adapted and,
dadi and his henchmen understood, quite definitively, prevailed.
have had as little chance of surviving in Spectacular though the 9/11 attacks
a contemporary Western country as the were, they did not, as many feared,
proverbial snowball in hell. indicate that large and powerful terror-
In fact, it has been decades since it ist organizations had laid down roots in
was possible to run a major terrorist the West and threatened the founda-
organization, capable of mounting a tions of its social order. Meanwhile, the
sustained campaign of large-scale persistent fear of that outcome—which
was never likely—has blinded many to
THOMAS HEGGHAMMER is a Senior
Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defence an opposing trend: the steadily growing
Research Establishment (FFI). coercive power of the technocratic state.
Thomas Hegghammer
With artificial intelligence already subway carried out by the extremist cult
entrenching this advantage, the threat Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, scholars such as
of a major armed rebellion, in devel- Walter Laqueur had begun speaking of
oped countries at least, is becoming “the new terrorism,” a form of political
virtually nonexistent. violence characterized by religious zeal,
decentralized organization, and a
THREAT LEVEL: SEVERE willingness to maximize casualties. The
At the dawn of this century, the outlook 9/11 attacks helped popularize such
was quite different. The 9/11 attacks ideas, as well as the notion that Western
were widely believed to portend the rise societies were particularly vulnerable to
of ultra-lethal nonstate actors who, the new threat.
many were convinced, had well- Militant Islamism did indeed grow
equipped sleeper cells in scores of in the 1990s, and al Qaeda raised the
Western cities, with militants who bar considerably in terms of demon-
blended into communities unnoticed strating how much damage nonstate
while awaiting orders to strike. During actors could inflict on a powerful
the weeks and months immediately country. At the time, national security
after 9/11, the evidence that these cells services in most Western countries were
existed seemed to be everywhere: in smaller than they are today, and because
late September and early October 2001, those services understood less about the
a series of anthrax-laced letters were actors they were up against, worst-case
mailed to U.S. Senate offices and news scenarios were less easily debunked.
outlets, and on December 22, 2001, a Still, it is clear in retrospect that the
British convert to Islam on a flight to horrors of 9/11 frightened many into
Miami was subdued by fellow passen- excessive pessimism.
gers after trying to ignite his shoes, The bigger analytic mistake, how-
which were packed with plastic explo- ever, was not to overestimate the enemy
sives. A steady stream of media reports but to underestimate the ability of rich,
suggested that jihadis had access to developed states to adapt and muster
weapons of mass destruction. In late resources against the new threats. In the
2002, policymakers were jolted by wake of the 9/11 attacks, commentators
intelligence reports warning that al Qaeda often portrayed the governments of
planned to use a two-chambered device such states as lethargic bureaucracies
called “the mubtakkar” (from the outwitted by light-footed rebels. As the
Arabic word for “invention”) to release years went on, however, what emerged
cyanide gas on New York City subways. instead were dynamic technocracies
Nobody was safe anymore, news an- blessed with deep pockets and highly
chors insinuated, pointing to the official trained investigators and operatives. For
U.S. threat barometer, which periodi- every $1 in isis’s coffers, there are at
cally blinked red for “severe.” least $10,000 in the U.S. central bank.
The prevailing anxiety was reflected, For every al Qaeda bomb-maker, there
in a somewhat muted form, in academic are a thousand mit-trained engineers.
and strategic thinking. Following the Western governments have also proved
deadly sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo to be less scrupulous about preserving
civil rights than many expected in the terrorist campaigns therefore follow an
early years of the war on terrorism. When activity curve that starts high and then
faced with security threats on their own gradually decreases, sometimes with a
soil, most Western states bent or broke bump at the end as the militants make a
their own rules and neglected to live up to desperate last attempt to turn the tide.
their self-professed liberal ideals. Terrorist campaigns are also shaped
One of the most widespread cogni- by communications technologies. New
tive biases in strategic analysis is to view encryption techniques, for example, can
one’s opponent’s behavior as governed help terrorists evade detection, and new
by exogenous factors, such as a cunning social media platforms can help them
strategy or material resources. But distribute propaganda and recruit new
terrorism is a strategic game between members. But terrorist groups usually
states and nonstate actors, and what have only a brief window to enjoy the
rebels are able to do depends heavily on fruits of each new technology before
a state’s countermeasures. In short, it states develop countermeasures such as
did not matter that the new terrorists decryption or surveillance. For exam-
were good, because the people chasing ple, in 2003, al Qaeda operatives in
them were even better. Saudi Arabia used mobile phones to
To understand why, one must con- great effect, but within a year, govern-
sider the fundamentals of the contest. ment surveillance had made the same
Terrorist groups in Western states—or devices a liability.
in any peaceful, relatively stable country,
for that matter—are usually tiny factions THE FIRST WAR ON TERROR
that control no territory. Dwarfed by the Broadly speaking, Western states have
combined forces of the state, they enjoy conducted two so-called wars on terror:
one key advantage: anonymity. They can one against al Qaeda in the first decade
operate as long as law enforcement does of this century and another against isis
not know who they are or where they are in the 2010s. In each case, a new organi-
based. Counterterrorism is therefore zation grew, largely unnoticed, in a
fundamentally about information: conflict zone, before surprising the
security services work to identify and international community with a transna-
locate suspects, while the latter try to tional offensive, only to be beaten back
stay hidden. A campaign of terrorism is through a messy counterterrorism effort.
a race against time, in which the terror- In each case, the militants initially
ists are betting that they can draw new benefited from having operatives and
recruits or defeat the state faster than sympathizers unknown to Western
the police can hunt them down. governments but lost that advantage as
Through investigation, intelligence the latter mapped their networks.
analysis, and research, the state’s Similarly, technological innovations
knowledge about the terrorists gradu- benefited the terrorists to begin with but
ally increases. Unless they can attract became a vulnerability as time wore on.
new recruits fast enough to render such Al Qaeda began as a small group of
knowledge constantly out of date, the Arab veterans of the 1980s Afghan jihad
terrorists will lose the race. Most who, in the mid-1990s, decided to wage
Thomas Hegghammer
asymmetric war against the United U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

States to end what they saw as Western Between 2001 and 2006, cells trained or
imperialism in the Muslim world. The inspired by al Qaeda carried out mul-
group grew strong in the late 1990s tiple attacks in Europe, most famously
owing in part to access to territory in the Madrid attacks of 2004 and the
Afghanistan, where it trained fighters London transit bombings in 2005.
and planned attacks in relative peace. There were also dozens of foiled plots,
Hundreds of volunteers from the such as a 2006 plot in which a cell based
Muslim world, Europe, and North in the United Kingdom planned to blow
America attended these camps between up several commercial airplanes by
1996 and 2001. Western governments bringing bomb ingredients onboard in
paid little attention to them because small containers and assembling the
they were not deemed a major threat to bombs after takeoff. (This plot is the
the U.S. or European homelands. On reason passengers are not allowed to
9/11, the group benefited from the bring water bottles through airport
element of surprise and from the security even today.)
relative anonymity of its operatives. But the capabilities of Western
Al Qaeda’s momentum lasted for intelligence services were also growing.
another half decade as Western states Across western Europe and North
scrambled to map the group’s networks. America, the number of analysts working
The Guantánamo Bay facility, which was on jihadism skyrocketed in the aftermath
set up in early 2002 to hold significant of 9/11. These state security services
al Qaeda figures but ended up holding designed new systems for collecting
mostly low-level ones (and some people signals intelligence and exchanged more
who had no connection to the group at information with one another. Many
all), stands as a monument to that early countries passed laws that effectively
information problem. In 2002, U.S. lowered the bar for investigating and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld prosecuting suspects, often by expanding
referred to detainees at Guantánamo as the definition of terrorist activity to
“the worst of the worst.” In reality, the include providing logistical support to
United States had little idea what role, if terrorist groups. Hard drives began
any, these detainees had played in al filling up with data, printers churned out
Qaeda, since authorities in Washington network graphs, and investigators studied
knew relatively little about the group’s the finer points of Islamist ideology.
operations or personnel. The tide finally turned around 2007.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda itself was By then, the networks that al Qaeda had
growing and transforming from an developed in Europe prior to 9/11 had all
organization into an ideological move- been rounded up, and the authorities had
ment. It drew thousands of new sympa- found ways to detain a number of
thizers worldwide, partly from the extremist clerics based in Western
publicity generated by the 9/11 attacks, countries. The number of jihadi plots in
partly from the growth in online jihadi Europe decreased, as did the amount of
propaganda, and partly from the out- al Qaeda propaganda online. On jihadi
rage among Muslims generated by the online discussion forums, where users
had previously felt safe enough to share al Qaeda branch were it not for two
phone numbers, the fear of infiltration unexpected developments.
and surveillance became palpable. Al The first was the eruption of civil war
Qaeda branches in the Middle East were in Syria 2011, which provided the
also losing steam, notably in Iraq and Islamic State of Iraq with a safe haven in
Saudi Arabia. The United States experi- which to expand. The group initially
enced a brief upsurge in attacks in 2009 operated in Syria under a different
and 2010—linked in part to the influence name, but things went so well there that
of the Yemeni American Salafi-jihadi in 2013 it began breaking away from
preacher Anwar al-Awlaki—but it was al Qaeda and presenting itself as an
not enough to change the overall picture. independent, Iraqi-Syrian group named
By 2011, the mood in Western counter- the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or
terrorism circles had become cautiously isis. In mid-2014, it burst onto the world
optimistic. The wave of popular upris- stage by capturing the western third of
ings in the Arab world that began in late Iraq and casting itself as a caliphate to
2010, and came to be known as the Arab which all the world’s Muslims must
Spring, promised to end the authoritari- pledge allegiance. Meanwhile, in the
anism many considered to be the root preceding years, the horrors of the Syrian
cause of jihadism. When U.S. Navy war had captured the attention of Sunni
seals killed Osama bin Laden in Abbot- Muslims worldwide and led thousands of
tabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, it was the more religious and adventurous
possible to entertain the notion that the among them to go to Syria as volunteers
war on terrorism was coming to an end. for the rebel side. Syria emerged as the
In a sense, that was both true and global epicenter of militant Islamism, and
false. In retrospect, 2011 did mark the isis, being the most visible of the Syria-
end of al Qaeda’s war on the West. The based groups, attracted the lion’s share of
group lives on as a set of regional the foreign fighters.
militias with local agendas in places The second development was the
such as Somalia, but it has not success- social media revolution. Around 2010,
fully conducted a serious attack on the platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and
West for almost a decade. Meanwhile, YouTube went mainstream and changed
another organization has taken up the the online media landscape in ways that
mantle with arguably greater success. greatly empowered radical ideological
actors. For one, propaganda now spread
JIHAD AND SOCIAL MEDIA further. Until this time, jihadis had been
Isis was a child of the U.S.-led invasion confined to shadowy websites that
of Iraq in 2003. In the broad Sunni people visited only if they were already
insurgency that followed, a highly at least partly radicalized. The new
active al Qaeda affiliate emerged, one platforms, by contrast, had millions of
that would take the name the Islamic users, and their algorithms could push a
State of Iraq in 2006. In the ensuing jihadi video onto the timeline of some-
years, U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency one who was not searching for it.
efforts weakened the group, and it likely Paradoxically, jihadis were also safer
would have remained a midsize regional on the new platforms than on the old
Thomas Hegghammer
websites, because the National Security enjoyed a key advantage: member and
Agency could not hack Facebook the sympathizer networks poorly known to
way it could easily penetrate an obscure Western intelligence services. The
jihadi website housed in, say, Malaysia. group had cast itself as a more youthful
Moreover, social media offered better and dynamic alternative to al Qaeda
integration with smartphones, allowing and had attracted a new generation of
militants to view and upload propa- European radicals. Its propaganda
ganda from any location. Radicals spread so fast that state security ser-
seized the opportunity. The first half of vices could not keep track of all its new
the 2010s saw a colossal increase in sympathizers.
jihadi propaganda, as isis produced This translated into one of the most
material on a scale and with a level of serious waves of terrorist violence in
sophistication previously unseen in the Europe’s modern history. In three years,
history of nonstate armed groups. from 2015 to 2017, jihadis in Europe killed
Finally, the new online ecosystem nearly 350 people, more than the number
offered rich opportunities for secret killed in jihadi attacks in Europe during
communication. Encrypted messaging the preceding 20 years and more than the
apps proliferated, and jihadi communi- total number of people killed by right-
cations spread over a wide range of wing extremists in Europe between 1990
platforms. It was a signals intelligence and 2020. Isis’s offensive also featured the
nightmare. Militants began using first European terrorist cell able to strike
messaging apps extensively for bilateral hard twice: the group that carried out the
and small-group communication, attacks in Paris in November 2015 and
seemingly uninhibited by the surveil- Brussels the following April. Its success
lance fears of the past. An important suggested the extent to which the intel-
factor behind the rapid increase in ligence community was back on its heels.
foreign fighters in Syria in 2013–14 was But the violence triggered a state
the ability of early recruits to message counteroffensive that was equally
their friends back home and persuade unprecedented. “We are at war,” French
them to follow suit. President François Hollande declared
Western states did little to stem after the 2015 Paris attack, before
these developments for a simple reason: announcing an official state of emer-
isis had not yet launched attacks gency. The pattern from the immediate
outside the Middle East. It was only in post-9/11 era repeated itself: expanded
the autumn of 2014, after an interna- intelligence budgets, more aggressive
tional military coalition formed to surveillance, and new laws lowering the
combat isis, that the group set its bar for police intervention in cases
operational sights on Western cities. In related to jihadism. Europe found itself
September of that year, it called on taking measures so strict they would
followers worldwide to kill Westerners have been politically impossible just a
by any means and began training attack few years earlier: closing mosques,
teams for high-profile operations in deporting preachers, stripping people of
Europe. Isis was now at the peak of its their citizenship. Some European
power, and like al Qaeda in 2001, it countries sent special forces to Iraq to
hunt down citizens who had joined isis. economy dominated by credit card
Beginning in 2016, governments and transactions, your ability to get things
social media giants also began an done without leaving a trace will be
unprecedented effort to remove the limited. Venture into a city, and you will
group’s propaganda from the Internet. be caught on surveillance cameras,
Censorship, previously considered perhaps ones armed with facial recogni-
politically unpalatable or technically tion software. And how will you know
impossible, was now being implemented whom to trust, when any of your new
with the full force of Silicon Valley’s recruits might be a police infiltrator?
artifical intelligence machinery. What will you do when some of your
Once again, the state won. By 2018, best people—including ones who know
the number of jihadi plots and attacks in your organization’s secrets—are arrested?
Europe had been cut in half compared to The reason information technology
2016, and the flow of foreign fighters had empowers the state over time is that
dried up entirely. What is more remark- rebellion is a battle for information, and
able, every jihadi assault in Europe since states can exploit new technology on a
2017 has been carried out by a lone scale that small groups cannot. The
individual, suggesting that it has become computer allowed states to accumulate
very difficult to plan group attacks. more information about their citizens,
Similarly, no terrorist strike since 2017 has and the Internet enabled faster sharing
involved explosives: instead, the attackers of that information across institutions
have used simpler weapons, such as guns, and countries. Gadgets such as the credit
knives, and vehicles. There have been card terminal and the smartphone
some complex and ambitious plots, but allowed authorities to peer deeper and
they all have been foiled by the police. deeper into people’s lives. I sometimes
This is not to dismiss the current threat, serve as an expert witness in terrorism
which remains serious. But isis’s offensive trials and get to see what the police have
of the mid-2010s was firmly rolled back. collected on suspects. What I have
learned is that once the surveillance state
THE DIGITAL PANOPTICON targets someone, that person no longer
It may not be obvious to the ordinary retains even a sliver of genuine privacy.
citizen just how powerful modern
intelligence services have become. SURVEILLANCE NORMALIZED
Imagine that you wanted, for whatever Given the overwhelming advantages that
reason, to start a violent rebellion in a wealthy developed countries enjoy, it is
Western country. You want to launch an remarkable that jihadi terrorism has
organization, and not just carry out a managed to persist in such places even at
one-off attack. How would you go about low levels. One reason is that states’
it? All your Internet searches, emails, capabilities diminish past their borders,
and cell phone calls are in principle and jihadism is an unusually transna-
accessible to the state. You can start tional movement. For decades, jihadis in
taking precautions now, but your digital the West have been able to travel to
history and those of your collaborators conflict zones in the Muslim world for
are still available for profiling. In an training, thereby enjoying a kind of
Thomas Hegghammer
strategic depth that other radicals in the New technologies may provide digital
West, such as those of the far right, do stealth for nonstate actors, but the
not have. Another reason is that jihadi effect will likely be temporary. Mean-
ideology fosters a culture of self-sacrifice. while, the rise of artificial intelligence
Anyone contemplating terrorism in the may speed up states’ march toward
West knows that he will not be present to technological dominance. Until now,
enjoy the hypothetical political fruits of states have not been able to exploit all
his efforts, because he will either die or the data that are available to them.
get captured in the process. Still, with Machine learning may change that.
the promise of rewards in the hereafter, These technological developments
the jihadi movement has been able to will probably also make political vio-
produce hundreds of volunteers for such lence more unevenly distributed around
one-off attacks, allowing it to swarm the the world. Well-resourced states will be
enemy with disposable operatives. The able to buy their way to order, whereas
rate of production of such volunteers is weaker states will not. Things are
so much higher among jihadis than in already very uneven, with the Muslim
other rebel movements that ideology world having suffered vastly more than
must be part of the explanation. Finally, the West during the war on terrorism.
the high number of armed conflicts in The future stability divide may cut
the Muslim world has fed grievances and through the global South, as well-
offered operational space for jihadi resourced autocracies leverage the
groups to grow. The role of the U.S. power of surveillance technology.
invasion of Iraq and the Syrian civil war, The rise of states immune to rebel-
in particular, cannot be overestimated. lion is not a good thing. It is naive to
For all these reasons, a third wave of think that states’ new powers will be
Islamist terrorism in the West is con- used only against people plotting bomb
ceivable, but it is nonetheless unlikely. attacks. Such powers can—and do—
Would-be terrorists face a far tougher creep into the policing of less lethal
operating environment than did al Qaeda forms of political activism. In autocra-
and isis at their height. And the cies, the same tools are being deployed
opportunity for state security services to in an unfettered way to silence peaceful
hone their skills on jihadis will also make regime opponents. They allow countries
it harder for other radical movements— such as China and Saudi Arabia to iden-
ones with less access to conflict zones tify activists and nip mobilizations in
and less of a culture of self-sacrifice—to the bud in a way that was not possible a
mount major campaigns in the future. couple of decades ago.
Developed countries will also be- The rich nations of Europe and
come ever more digital, and it will North America are liberal democracies,
become harder and harder to conceal but their governments are also fero-
one’s identity and go off the grid. The ciously efficient repression machines.
rebels of the future will have lived their The surveillance tools at their disposal
entire lives on the Internet, leaving have never been more powerful. So
digital traces along the way, and that those countries should choose their
information will be accessible to states. leaders wisely.∂
Study
International
Policy at the
Birthplace of
Public Higher
Education in
America
UGA’s Master of
International Policy
Program Offers
n Advanced training in human
security, energy security and
WMD nonproliferation
n Instruction by leading
international relations and
security experts
n Experiential opportunities, small

class sizes, and vibrant
campus life
n Network of engaged alumni in

D.C. and around the world
Center for International
Trade & Security
mip.uga.edu
of the extremist ideas that drive it. In the

From 9/11 to 1/6
United States in 2019, 48 people were

killed in attacks carried out by domestic
violent extremists, 39 of which were
The War on Terror carried out white supremacists, making it
Supercharged the Far Right the most lethal year for such terrorism in
the country since 1995. In 2020, the
Cynthia Miller-Idriss number of domestic terrorist plots and
attacks in the United States reached its
R
adical ideas that are today consid- highest level since 1994; two-thirds of
ered right-wing—white suprema- those were attributable to white suprem-
cism, violent antigovernment acists and other far-right extremists. In
libertarianism, Christian extremism— March of this year, the FBI had more
have played starring roles in the Ameri- than 2,000 open investigations into
can story since the very beginning. For domestic violent extremism, roughly
most of the postwar era, however, the far double the number it had open in the
right has mostly stayed underground, summer of 2017. Also in 2020, authorities
relegated to the fringes of American nationwide arrested nearly three times as
society. It never disappeared, of course, many white supremacists as they did in
and in the early 1990s, it seemed poised 2017. And last year, reports to the Anti-
for a resurgence after a series of confron- Defamation League of white supremacist
tations that pitted the authorities against propaganda—in the form of fliers,
antigovernment militias and religious posters, banners, and stickers posted in
extremists—a phase that peaked with the locations such as parks or college cam-
1995 terrorist bombing of a federal puses—hit an all-time high of more than
building in Oklahoma City by a white 5,000, nearly twice the number reported
supremacist, antigovernment extremist, in the previous year. This trend is not
which killed 168 people. limited to the United States. Although
By the dawn of the new millennium, jihadis still pose the biggest terrorism
however, those events seemed to be in threat in Europe, the growth of far-right
the rearview. In the years following the violence is increasing. The top British
Oklahoma City attack, a feared wave of counterterrorism official, Neil Basu,
right-wing violence did not materialize. recently described right-wing extremism
If anything, the bloodshed seemed to as the United Kingdom’s “fastest growing
further marginalize the far right. threat,” and in Germany, violent crimes
Fast-forward two decades, and the motivated by right-wing extremism rose
picture looks very different. The past few by ten percent from 2019 to 2020.
years have witnessed an explosion of Amid this increase in violence,
far-right violence and the normalization extreme right-wing ideas were becoming
mainstream and were normalized, with
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS is Director of the far-right political parties gaining repre-
Polarization and Extremism Research and sentation in more than three dozen
Innovation Lab at American University and the
author of Hate in the Homeland: The New Global national parliaments and in the Euro-
Far Right. pean Parliament. In the United States,
Donald Trump’s electoral success was to have stepped out of a far-right fever
both a cause and an effect of this trend. dream. Almost overnight, the United
His 2016 presidential campaign and his States and European countries abounded
tenure in the White House were steeped with precisely the fears that the far right
in populist, nationalist, nativist rhetoric, had been trying to stoke for decades.
which the far right perceived as a legiti- But it wasn’t just the terrorists who
mation of their views. By the time the gave right-wing extremists a boost: so,
“Stop the Steal” campaign sought to too, did the U.S.-led war on terrorism,
overturn the legitimate results of the which involved the near-complete
2020 U.S. presidential election (with pivoting of intelligence, security, and
Trump’s explicit encouragement), law enforcement attention to the
extremist ideas had taken center stage in Islamist threat, leaving far-right ex-
American politics. The increase in tremism to grow unfettered.
far-right violence and the normalization In recent years, right-wing radicals in
of right-wing extremism together the United States and Europe have
culminated in the January 6 attack on the made clear that they are willing and able
U.S. Capitol: a brutal assault fueled by to embrace the tactics of terrorism; they
far-right ideas that had gone mainstream. have become, in some ways, a mirror
The growth of the extreme right has image of the jihadis whom they despise.
been driven by many factors, including Western governments must act
a reactionary backlash to demographic decisively to combat this threat.
changes and a rising belief in conspiracy Launching a new “war on terror,”
theories. It has been further accelerated however, is not the way to do so. The
by the megaphone of social media, as fight against jihadi violence went awry
new online channels for amplifying and in many ways and produced negative
circulating ideas have significantly unintended consequences—including by
broadened the influence of far-right aiding the rise of the far right, which
propaganda and disinformation, forged now poses the gravest terrorism risk. In
global connections across groups and the fight against this new threat, policy-
movements, and created new ways for makers need to avoid repeating the very
extremism to seep into the mainstream. mistakes that contributed to the dan-
Ironically, however, it was another gerous new reality.
form of extremism—and Washington’s
reaction to it—that in many ways set in EURABIAN KNIGHTS
motion the resurgence of the far right. In The modern far right exists on a broad
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the rise of spectrum and includes neo-Nazis, white
violent jihadism reshaped American supremacists, militias opposed to
politics in ways that created fertile federal governments, self-described
ground for right-wing extremism. The “Western chauvinist” groups such as the
attacks were a gift to peddlers of xeno- Proud Boys, “alt-right” provocateurs,
phobia, white supremacism, and Chris- conspiracy theorists, and misogynists
tian nationalism: as dark-skinned Muslim who call themselves “incels” (short for
foreigners bent on murdering Americans, “involuntary celibates”). What links
al Qaeda terrorists and their ilk seemed these disparate elements is a conspirato-
From 9/11 to 1/6
rial worldview and a shared adherence between radical groups and law enforce-
to antidemocratic and illiberal ideas. A ment agencies—including at Ruby
subset of them also support—at least in Ridge, in Idaho, in 1992 and in Waco,
theory—the use of mass violence Texas, the following year—drew atten-
against civilian and government targets. tion to the threat, which had been
Although their ideas and iconography simmering for years. The Oklahoma
draw inspiration from the Confederacy, City bombing turned the far right into
the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, and other the most pressing issue in national
dead or moribund movements, today’s politics, at least for a time.
American and European far-right But instead of being emboldened by
groups are more firmly rooted in much the bombing, the far right went further
more recent developments. In the early underground in its aftermath. Member-
1980s, episodes of far-right terrorism ship in unlawful militias declined. Militia
struck France, Italy, and Germany as leaders distanced themselves from the
part of a rising neofascist and neo-Nazi bombers, who had brought unwanted
movement in western Europe. Those attention to their cause from law enforce-
attacks were followed by a wave of ment. As the threat seemingly dimin-
neo-Nazi activity that swept through ished, the far right faded from the public
Germany and eastern Europe during the consciousness. Amid the booming
period of rapid social, political, and economy, technological advancements,
economic change that took place in the and relative peace and prosperity of the
1990s, after the fall of the Iron Curtain late 1990s, terrorism became a low
and German reunification. This form of priority for the American public.
radicalism manifested in a violent, racist That all changed on September 11,
skinhead youth culture, which cel- 2001. As the country reeled from the
ebrated street fighting and attacks on attacks, far-right groups saw an opportu-
asylum seekers and immigrants. nity and grabbed it, quickly and easily
At around the same time, racist adapting their messages to the new
skinhead groups began to emerge in landscape. A well-resourced Islamopho-
North America, too, some of them bia industry sprang into action, using a
linked to the hardcore music scene. In variety of scare tactics to generate
the United States, another source of hysteria about the looming threat. In
far-right and antigovernment extrem- Europe, the far right’s imagination was
ism was a small but dedicated contin- gripped by a conspiracy theory intro-
gent of Vietnam War veterans who set duced by the British author Bat Ye’or in
up boot camps to train paramilitary her 2005 book Eurabia, which argued
forces, with the goal of establishing a that the profound demographic changes
white separatist homeland. As the taking place in European countries were
availability of assault weapons and not coincidental. On the contrary,
tactical equipment expanded in the Eurabia suggested, Muslims were
United States in the 1980s and 1990s, orchestrating a revival of the caliphate
militias built staggering arsenals and by replacing white Europeans through
grew bolder in confronting authorities. immigration and high birthrates. Eu-
A series of high-profile standoffs rope, Ye’or warned, was shifting from a
Christian civilization to an Islamic one, In the United States, rising anti-

and Europeans would soon be subjected Muslim sentiment found expression in a
to Islamic law, or sharia, forced either to successful movement to prevent the
convert or to accept subservient roles. building of a mosque near the site of the
In this milieu, anti-immigrant 9/11 attacks in New York City and in
sentiment became more mainstream. legislation passed in dozens of U.S.
Far-right political parties and organiza- states to thwart nonexistent efforts to
tions embraced the idea of an Islamic subject residents to sharia. After the
threat, using metaphors and iconogra- election of the first Black president in
phy from the Christian Crusades and U.S. history, in 2008, record-breaking
fifteenth-century pogroms in Europe numbers of hate groups emerged. The
that targeted Muslims and Jews. In antigovernment fringe that had gone
France, the leader of the right-wing quiet after the Oklahoma City bombing
National Front, Marine Le Pen, com- resurfaced, with calls for insurrection
pared groups of Muslims praying on and revolution coming from militias
sidewalks outside mosques to Nazi such as the Oath Keepers and move-
occupiers. The Dutch far-right leader ments such as the Three Percenters
Geert Wilders described refugees as an (whose name was inspired by the false
“Islamic invasion.” The British arm of claim that it took only three percent of
the far-right group Generation Identity the American colonists to successfully
linked the fight against multicultural- rise up against the British). Starting in
ism to the fifteenth-century efforts of 2014, North America also witnessed a
European forces to retake the Iberian spurt of violent attacks carried out by
Peninsula from the Muslim rulers who incels inspired by male supremacist
controlled most of it at the time. ideology, leading to the deaths of dozens
By 2015, tens of thousands of people of women, including in mass shootings
were marching in cities across Europe at a college sorority and a yoga studio
under the banner of a group called and in a vehicle-ramming attack on the
pegida, a German acronym for “Patri- streets of Toronto. In 2016, the Proud
otic Europeans Against the Islamization Boys arrived on the scene, engaging in
of the West”—gatherings that some- street brawls and claiming to stand in
times led to violence between demon- defense of Western civilization.
strators and antifascist counterprotest-
ers. During the 2019 elections for the THE DANGER GROWS
European Parliament, the German In the midst of this explosion of far-right
far-right party Alternative for Germany activity, national governments and
(AfD) put up billboards featuring a international organizations remained
detail from Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1866 laser-focused on jihadi terrorism, build-
painting The Slave Market, which ing new agencies and spending billions
depicts a naked white woman having her of dollars. Far-right extremism was all
teeth and mouth probed by a dark- but ignored, and it was viewed by
skinned, turban-clad man. The posters international organizations as a domestic
urged voters to learn from history “so problem facing individual countries, not
that Europe does not become Eurabia.” as a common global threat.
Of course, jihadi terrorism posed a
genuine threat—and still does, especially
in conflict-ridden countries in sub-
Saharan Africa and the Middle East,
where Islamist terror takes the lives of
thousands each year. But the global
response to the shock of 9/11 was so
overblown that it blinded policymakers,
security officials, and the broader public
to the faster growth of what became, in
the United States especially, a much
larger threat from far-right extremism.
As a result, right-wing terrorist attacks
were treated as fringe incidents, rather
than as a persistent and growing danger
to national security—one that now
outstrips jihadi terrorism in terms of the
toll on Western societies.
Even the most spectacular and
gruesome far-right attacks have failed to
galvanize counterterrorism agencies in
the West. In Norway in 2011, for exam-
ple, a far-right extremist named Anders
Behring Breivik murdered 77 people, “If you are looking for the
mostly teenagers attending a Labor Party smartest and most relevant
summer camp outside Oslo. Breivik had articles about international
composed a 1,500-page manifesto in politics, there is no question
which he railed against Islam, warned that International Security is
the place to go.”
about the coming of Eurabia, and cited —John Mearsheimer
U.S. anti-Muslim activists nearly 200
times. His assault received a high degree No collection in international
of media attention but was often pre- relations is complete without
sented as an anomaly, and Breivik International Security—the journal
himself was sometimes portrayed as a that has defined the debate on
mentally unhinged mass murderer rather US national security policy and
global security affairs for more
than as a terrorist, even though his than forty-five years.
violence was explicitly political.
By every relevant, available meas- Subscribe Today.
ure—the numbers of arrests and
convictions, the number and severity of
plots, the amount of propaganda
circulating, and the number of attacks— The MIT Press
right-wing extremism has increased direct.mit.edu/isec
significantly. Globally, deaths from
terrorism declined in 2019 for the fifth referred to this group, which included
consecutive year. But in North America, Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye
western Europe, Australia, and New among its founders, as “the Gramscians
Zealand, they increased by 709 percent of the right” because of their adoption of
during those five years—a consequence the Marxist Italian thinker Antonio
of the roughly 250 percent increase in Gramsci’s call to spur revolution not by
far-right attacks there. In 2010, there physical force but by gaining control over
was only one recorded far-right terror how people think, through education and
ist attack in those places; in 2019, there cultural change. They adapted that
were 49, which represented nearly half approach into a concept called “metapoli
of all terrorist attacks in those places and tics,” a term the New Right used to
resulted in 82 percent of all terrorism- describe their effort to foster ethno
related deaths there. nationalist and anti-immigrant ideas and
Some may argue that the decline in then introduce them into mainstream
jihadi extremism merely reflects the thought in ways that would eventually
efficacy of authorities’ efforts to combat lead to political and social change.
it. But the tremendous imbalance in the Metapolitics was an exercise in
resources and efforts directed toward patience, requiring a view of politics as
thwarting terrorist plots, with the vast “downstream from culture,” in the words
majority going to fight jihadi terrorism, of the late right-wing American activist
had direct consequences for the success Andrew Breitbart. In practice, the
of the far right. In recent congressional strategy involved using academic and
testimony, fbi officials noted that mainstream media outlets to critique
despite the massive shift in the nature globalization and liberal democratic
of the threat, 80 percent of their coun concepts such as egalitarianism and
terterrorism field agents still focus on multiculturalism and argue in favor of
international terrorism cases. That ethnic separatism and homogeneity. Such
misallocation of resources has had an ideas were controversial but influential:
impact: between 9/11 and the end of in 1978, de Benoist won France’s most
2017, two-thirds of violent Islamist plots coveted intellectual prize, the French
in the United States were interrupted in Academy’s prestigious Prix de l’Essai.
the planning phase, compared with less After nearly 50 years, this long game
than one-third of violent far-right plots. finally bore fruit. Ideas that had once
been relegated to the fringes seeped
THE METAPOLITICS OF HATE into the public discourse, helping
The post-9/11 resurgence of far-right justify hard-line anti-immigrant poli
violence reflected reactions to changing cies. In the early years of this century,
social conditions, the rise of jihadism, the stridently far-right political parties
opportunism of political provocateurs, made substantial gains in national
and the myopia of the war on terrorism. parliamentary elections across Europe,
It was also rooted, however, in an intel often by giving even the most vapid
lectual project launched in the late 1960s extremist ideas the veneer of respect
by a group of French thinkers called the ability by draping them in the trappings
Nouvelle Droite (New Right). Some of intellectualism—an approach per
From 9/11 to 1/6
fected by the Af D (which was nick- later, a terrorist killed 23 people in a

named “the professor’s party”) and by Walmart in El Paso after posting a
“alt-right” figures in the United States hate-filled manifesto that warned of a
such as Richard Spencer. Right-wing “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and that
metapolitics formed a feedback loop, claimed white people were being re-
with political ideas eventually flowing placed through immigration.
back upstream into the culture when,
for example, far-right agitators slapped BLOWBACK
white supremacist slogans and icons The anti-Muslim propaganda and
onto hip clothing designs, which many conspiracy theories that eventually
young people then wore to seem rebel- merged into the great-replacement
lious and outré on social media. narrative were in many cases inadver-
During the past decade, far-right tently aided by counterterrorism
groups had succeeded enough to move policies that muddied the distinction
past metapolitics and could embrace between Islamist terrorism and Islam.
more traditional forms of politics, not In the wake of 9/11, counterextremist
only by launching political parties but approaches—such as the so-called
also by putting forward something akin Prevent policy in the United Kingdom,
to a grand narrative to unify the dispa- or the New York City Police Depart-
rate parts of the movement: a conspir- ment’s Muslim surveillance program—
acy theory about a coming “great targeted ordinary Muslim communi-
replacement” of European and white ties. A full decade after 9/11, the fbi
civilization. Coined by a French scholar was using Islamophobic training
in a 2011 book by the same name, the materials that described ordinary
term describes an alleged plot by global Muslims as terrorist sympathizers
and national elites to replace white, whose charitable donations were a
Christian, European populations with “funding mechanism for combat.” For
nonwhite, non-Christian ones. The idea far-right activists, such practices
is a kind of greatest hits of right-wing seemed to confirm that Islam itself
extremism, combining the anti-Muslim posed an existential and civilizational
ideas of Eurabia, American-style white threat. Such approaches also paved the
nationalism, and age-old anti-Semitic way for more overtly discriminatory
tropes about Jewish domination. ideas, such as Trump’s musings during
The conspiracy theory is powerful the 2016 presidential campaign about
because it is remarkably flexible. A building a national database of Mus-
right-wing extremist can adopt the lims and his promise to ban all Mus-
framework against virtually any per- lims from entering the United States.
ceived threat, be it Jews, Muslims, Meanwhile, the global war on
immigrants, or even white progressives. terrorism led to military actions across
In 2019, a terrorist in Christchurch, New the Middle East that triggered an
Zealand, live-streamed his murder of 51 unprecedented migration crisis in
Muslim worshipers in two mosques after Europe—which in turn energized the
writing a manifesto he titled “The Great far right. After the U.S. invasions of
Replacement.” Less than five months Afghanistan and Iraq, millions of people
fled those countries for Europe, creat- ANOTHER WAR ON TERROR?

ing an influx of Muslims that produced an The good news is that the upsurge in
intense backlash, featuring anti-Muslim far-right violence has finally com-
marches and hundreds of attacks on manded the attention of counterterror-
refugees and asylum seekers. ism officials. A scramble to realign
U.S. military actions in the Middle resources and assemble expertise is now
East also drove anti-Muslim sentiment underway. From the un Security
among active-duty troops and in Council to national parliaments to
veterans’ communities. Merchandise for militaries and security agencies, there
sale on websites catering to military are currently dozens of commissions,
veterans helped carry Islamophobic special task forces, briefings, listening
sentiment fostered on the frontlines sessions, and investigations taking place
into civilian life back home. Bumper across the globe to explore ways to
stickers and T-shirts, for example, counter the new threat. Some countries
allowed American soldiers to proudly have already announced new legislation:
identify as “infidels” and displayed Germany, for example, plans to spend
Arabic text with the phrase “Stay back one billion euros on 89 specific meas
100 meters or you will be shot.” ures to counter racism and right-wing
Against this backdrop, the United extremism, and New Zealand’s wide-
States saw the growth of unlawful ranging response to the Christchurch
militias in the antigovernment extremist attack includes proposed changes to
movement—including some that re- hate-crime legislation and counterter-
cruited from active-duty troops and rorism laws, the establishment of a new
veterans’ communities. Like the return- ministry for ethnic communities,
ing Vietnam War veterans who had funding to enhance security for com-
helped launch the white power move- munities particularly threatened by
ment in the 1970s, some veterans of the terrorism, and the creation of a new
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq returned national center for social cohesion and
home with a sense of anger and betrayal. the prevention of extremism.
Others grappled with posttraumatic Changes are afoot in the United
stress, which research suggests can States, as well. In October 2020, the
increase one’s vulnerability to extremist Department of Homeland Security’s
recruitment. The dehumanization that annual threat assessment finally de-
soldiers are trained to embrace as a clared domestic violent extremism to be
battlefield tactic, for example, may not the most pressing and lethal threat
automatically turn off on one’s reentry facing the country. A few months later,
into civilian society. And the rhetoric the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol
used by far-right extremist groups to brought that reality into sharp relief. In
recruit members—with appeals to June of this year, the Biden administra-
brotherhood, heroism, the defense of tion released the country’s first-ever
one’s people, and a chance to be part of a National Strategy for Countering
meaningful cause—echoed the language Domestic Terrorism, which emphasizes
that had attracted many to enlist in the preventing radicalization by strengthen-
armed forces in the first place. ing media literacy skills and building
From 9/11 to 1/6
resilience to online disinformation and women’s rights, for example, in order to

the need to address the underlying draw supporters from the progressive
conditions that help fuel domestic left by arguing that they are defending
extremism, including racism and what they claim are Western values
insufficient gun control. against Islamic aggression. Or consider
This represents a welcome change. “ecofascists” who back border closures
But the implementation of new policies as a way of protecting and preserving
around the globe will encounter signifi- territories threatened by climate
cant challenges as the West pivots from change—not for the good of humanity
the prior era of terrorism. The problem is but for the benefit of white people, who
partly structural: the strategies designed they believe have a “blood and soil”
to combat jihadi terrorism—surveilling entitlement to those lands.
and monitoring hierarchical groups of Combating these threats will revolve
leaders and cells—are a poor fit for the less around the surveillance and moni-
post-organizational nature of far-right toring that were signature tactics in the
extremism. Formal groups play a dimin- global war on terrorism and more
ishing role in far-right recruitment and around building societies’ resilience to
radicalization, which more typically take propaganda and disinformation. The
place in a vast and ever-expanding politics of fear practiced by many
online ecosystem of propaganda and officials and leaders in Western coun-
disinformation. Only 13 percent of the tries in the post-9/11 era clearly contrib-
far-right terrorist attacks in North uted to right-wing radicalization. By
America, western Europe, Australia, and encouraging people to feel that they
New Zealand between 2002 and 2019 lacked control over their own lives, to
that resulted in at least one death were see themselves as vulnerable, and to
attributable to a specific group. Today’s fear outsiders, this style of politics
far-right extremism involves fewer opened a door for extremists, who
backwoods initiation rituals and attacks marched right through it. So fighting
by cells and more self-directed training the far right will also mean more fully
and solo operations, live-streamed for a abandoning the civilizational logic that
global audience. undergirded the war on terrorism—
The motivations and ideologies of sometimes consciously, sometimes
far-right groups are more muddled than inadvertently. Counterterrorism author-
those of the jihadi groups to which most ities must do away with policies and
terrorism experts are accustomed. The messages predicated on the idea that
far-right universe includes preppers, Islam poses a threat to Western civiliza-
vegan neo-Nazis, anti-vaccine activists, tion, which helped created a kind of
QAnon followers, and thousands of ideological scaffolding on which the far
unclassifiable radicals who have assem- right has built a movement.
bled bits of far-right propaganda into
choose-your-own-adventure belief TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS
systems that don’t always make much In the weeks after January 6, Washington,
sense to outsiders. Some far-right D.C., became a militarized zone. Wide
groups promote lgbtq rights and swaths of downtown were fenced off,
with military checkpoints on the bridges its core tenets. It requires giving all
and more than 25,000 National Guard citizens the tools to recognize and reject
forces deployed to secure the city before extremist propaganda and disinforma-
President Joe Biden’s inauguration. tion. Federal agencies cannot do this job
Perhaps Americans will simply on their own; such efforts work best
become used to these security measures, when integrated with initiatives at the
just as global travelers came to accept local level, where leaders enjoy more
the beltless, shoeless shuffle through trust and are better equipped to under-
airport security. To avoid that outcome, stand their communities’ needs.
U.S. counterterrorism officials will have Security and law enforcement
to get better at prevention. There is agencies still have a role to play, but
little evidence about what works to authorities should broaden the pool of
prevent radicalization or help people experts who advise them on terrorism:
disengage from extremist movements, agencies full of experts trained over-
and even less knowledge about what whelmingly in Islamist sources of
kinds of interventions can be effectively terrorism have struggled to recognize
scaled up. Other countries take holistic and respond to the far-right threat.
approaches, involving agencies that deal Governments should forge teams of
with health and human services, cul- cross-agency experts in social work,
ture, education, and social welfare. U.S. psychology, and education, and on
expertise, however, remains concen- topics such as cults, gangs, gender-
trated in security and law enforcement based violence, racism, and trauma.
agencies—although Biden’s new na- They should also establish deeper
tional strategy signals a shift, envision- relationships with academics and
ing a coordinated, multiagency effort to research centers, where younger schol-
reduce polarization, limit access to ars often have their fingers on the pulse
firearms, and combat racism. of new and evolving threats.
Perhaps the single most important There is no crystal ball that can
lesson to draw from the far right’s predict what the future of terrorism will
mobilization over the past 20 years is bring. But if there is one certainty, it is
that liberal democratic ideas and institu- this: tomorrow’s extremism will not
tions must be nurtured through educa- look exactly like today’s. The United
tion and not just defended by force. The States will likely see more violence
best way to fight an omnipresent ex- from radical environmentalists; from
tremist fringe is not through suppres- coalitions of anti-vaccine, antigovern-
sion alone but by making mainstream ment, and conspiracy theory groups;
society more resilient and less vulner- and from groups that seek the collapse
able to far-right appeals. This is the of social, political, and economic
“defensive democracy” approach that systems in furtherance of a variety of
Germany pursued after World War II, hard-to-define ideological goals. As the
which involved sustained federal invest- danger evolves, the worst thing the
ments in scalable, evidence-based media country could do is to once again focus
literacy programs to strengthen citizen obsessively and exclusively on the
support for multicultural democracy and threat it faces today.∂
WE ARE CALLED
EXPLORE GLOBAL ISSUES

FROM AN INTERDISCIPLINARY
PERSPECTIVE
Loyola University Chicago’s MA in International Affairs allows
students to explore global problems in an urban setting, consistently
ranked as one of the top ten global cities in the world. Students
will have the flexibility to tailor their program to fit their individual
interests and choose from several capstone options.
LEARN MORE • LUC.edu/foreignaffairs2021

of our adversaries were killed. But the

Winning Ugly
target was taken alive. Then we slipped

out of the valley as expeditiously as we
had arrived. By early morning, we had
What the War on Terror made it safely to the U.S. Army out-
Cost America post, where our prisoner would soon be
transferred to Bagram Air Base.
Elliot Ackerman The sun was breaking over the
jagged ridgeline as we filled out the
paperwork transferring custody. The
M
y first mission as a paramili- mood among our raid force, which had
tary officer with the CIA was been tense all night, suddenly eased.
against a top-ten al Qaeda We lounged in a small dirt parking lot,
target. It was the autumn of 2009, and I helmets off, laughing and recounting
had been deployed in my new job for a the details of our mission. A convoy
total of two days. But I was no stranger would soon arrive to usher us back to
to Afghanistan, having already fought our base, where we would get some
there (as well as in Iraq) as a Marine much-needed rest and a decent meal.
Corps officer over the previous six years. We would then await our next target,
On this mission, I was joined by the continuing what was proving to be a
Afghan counterterrorism unit I advised successful U.S. campaign to decapitate
and a handful of members from SEAL al Qaeda’s leadership. We were feeling,
Team Six. Our plan was to conduct a in short, victorious.
raid to capture or kill our target, who was While we waited, a column of scrag-
coming across the border from Pakistan gly American soldiers, little older than
for a meeting in the Korengal Valley. teenagers, filed past. They lived at the
The night was moonless as we outpost, and their plight was well known
slipped into the valley. The 70-odd to us. For the past several years, they
members of our raid force hiked under had been waging a quixotic and largely
night-vision goggles for a couple of unsuccessful counterinsurgency in the
hours, taking on hundreds of feet of valley. Many of their friends had been
elevation in silence until we arrived at a killed there, and their expressions were
village on a rocky outcropping where haggard, a mix of defeat and defiance.
the meeting was being held. As surveil- Our triumphant banter must have
lance and strike aircraft orbited the sounded to them like a foreign language.
starry sky, a subset of our force sprinted They gave us hard, resentful looks, treat-
toward the house where an informant ing us as interlopers. It occurred to me
had told us the target was staying. that although our counterterrorism unit
There was a brief and sharp gunfight; was standing on the same battlefield as
none of our men were hurt, and several these soldiers, we were in fact fighting
in two very different wars.
ELLIOT ACKERMAN is a former U.S. marine At a joint session of Congress on
and intelligence officer and a co-author, with
James Stavridis, of 2034: A Novel of the Next September 20, 2001, U.S. President
World War. George W. Bush announced a new type
Elliot Ackerman
of war, a “war on terror.” He laid out its the goal of the global war on terror was
terms: “We will direct every resource at to prevent significant acts of terrorism,
our command—every means of diplo- particularly in the United States, then
macy, every tool of intelligence, every the war has succeeded.
instrument of law enforcement, every But at what cost? Like that night in
financial influence, and every necessary the Korengal, could success and failure
weapon of war—to the disruption and to coexist on the same battlefield? Can the
the defeat of the global terror network.” United States claim to have won the war
Then he described what that defeat on terror while simultaneously having
might look like: “We will starve terror- lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
ists of funding, turn them one against The answers require untangling the many
another, drive them from place to place battles the United States has fought since
until there is no refuge or no rest.” 9/11 and understanding the impact they
If Bush’s words outlined the essential have had on the American psyche.
objectives of the global war on terror,
20 years later, the United States has US AND THEM
largely achieved them. Osama bin Every war the United States has fought,
Laden is dead. The surviving core beginning with the American Revolu-
members of al Qaeda are dispersed and tion, has required an economic model to
weak. Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman sustain it with sufficient bodies and cash.
al-Zawahiri, communicates only The Civil War, for instance, was sus-
through rare propaganda releases, and tained with the first-ever draft and the
al Qaeda’s most powerful offshoot, the first-ever income tax. World War II saw
Islamic State (or isis), has seen its a national mobilization, including
territorial holdings dwindle to insignifi- another draft, further taxation, and the
cance in Iraq and Syria. selling of war bonds. One of the chief
Most important, however, is the characteristics of the Vietnam War was
United States’ success in securing its an extremely unpopular draft that
homeland. If someone had told Ameri- spawned an antiwar movement and sped
cans in the weeks after 9/11—as they that conflict to its eventual end. Like its
navigated anthrax attacks on the Capi- predecessors, the war on terror came
tol, a plunging stock market, and with its own model: the war was fought
predictions of the demise of mass by an all-volunteer military and paid for
travel—that the U.S. military and U.S. largely through deficit spending. It
intelligence agencies would successfully should be no surprise that this model,
shield the country from another major which by design anesthetized a majority
terrorist attack for the next 20 years, of Americans to the costs of conflict,
they would have had trouble believing delivered them their longest war; in his
it. Since 9/11, the United States has September 20, 2001, speech, when
suffered, on average, six deaths per year describing how Americans might sup-
due to jihadi terrorism. (To put this in port the war effort, Bush said, “I ask you
perspective, in 2019, an average of 39 to live your lives and hug your children.”
Americans died every day from over- This model has also had a profound
doses involving prescription opioids.) If effect on American democracy, one that
Winning Ugly
is only being fully understood 20 years got to hear from the military’s retired
later. Today, with a ballooning national leadership as a bevy of flag officers—
deficit and warnings of inflation, it is both on the right and the left—weighed
worth noting that the war on terror in on domestic political matters in
became one of the earliest and most unprecedented ways. They spoke on
expensive charges Americans placed on television, wrote editorials that de-
their national credit card after the nounced one party or the other, and
balanced budgets of the 1990s; 2001 signed their names to letters on every-
marked the last year that the federal thing from the provenance of a suspi-
budget passed by Congress resulted in a cious laptop connected to the Demo-
surplus. Funding the war through cratic nominee’s son to the integrity of
deficit spending allowed it to fester the presidential election itself.
through successive administrations with For now, the military remains one of
hardly a single politician ever mention- the most trusted institutions in the
ing the idea of a war tax. Meanwhile, United States and one of the few that
other forms of spending—from finan- the public sees as having no overt
cial bailouts to health care and, most political bias. How long will this trust
recently, a pandemic recovery stimulus last under existing political conditions?
package—generate breathless debate. As partisanship taints every facet of
If deficit spending has anesthetized American life, it would seem to be only
the American people to the fiscal cost of a matter of time before that infection
the war on terror, technological and spreads to the U.S. military. What
social changes have numbed them to its then? From Caesar’s Rome to Napo-
human cost. The use of drone aircraft leon’s France, history shows that when a
and other platforms has facilitated the republic couples a large standing
growing automation of combat, which military with dysfunctional domestic
allows the U.S. military to kill remotely. politics, democracy doesn’t last long.
This development has further distanced The United States today meets both
Americans from the grim costs of war, conditions. Historically, this has invited
whether they be the deaths of U.S. the type of political crisis that leads to
troops or those of foreign civilians. military involvement (or even interven-
Meanwhile, the absence of a draft has tion) in domestic politics. The wide
allowed the U.S. government to out- divide between the military and the
source its wars to a military caste, an citizens it serves is yet another inheri-
increasingly self-segregated portion of tance from the war on terror.
society, opening up a yawning civil-
military divide as profound as any that DEFINING VICTORY
American society has ever known. Although it may seem odd to separate
Last year, in response to nationwide the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from
civil unrest, Americans finally had the the war on terror, it is worth remember-
chance to meet their military firsthand ing that immediately after 9/11, the
as both active-duty and National Guard wholesale invasion and occupation of
troops were deployed in large numbers either country was hardly a fait accom-
throughout the country. Americans also pli. It is not difficult to imagine a more
Elliot Ackerman
limited counterterrorism campaign in failed state in Iraq would create the type
Afghanistan that might have brought of sanctuary that enabled 9/11. The
bin Laden to justice or a strategy to United States’ vast counterinsurgency
contain Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were
would not have involved a full-scale predicated on a doctrine of preemption;
U.S. invasion. The long, costly counter- as Bush put it in 2007, “We will fight
insurgency campaigns that followed in them over there so we do not have to face
each country were wars of choice. Both them in the United States of America.”
proved to be major missteps when it But what makes the war on terror
came to achieving the twin goals of different from other wars is that victory
bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to has never been based on achieving a
justice and securing the homeland. In positive outcome; the goal has been to
fact, at several moments over the past prevent a negative one. In this war,
two decades, the wars set back those victory doesn’t come when you destroy
objectives. This was never more the case your adversary’s army or seize its capital.
than in the months after bin Laden’s It occurs when something does not
death in May 2011. happen. How, then, do you declare
Few years proved to be more signifi- victory? How do you prove a negative?
cant in the war on terror than 2011. After 9/11, it was almost as though
Aside from being the year bin Laden American strategists, unable to concep-
was killed, it also was the year the Arab tualize a war that could be won only by
Spring took off and the year U.S. troops not allowing a certain set of events to
fully withdrew from Iraq. If the great replicate themselves, felt forced to create
strategic blunder of the Bush adminis- a war that conformed to more conven-
tration was to put troops into Iraq, then tional conceptions of conflict. The wars
the great strategic blunder of the in Afghanistan and Iraq represented a
Obama administration was to pull all of familiar type of war, with an invasion to
them out. Both missteps created power topple a government and liberate a
vacuums. The first saw the flourishing people, followed by a long occupation
of al Qaeda in Iraq; the second gave and counterinsurgency campaigns.
birth to that group’s successor, isis. In addition to blood and treasure,
If insanity is doing the same thing there is another metric by which the
over and over again and expecting a war on terror can be judged: opportu-
different outcome, in Afghanistan, the nity cost. The covid-19 pandemic has
Biden administration has adopted an revealed the depths of American
insane policy, setting itself up for a repeat political dysfunction and has hinted at
of President Barack Obama’s experience the dangers of a civil-military divide.
in Iraq with the ongoing withdrawal. The Perhaps even more important from a
recommitment of U.S. troops to Iraq in national security perspective, it has also
the wake of isis’s 2014 blitzkrieg to brought the United States’ complex
within 16 miles of Baghdad was a re- relationship with China into stark
sponse to the fear not only that the relief. For the past two decades, while
government of Prime Minister Nouri Washington was repurposing the U.S.
al-Maliki might collapse but also that a military to engage in massive counter-
insurgency campaigns and precision
counterterrorism operations, Beijing
JEFFERSON SCIENCE FELLOWS PROGRAM
was busy building a military to fight
and defeat a peer-level competitor.
Today, the Chinese navy is the largest
in the world. It boasts 350 commis- Call for Applications
Established by the Secretary of State in 2003, the
sioned warships to the U.S. Navy’s Jefferson Science Fellows program engages the
roughly 290. Although U.S. ships American academic science, technology, engineering,
generally outclass their Chinese coun- and medical communities in U.S. foreign policy and
international development.
terparts, it now seems inevitable that the Administered by the National Academies of Sciences,
two countries’ militaries will one day Engineering, and Medicine, this fellowship is open
reach parity. China has spent 20 years to tenured, or similarly ranked, faculty from U.S.
institutions of higher learning who are U.S. citizens.
building a chain of artificial islands After successfully obtaining a security clearance,
throughout the South China Sea that selected Fellows spend one year on assignment at
the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Agency for
can effectively serve as a defensive line International Development serving as advisers on
of unsinkable aircraft carriers. Cultur- issues of foreign policy and international development.
ally, China has become more militaristic, The application deadline is in October. To learn
more and to apply, visit www.nas.edu/jsf.
producing hypernationalist content such
as the Wolf Warrior action movies. In 2021-Sept-Oct-FA-Ottaway-MBS_Foreign
the Affairs 7/1/21 12:43 PM Page 1
first, a former U.S. Navy SEAL plays the
@NASEMJefferson
archvillain. The sequel, released in 2017, NASEM.Jefferson.Science.Fellowship
became the highest-grossing film in Chi-
nese box-office history. Clearly, Beijing
has no qualms about framing Washing-
ton as an antagonist. Celebrating 38 Years of Independent Publishing
China isn’t the only country that has
“E
taken advantage of a preoccupied
xcellent.... A thorough,
United States. In the past two decades,
Russia has expanded its territory into insightful examination
Crimea and backed separatists in of what has
Ukraine; Iran has backed proxies in happened in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; and North Saudi politics,
Korea has acquired nuclear weapons. what went
After the century opened with 9/11, wrong, and
conventional wisdom had it that non- where the
state actors would prove to be the
kingdom is
greatest threat to U.S. national security.
This prediction came true, but not in going under
the way most people anticipated. Crown Prince
Nonstate actors have compromised Mohammed bin Salman.”
national security not by attacking the —Theodore Karasik,
Gulf State Analytics • pb $29.95
United States but by diverting its atten-
tion away from state actors. It is these T EL : 303-444-6684 • www.r ienner.com
classic antagonists—China, Iran, North
Elliot Ackerman
Korea, and Russia—that have expanded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

their capabilities and antipathies in the crossed Obama’s stated redline by using
face of a distracted United States. chemical weapons, Obama found that
How imminent is the threat from not only was the international commu-
these states? When it comes to legacy nity no longer as responsive to an
military platforms—aircraft carriers, American president’s entreaties for the
tanks, fighter planes—the United States use of force but also that this reluctance
continues to enjoy a healthy technologi- appeared in Congress, as well. When
cal dominance over its near-peer com- Obama went to legislators to gain
petitors. But its preferred platforms support for a military strike against the
might not be the right ones. Long- Assad regime, he encountered bipartisan
range land-based cruise missiles could war fatigue that mirrored the fatigue of
render large aircraft carriers obsolete. voters, and he called off the attack. The
Advances in cyberoffense could make United States’ redline had been crossed,
tech-reliant fighter aircraft too vulner- without incident or reprisal.
able to fly. The greatest minds in the Fatigue may seem like a “soft” cost of
U.S. military have now, finally, turned the war on terror, but it is a glaring
their attention to these concerns, with strategic liability. A nation exhausted by
the U.S. Marine Corps, for example, war has a difficult time presenting a cred-
shifting its entire strategic focus to a ible deterrent threat to adversaries. This
potential conflict with China. But it proved to be true during the Cold War
may be too late. when, at the height of the Vietnam War,
in 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslo-
WORN OUT vakia, and when, in the war’s aftermath,
After two decades, the United States in 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
also suffers from war fatigue. Even Because it was embroiled in a war in the
though an all-volunteer military and the first case and reeling from it in the
lack of a war tax have exempted most second, the United States could not
Americans from shouldering the burdens credibly deter Soviet military aggression.
of war, that fatigue has still manifested. The United States is in a similar spot
Under four presidents, the American today, particularly with regard to China.
people at first celebrated and then When Americans were asked in a recent
endured the endless wars playing in the poll whether the United States should
background of their lives. Gradually, the defend Taiwan if it were confronted with
national mood soured, and adversaries an invasion by China, 55 percent of
have taken notice. Americans’ fatigue— respondents said that it should not.
and rival countries’ recognition of it— Obviously, if the Chinese undertook
has limited the United States’ strategic such an action, particularly if Ameri-
options. As a result, presidents have cans or the citizens of allied countries
adopted policies of inaction, and Ameri- were killed in the process, public
can credibility has eroded. opinion might change swiftly; neverthe-
This dynamic played out most starkly less, the poll suggested that the thresh-
in Syria, in the aftermath of the August old for the use of force has risen among
2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta. When Americans. U.S. adversaries understand
Winning Ugly
this. It is no coincidence that China, for Today, I have a hard time remember-
instance, has felt empowered to ining what the United States used to be
fringe on Hong Kong’s autonomy and like. I forget what it was like to be able
commit brazen human rights abuses to arrive at the airport just 20 minutes
against its minority Uyghur population. before a flight. What it was like to walk
When American power recedes, other through a train station without armed
states fill the vacuum. police meandering around the platforms.
U.S. adversaries have also learned to Or what it was like to believe—particu-
obfuscate their aggression. The cyber- larly in those heady years right after the
war currently being waged from Russia Cold War—that the United States’
is one example, with the Russian version of democracy would remain
government claiming no knowledge of ascendant for all time and that the world
the spate of ransomware attacks ema- had reached “the end of history.”
nating from within its borders. With In much the same way that members
Taiwan, likewise, Chinese aggression of “the greatest generation” can recall
probably wouldn’t manifest in conven- where they were when the Japanese
tional military ways. Beijing is more attacked Pearl Harbor or baby boomers
likely to take over the island through can remember where they were when
gradual annexation, akin to what it has JFK was shot, my generation’s touch-
done with Hong Kong, than stage an stone is where you were on 9/11. Like
outright invasion. That makes a U.S. most of us, I remember the day clearly.
military response even more difficult— But when thinking of that time, the
especially as two decades of war have event I return to most often happened
undermined U.S. military deterrence. the night before.
I was a college student and had
A FOREIGN COUNTRY requisitioned the television in my apart-
The war on terror has changed both ment because hbo was showing a new
how the United States sees itself and series, Band of Brothers. As an rotc
how it is perceived by the rest of the midshipman, I believed my entire
world. From time to time, people have future would be spent as part of a band
asked in what ways the war changed me. of brothers. As I settled onto the sofa,
I have never known how to answer this that iconic title sequence started:
question because ultimately the war sepia-toned paratroopers falling across
didn’t change me; the war made me. It the sky en route to liberating Europe,
is so deeply engrained in my psyche that the swelling strings of the nostalgic
I have a difficult time separating the soundtrack. There wasn’t a hint of irony
parts of me that exist because of it from or cynicism anywhere in the series. I
the parts of me that exist despite it. can’t imagine someone making it today.
Answering that question is like explain- As the United States’ sensibilities
ing how a parent or a sibling changed about war—and warriors—have changed
you. When you live with a person—or a over two decades, I have often thought
war—for so long, you come to know it of Band of Brothers. It’s a good barometer
on intimate terms, and it comes to of where the country was before 9/11 and
change you in similarly intimate ways. the emotional distance it has traveled
Elliot Ackerman
since. Today, the United States is differ- Unlike Iraq, the war in Afghanistan was
ent; it is skeptical of its role in the world, predicated on an attack against the
more clear-eyed about the costs of war United States. This had happened only
despite having experienced those costs once before in American history and
only in predominantly tangential ways. had led to a decisive U.S. triumph. But
Americans’ appetite to export their unlike the greatest generation, our
ideals abroad is also diminished, particu- generation of veterans would enjoy no
larly as they struggle to uphold those such victory. Instead, we would be
ideals at home, whether in violence remembered as the ones who lost the
around the 2020 presidential election, United States’ longest war.
the summer of 2020’s civil unrest, or When I told him that even though
even the way the war on terror compro- we might have lost the war in Afghani-
mised the country through scandals from stan, our generation could still claim to
Abu Ghraib prison to Edward Snowden’s have won the war on terror, he was
leaks. A United States in which Band of skeptical. We debated the issue but soon
Brothers has near-universal appeal is a let it drop. The next day, I received an
distant memory. email from him. A southerner and a
It is also a reminder that national lover of literature, he had sent me the
narratives matter. The day before the following, from The Sound and the Fury:
United States departed on a 20-year
odyssey in the Middle East, the stories No battle is ever won. . . . They are
not even fought. The field only
people wanted to hear—or at least the reveals to man his own folly and
stories Hollywood executives believed despair, and victory is an illusion of
they wanted to hear—were the ones in philosophers and fools.∂
which the Americans were the good
guys, liberating the world from tyranny
and oppression.
WINNING AND LOSING

Not long after President Joe Biden
announced the U.S. withdrawal from
Afghanistan, I was speaking with a
former colleague at the cia. He had also
fought in Afghanistan and Iraq as a
marine, and he, too, was on that mission
in the Korengal Valley. But when I left
the cia, he remained and has spent his
career prosecuting the war on terror
around the world. Today, he runs
paramilitary operations at the agency.
We talked about the differences
between the withdrawal from Iraq and
the withdrawal from Afghanistan. We
agreed that the latter felt harder. Why?
SPONSORED SECTION
Graduate School Forum Showcase:
The
Opportunities
Ahead
After years of disruption, the international community has an
opportunity to rebuild and reinvigorate its path forward.
The pandemic underscores the need for international cooperation. A spotlight on systems of oppression
opens the chance to include those historically kept from decision-making. A worldwide economic slow-
down, ever-more-apparent inequality, and an escalating climate crisis challenge us to adopt new ways of
producing, working, and living.
To prepare for such opportune moments, future leaders need to understand the elements of interna-
tional affairs and policy.
Training in these disciplines develop the ability to recognize the cultural, economic, social, environmental,
and political forces at work in the world. It challenges students to build communication, leadership, and
teamwork skills. Its interdisciplinary curriculum and a diverse community of people integrate differing
perspectives. Programs distinguish themselves by their flexibility and adaptability.
As you search for a master’s program, ask how the program is trying to anticipate changes in the way
people will work, live, and govern in the future. Consider how they are adapting and innovating during the
pandemic. Look at how they bring different voices into the conversation. Discover in what ways students
challenge traditional ideas and formulate new ones. Examine how they work to cultivate leadership qualities
in students, as well as engage current policymakers.
Students of international affairs and policy can lay out a new blueprint for success. They can find the
silver lining in recent challenges, shake off the inertia of the past, and promote positive change.
By Carmen Iezzi Mezzera
Executive Director
Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (@apsiainfo)
ForeignAffairs.com/GraduateSchoolForum
SPONSORED SECTION
Contents
American University University of Pittsburgh

School of International Service (SIS) . . . . . . . 4 Graduate School of Public and
Learning to Thrive in the New Normal International Affairs (GSPIA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Carolyn Gallaher Shaping Leaders to Face Today’s Complex
Challenges
Michael Kenney
Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs . . . . 5
Jackson Prepares to Launch as Professional
School in Fall 2022 Seton Hall University
School of Diplomacy and
Kenneth Scheve International Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Working Toward a More Just and
Equitable World
Diplomatic Academy of Vienna
Fredline M’Cormack-Hale
Vienna School of International Studies . . . . 6
The Opportunities Ahead
Daniel Starr Tenorio and Thomas Kögler Stanford University
Ford Dorsey Master’s in
International Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Fordham University Preparing the Next Generation of Policy
Graduate Program in International Leaders
Political Economy and Development . . . . . . . 7
Chonira Aturupane
International Cooperation as Key to Facing
Global Crises
Henry Schwalbenberg Syracuse University
Maxwell School of Citizenship
and Public Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Schwarzman Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A Diverse, Interdisciplinary Ethos
Lead the Future: Schwarzman Scholars in the Gladys McCormick
21st Century
Cordel Faulk
NYU School of Professional Studies
Center for Global Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Building a Better Future
Mary Beth Altier
2
SPONSORED SECTION
Ritsumeikan University Thunderbird School of Global Management

Graduate School of International Studies . . . 14 Arizona State University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders From the Thunderbird: Where Global Meets High Tech
Ancient Capital Kyoto Sanjeev Khagram
Haruyuki Shimada
University of Kent
Texas A&M University Brussels School of International Studies . . . 20
The Bush School of Government Advanced International Studies in the Capital
and Public Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 of Europe with World-Leading Academics and
A New Concentration Focused on Latin Experienced Practitioners
America: Preparing Students to Address the Jeremy Carrette
Region’s Most Pressing Challenges
Aileen Teague
The George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs . . . . . 21
University of Washington The Elliott School Welcomed Me
The Henry M. Jackson School of
International Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Nobuko Maybin
Changing Global Connections
Leela Fernandes
Georgetown University
Walsh School of Foreign Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Building on Lessons from the Pandemic
Princeton University
Princeton School of Public and Victor Cha
International Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Preparing Leaders in International and
Domestic Public Affairs UC San Diego
School of Global Policy and Strategy . . . . . . 23
Alexandra Kahan
Sustainability in Action
Gordon McCord
Waseda University
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies . . . 18
Response to COVID-19 in the Asia-Pacific:

A Multidisciplinary Perspective from Tokyo
Yasushi Katsuma
3
SPONSORED SECTION
Carolyn Gallaher, PhD

Senior Associate Dean
School of International Service
American University
Learning to Thrive in the New Normal

What lessons learned, adjustments made, As a faculty, we’re building DEIJ skills for the class-
and/or innovations has your program room. We’ve decolonized core courses by adding units
implemented in the last 15 months? on nontraditional topics and incorporating authors from
Our faculty learned that they could teach online and do Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East in our
it well. That doesn’t mean there weren’t bumps along syllabi. We’re learning how to lead difficult conversations
the way—there were many—but in a crunch, we made in the classroom and strategizing how to keep these con-
it work. Faculty now have a new skill set—online teach- versations focused on readings rather than polemics. We
ing—and improved computer program competencies in realize that providing students with DEIJ knowledge and
Zoom, Canvas, and Teams. I expect we’ll take these skills skill-building is crucial to their future professional success.
with us back into the classroom. Ironically, holding office
hours online may facilitate more one-on-one meetings How do leadership roles for traditionally
between faculty and students as barriers to face-to-face underrepresented groups enhance your
meeting, including jobs, internships, and long commutes, programs?
are eliminated. Representation matters, especially at a school for interna-
tional affairs and especially at the leadership level, because
How are the mechanisms of policymaking it provides a more accurate picture of the world. Having
changing to adapt to a post-pandemic world? leaders from underrepresented populations broadens the
The global pandemic brought weaknesses in our local, perspective of everything we do, from helping students with
state, and federal policymaking process into sharp relief. problems they encounter to making policy and from design-
The need for cooperation became clear early on, when ing curricula to forging new international partnerships.
mayors, governors, and the executive branch initiated
contradictory policies on masks, school closings, and As the new U.S. administration refocuses on
travel. The importance of clear lines of decision-making international diplomacy and cooperation,
was also made depressingly obvious when governors how do your programs prepare students for
demanded the president purchase and distribute COVID-19 a more open dialogue on the global stage?
tests, only to be told it wasn’t the federal government’s We’ve always prepared our students to engage in
job to do this. We weren’t ready for the pandemic. Our diplomacy and dialogue with allies and adversaries
policymaking apparatus needs to be rebuilt from the alike. What’s different now is that we’re also teaching
ground up. them how to repair damaged relationships and to build
up what was lost during the last administration and the
How does your school promote new voices global pandemic.
and new perspectives in its diversity, equity,
inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) initiatives?
Like most higher education institutions, the School of
International Service still has much work to do on DEIJ
initiatives. At the faculty level, we’re focusing on hiring. We
need to bring Black, Latinx, and Indigenous voices onto
our faculty and into our classrooms to catch up with our
increasingly diverse student population.
4 american.edu/sis | sisgrad@american.edu | 202.885.1646

SPONSORED SECTION
Kenneth Scheve
Dean Acheson Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs
Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs
Jackson Prepares to Launch as

Professional School in Fall 2022
What are the major changes Jackson will affairs professionals. It is this mission that makes the
make when it becomes a professional school? M.P.P. degree name a great fit.
We will be investing in people who want to make a
difference by solving the most challenging problems in What will most distinguish the Yale Jackson
global affairs. This means significantly expanding our School of Global Affairs from its peer policy
faculty whose research informs critical public policy schools?
challenges in international security, development, Jackson’s M.P.P. occupies a unique place among
trade, climate, global health, human rights, and other international affairs graduate programs because of its
areas. Central to this investment is changing our two- flexibility and size. The four-course interdisciplinary
year professional degree to a master in public policy core curriculum provides students with a shared intel-
(M.P.P.) and reimagining our curriculum to better lectual foundation focused on acquisition of the ideas,
prepare future global affairs professionals for impactful ways of thinking, and skills needed for leadership in
leadership. Jackson has always been a community in global affairs. The small core both prepares students to
which students, faculty, and distinguished practitioners identify and investigate solutions to the global issues
come together to work on important global problems. they are most passionate about and gives students the
As a professional school, the Jackson community will unusual flexibility to design an individualized course
have the resources, scale, and focus to make an even of study around those issues by taking advantage of
greater difference in the world. the extraordinary breadth of courses and resources
at Jackson and across Yale. With about thirty-five
What was the rationale behind changing students in each entering class, Jackson’s program is
the degree name from an M.A. to an M.P.P.? small by design. Our size allows us to deliver distinctive
Students enrolled in our two-year graduate program programs such as a writing program integrated into the
have diverse goals but share a commitment to careers core curriculum that provides students with extensive
as public service professionals. Changing our degree training and feedback in writing for different objectives
name to an M.P.P. communicates to prospective students in the policymaking process. It also encourages graduate
and employers our focus on developing the professional students to form an intimate and close-knit learning
skills needed for policymaking leadership. We deliver community among themselves as well as with faculty
students an interdisciplinary education that provides and practitioners.
them with the ideas, concepts, and skills to be creative
problem solvers in a lifelong career in global affairs.
Our core curriculum integrates fundamental insights
from academic disciplines such as economics, political
science, and history with the development of analytical
and communication skills. Jackson’s program is intel-
lectually dynamic and challenging but focused on ideas
and skill-building directly relevant to a career as global
jackson.yale.edu | jackson.admissions@yale.edu | 203.432.6253 5

SPONSORED SECTION
Daniel Starr Tenorio

Master of Advanced International Studies Program 2020–22
Diplomatische Akademie Wien – Vienna School
of International Studies
Thomas Kögler
Master of Advanced International Studies Program 2017–19
Diplomatische Akademie Wien – Vienna School of
International Studies, a recent graduate
currently working for Austrian National Bank
The Opportunities Ahead

G raduate programs at the Diplomatische Akademie
Wien – Vienna School of International Studies (DA)
prepare students to excel in international careers. Located
democratic norms. It will be a challenge for people in
these countries to reinstall democratic norms; it is vital
that international policymakers aid their efforts.
in the heart of Vienna, the DA is near international orga-
nizations, nongovernmental organizations, diplomatic What innovations has your program
missions, and cultural institutions. With alumni from implemented in the last 15 months?
over 120 countries, the DA has a vast network around Daniel: One of our programs’ selling points is networking
the world. opportunities, which were negatively affected by move-
ment restrictions. In response, the DA hosted online events
As the new U.S. administration refocuses on that allowed students to meet people across industries,
international diplomacy and cooperation, and they led to internships, employment, or contacts to
how do your programs prepare students for further students’ careers after graduation. The DA offered
a more open dialogue on the global stage? a course on COVID-19 and its impact on the international
Thomas: While the Biden administration is a breath of state system, which analyzed international public health
fresh air after the presidency of Donald Trump, the skills history and the different societal and state responses.
needed to succeed in this environment are not new. It takes a Comparing the current pandemic with past crises enables
holistic, interdisciplinary approach with a broad knowledge us to recognize the mistakes that we made over the past
of history, politics, and economics as well as transcultural 15 months and provide insight to exit the pandemic with
sensibility to find meaningful compromises and advance as little loss as possible.
not only the interests of a specific nation but of humankind.
The pandemic and the global climate crisis have shown us How does your school promote new voices
that we need to find new answers and intensify the dialogue and new perspectives in its diversity, equity,
between decision-makers and experts of various fields. inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) initiatives?
The graduate programs offered by the DA combine the Daniel: Despite being a small school, the DA has a variety
best of two worlds: diplomatic skills and interdisciplinary of student-led groups, which promote different identities,
knowledge necessary on the international stage as well as such as the Hispanic, queer, and sustainability societies.
expertise on topics that will shape our future. In addition, Students can pursue their interests and advocate for
the DA’s challenging curriculum leaves room for pursuing issues that they find most important. For instance, at
individual academic interests. the Hispanic society, people can practice their Spanish,
meet ambassadors and ministers from Spanish-speaking
How are policymaking mechanisms changing missions in Vienna, and learn about Latin American and
to adapt to a post-pandemic world? Spanish cultures.
Daniel: Policymaking bodies have had to act more
efficiently in implementing restrictions and authoriz-
ing expenditure at short notice, leaving no room for
filibustering and forcing cross-aisle cooperation. In the
post-pandemic world, policymakers must maintain the
same standards of collaboration to guarantee swift reaction
in the next emergency.
Democracies without strong institutions ex ante have
suffered as leaders consolidate power without regard for
6 da-vienna.ac.at | info@da-vienna.ac.at | +43 1 . 505 . 72 . 72 x120

SPONSORED SECTION
Professor Henry Schwalbenberg

Director
The Graduate Program in International
Political Economy and Development
Fordham University
International Cooperation as Key to

Facing Global Crises
What sets Fordham IPED apart from other What unique advantages are available for
international affairs programs? students in the Fordham IPED program?
Fordham’s Graduate Program in International Political Our curriculum and our location in New York City are ideal
Economy and Development (Fordham IPED) offers a for anyone who wishes to be at the center of the world
unique, rigorous, and innovative approach to analyzing economy. Our location affords our students a wealth of
contemporary global economic relations. We study issues internship opportunities, ranging from the United Nations
in international economic relations and in international and international nonprofit organizations to international
development from both a political and an economic think tanks and Wall Street.
perspective. Furthermore, we provide a strong quantita- We also complement our classes with a weekly lecture
tive methods foundation that allows our students to series and various career trips in New York and Washington,
develop robust analytical skills in data analysis, project DC, that feature a broad range of professionals highlighting
assessment, and computer programming. We also stress the practitioner perspective on contemporary issues in
professional experience outside of the classroom. As international affairs.
well, we only admit a small select group of about 20 Our small class size of roughly 20 students provides the
students each year. opportunity for close interactions with our supportive and
distinguished faculty of experts. Our students, drawn from
How does Fordham IPED prepare its around the world, come from diverse cultural and professional
students to participate in promoting backgrounds. Our students are from among the top 40% of
international cooperation and diplomacy all applicants to U.S. graduate programs. We offer generous
in combating global crises? scholarships to exceptional students, and provide funding for
Our core curriculum provides our students with an students’ participation in internship placements, language
advanced interdisciplinary knowledge of global economic immersion programs, and international fieldwork overseas
relations, giving them the expertise critically needed in in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
restarting a world economy. As examples, in the nonprofit Lastly, we have a strong alumni network and close
sector, we have alumni who are part of emergency response association with various international organizations. Our
teams to health outbreaks, including managing global and placement record is strong, with about 40% of alumni
domestic vaccination campaigns. In the public sector, we in the private sector, 24% in the nonprofit sector, 27%
have alumni who work with international trade agencies in government, and the remaining 9% in academia. Our
that safeguard and enhance the competitive strength of graduates also have a strong record of winning various
local industries against unfair trade practices. In the private prestigious awards, such as Fulbright Fellowships, U.S.
sector, we have alumni who are engaged in impact invest- Presidential Management Fellowships, and international
ing, using the dynamics of portfolio management to fund development fellowships.
development projects. Drawing from the strength of their
training from the Fordham IPED program, these alumni
are able to promote effective development strategies,
accountable governance, and fair and equitable trade
and commerce for a revitalized global economy.
iped.fordham.edu | iped@fordham.edu | 718.817.4064 7

SPONSORED SECTION
Cordel Faulk
Director of Global Admissions
Schwarzman Scholars
Lead the Future: Schwarzman

Scholars in the 21st Century
Why should aspiring global leaders apply to How did Schwarzman Scholars respond
a master’s degree in global affairs in China? as a program to COVID-19?
Our Founding Trustee Steve Schwarzman has long said Since we are based in Beijing, Schwarzman Scholars was
that, in the twenty-first century, China is no longer an one of the first programs to go fully virtual in January
elective course; it is core curriculum. Looking at the state 2020. We quickly pivoted to support our Scholars from
of the world in 2021, it is hard to disagree. China is one of around the world, increasing our course offerings by over
the largest economies in the world and its role, culturally 20% while our faculty led classes for Scholars across 18
and politically, has become more important in the short time zones. We hosted guests such as Madeleine Albright,
term than we ever could have predicted. Richard Haass, Condoleezza Rice, Indra Nooyi, and more.
Through leadership training, a rigorous curriculum, Our careers team also hosted more than 120 collective
deep dives, internships, mentoring, and language coaching and resume review sessions while our student
instruction, Schwarzman Scholars have unparalleled life team conducted over 25 virtual Deep Dives, a hallmark
opportunities to connect with Chinese culture while of our program’s unique curriculum.
learning about global affairs. They develop skills to Travel restrictions during the pandemic did not
maximize their leadership potential through firsthand deter today’s young leaders from wanting to learn more
experiences in China. To be a leader in any discipline, you about China. We hosted over 13,000 students in online
need to understand China—and Schwarzman Scholars is information sessions in 2020 – twice as many as in 2019.
the best place to do so. We received more than 3,600 applications to select 151
students from 39 countries to join our incoming sixth
The pandemic spawned new obstacles to cohort who will start the program this August.
multilateralism around the world. What
were the main lessons learned?
As the world lived through COVID-19, we saw that no
country or community can tackle these complex challenges
alone. This includes Schwarzman Scholars: in addition to
acquiring critical leadership skills in an uncertain world,
Scholars need to cultivate relationships across borders.
More than ever before, the past year has highlighted
the strength and resilience of the Schwarzman Scholars
community. Scholars have gone above and beyond in
giving back to their communities across more than forty
initiatives they founded during the pandemic - from
facilitating access to credit and PPE, to founding a virtual
tutoring program, and creating a microgrant venture to
support high school entrepreneurs. We know Schwarzman
Scholars will continue to prove how multilateralism can
create a lasting positive impact.
8 schwarzmanscholars.org | info@schwarzmanscholars.org | 212.314.8740

SPONSORED SECTION
Dr. Michael Kenney

Posvar Chair in International Security Studies
Director, Matthew B. Ridgway Center for
International Security Studies
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh
Shaping Leaders to Face Today’s

Complex Challenges
What makes the Graduate School of Public Black Scholars in International Relations, which host
and International Affairs (GSPIA) unique, prominent African American scholars who are making
and how does the Ridgway Center enhance important contributions to our understanding of inter-
that experience to prepare students for a national affairs. This series is part of a larger multi-year
more open dialogue on the global stage? initiative, Diversity Series in World Politics. We were also
thrilled to host Lt. General Richard Clark, the first African
The GSPIA prides itself on shaping the next generation
American superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy.
of forward-thinking leaders in international affairs and
The vast majority of Ridgway Center events last year
public service by offering a rigorous academic experience
featured women and/or members of underrepresented
and extensive experiential learning opportunities that
communities. We will continue to promote new voices
inspire our graduates to address diverse challenges.
and perspectives in the years ahead.
Our location at one of the country’s most distinguished
The Ridgway Center is co-sponsor of the University
research institutions, combined with its new Washington,
of Pittsburgh’s chapter of Women in International
DC Center, allows students to network with both local
Security, which is dedicated to advancing the leadership
Pittsburgh leaders and those on the national stage.
and professional development of women in the field of
Securities and intelligence studies majors receive
international peace and security. The chapter maintains a
training in leadership, research, and technical skills devel-
student executive board that provides valuable leadership
opment. They also have the opportunity to participate in
roles and experience to our students.
a variety of projects, events, and workshops.
At the Ridgway Center, students work with world-
renowned researchers and practitioners on projects
What skills will students need to meet the
tackling real-world security problems, including nuclear challenges policymakers face in today’s
proliferation, WMDs, extremism and political violence, changing world?
transnational organized crime, and cybersecurity. Outside Policymakers confront complex challenges—an ongoing
the classroom, students participate in working groups that global health pandemic, the struggle for social justice and
provide cutting-edge research to client agencies working equity, persistent threats to peace and security—that often
in security, development, and diplomacy. In addition to transcend national boundaries. Even as the policy chal-
these public-private partnerships, the Ridgway Center offers lenges change, the skills students need to confront them
internships, independent studies, and scholarships to a select remain largely the same. These include, but are not limited
number of students. Events are hosted throughout the year. to, informed subject matter expertise, critical and ethical
thinking, quantitative and qualitative research methods,
How is the Ridgeway Center actively working and clear, coherent communication. We train our students
to promote new perspectives in its diversity, in all these areas. In doing so, we shape leaders who are
equity, inclusion, and justice initiatives adaptable, compassionate, and visionary—leaders who are
and to provide leadership opportunities for ready to face the complex challenges in the world today.
traditionally underrepresented groups?
The Ridgway Center has undertaken a concerted effort
to increase the diversity, equity, and inclusion of our
programming. Recently, we created a new speaker series,
gspia.pitt.edu | gspia@pitt.edu 9
SPONSORED SECTION
Fredline M’Cormack-Hale, PhD

Associate Professor and Director of
Online Programs
School of Diplomacy and International Relations
Seton Hall University
Working Toward a More Just and

Equitable World
You have been recognized for your excellence new courses on race and racism, and building the pipeline
in online teaching. How do you keep students of diverse international affairs professionals. Our students
connected and engaged? challenge us to be more responsive and to represent a
In some ways, we are more connected than ever! Students range of voices. As faculty, we are learning from them
from around the world have been able to join us virtu- and working together to be intentionally anti-racist and
ally, expanding accessibility and adding richness to the address inequality.
graduate school experience. Students engage with each
other’s ideas; they challenge, support, and learn from one How do students benefit from the school’s
another. They hold study sessions, work collaboratively, multidisciplinary, multilateral approach to
make presentations, and receive feedback. We host virtual international affairs?
events, guest speakers, online advising, group discussions, Our proximity to New York City and Washington, DC,
office hours, and one-to-one chats. and unique alliances with the UN community expands
students’ knowledge base and perspective on global
Your research focuses on the role of women challenges. Students learn from scholars and practitioners
in democratization. What impact do women engaged in research and policymaking. We represent the
have on policy and access to leadership? complexities of decision-making and analysis of world
Women’s leadership needs to be the new normal. We events from multiple perspectives. Students work with
need to address patriarchal structures that marginalize professors as research assistants and co-author articles
women using legal reform and continued engagement. The and opinion pieces, gaining advantage in the job market.
pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women,
yet policies are largely gender blind. We celebrate women What advice can you give young professionals
leaders for performing better in containing COVID-19, but interested in international affairs?
women in leadership are outliers; despite years of advocat- Never lose your passion for transformative change. Be
ing for greater representation of women at all levels, this open to learning from those who do not look like you,
still lags in practice. For example, in Sierra Leone, the focus as well as from those you want to “help.” Admit that
of much of my research, women represent less than 10 what you do not know is much more than what you do.
percent of the leadership in key institutions charged with A key message for students is that development has to
fighting the outbreak, despite leading on the frontlines as change—they have to play their part in decolonizing aid
health care workers. COVID-19 reminds us that the battle and development institutions and promoting equity in
for gender equity and equality is far from over. development. International cooperation and multilateral
solutions to global problems have never been more
How does the School of Diplomacy and essential. The world needs our graduates. This is a critical
International Relations prepare students to time to become an international affairs professional.
work in today’s diverse world?
Our community is a microcosm of the world. Our students
are the changemakers leading the way. Our Diversity,
Equity, Inclusion and Justice Coalition is listening to
students and alumni, assessing curriculum, developing
10 shu.edu/diplomacy | diplomat@shu.edu | 973.275.2142

SPONSORED SECTION
Dr. Chonira Aturupane

Associate Director for Academic and Student Affairs
Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy
Stanford University
Preparing the Next Generation

of Policy Leaders
How are the mechanisms of policymaking in new technologies have affected the future of work, life,
changing to adapt to a post-pandemic world? and policymaking, with a view to designing impactful and
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed challenges that too prescient policies.
often stand in the way of effective policymaking. Three These components of the MIP program provide
such challenges have become particularly salient over invaluable opportunities for discussing challenges at
the course of this pandemic. the forefront of global discourse during the COVID-19
The first is the prevalence of unreliable information. pandemic. Our students graduate from the program
The increasingly rapid adoption of new technologies well prepared to be effective policymakers in a post-
has facilitated the rampant spread of misinformation, pandemic world.
clouding our ability to analyze societal problems that
could benefit from policy solutions. The pandemic has How does your school promote new voices
highlighted the importance of sourcing credible data and new perspectives in its diversity,
for effective policymaking. The second is the degree to equity, inclusion, and social justice (DEIJ)
which uncertainty and unpredictable factors can derail initiatives?
the best-laid plans. Planning ahead for various what-if Students at MIP were instrumental in advocating for
scenarios, even unlikely ones, is now a necessary step for change and a commitment to DEI within MIP and our home
policymakers. Similarly, it has become essential to look at institute, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International
global trends to assess how various circumstances might Studies (FSI). In June 2020, FSI convened a task force on
impact current and future events. This is particularly Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) following
important in the solution design and implementation MIP student demands for a concerted response to racial
stages of policymaking. The third challenge relates to the injustice. Among REDI’s stated goals are the pursuit of an
importance of comprehensive and feasible implementa- anti-racist mandate, increasing the diversity of the FSI
tion plans. For instance, COVID vaccine rollouts in many community, and programming and curricular proposals
places have illustrated how policy shortfalls or vague to achieve pedagogical reform. Two MIP students and I
implementation plans can have dire consequences. serve on the REDI task force.
The Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy In parallel, MIP took concrete steps toward the recruit-
(MIP) program trains students to address such challenges ment and admission of the most racially diverse class to
head-on. Our capstone program utilizes a framework date and committed to making DEI trainings a formal
that focuses on the entirety of the policymaking process, part of programming for incoming students and to hold
from problem identification and solution development to events on DEIJ themes. We look forward to continuing to
policy implementation. The program’s cyber policy and build on these important efforts, now and in the future.
security specialization addresses issues of misinforma-
tion, disinformation, and the impact of technology on
policymaking. Additionally, the MIP curriculum includes
courses taught by former and current practitioners with
direct experience dealing with a myriad of challenging
policy issues. For instance, my course on trade and develop-
ment analyzes trends and discusses how advancements
fsi.stanford.edu/masters-degree | internationalpolicy@stanford.edu | 650.725.9075 11

SPONSORED SECTION
Gladys McCormick
Associate Professor of History; Jay and Debe Moskowitz
Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations; and Associate Dean
of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
Senior Associate of the Americas Program at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.
A Diverse, Interdisciplinary Ethos
In many circles, Gladys McCormick represents a distinctive

point of view when it comes to discussing U.S. foreign
policy with Latin America. As an historian, a woman,
I impart on students that they must be attuned to the
social, political, and holistic considerations of a region.
Looking at the future, crafting policy, requires a study
and a naturalized U.S. citizen from Costa Rica—often the of the past.
only one in the room—she adds vital context to inform At Maxwell, my contextual understanding is strength-
solutions to pressing issues. ened by colleagues within the Moynihan Institute for
At the Maxwell School, McCormick has found a home Global Affairs. In this environment, I am immersed, for
among scholars and practitioners guided by a longstand- example, in the work of economists focused on financial
ing interdisciplinary principle: Diverse viewpoints fuel crime in Asia and political scientists studying the Middle
innovation and deliver better outcomes. East’s refugee crisis. This leads to research collaboration,
such as a recent paper I co-wrote with sociologist Edwin
As an international scholar and as director of Ackerman analyzing COVID quarantine efforts in Mexico.
diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for the
number-one–ranked school of public affairs How is Maxwell working to instill in its
in the United States, what do you see as the students this inclusive ethos?
most pressing issue of the past 15 months? Our students have long benefited from the range of
COVID has revealed and widened the deep chasm of perspectives that come from our interdisciplinary
inequalities, domestically and internationally. The public approach: Looking at an issue from diverse lenses fuels
health systems in many countries, especially in Asia and their understanding that successful ideas and policies
Latin America, have been completely overwhelmed. Many must reflect our diverse world.
have lacked basic healthcare, let alone access to vaccines. The recent social justice reckoning added momentum
The pandemic has also had a sweeping economic impact; to our work to build a culture of inclusivity and remove
while the wealthiest made more money in 2020, the middle barriers for the underrepresented. We created a robust
class and lower middle class have been devastated. All of DEI strategic plan that established affinity groups and
this is certain to fuel instability. launched cross-cultural dialogue opportunities. We also
just concluded a graduate colloquium in which students
How can looking at an issue through the developed action plans for implementing these practices
lens of history and other disciplines provide in their professional lives.
insight to map a path forward? This work is ongoing on both our Syracuse and
Washington, D.C., campuses.
Let’s look at the drug war in Mexico as an example.
Undeniably, it has been a failure; we’ve seen exponential
growth in violence. Many look to 2006 as the war’s
focal point because of the marked explosion in cartels,
but they were around for decades—born from weak
government institutions. The failure of the drug war is
a failure to reckon with history. It shows the falsehood
of the cookie-cutter mentality in policy—that because a
solution worked in one context, it must work in another.
12 maxwell.syr.edu/paia | MaxEnroll@syr.edu | 315.443.4000

SPONSORED SECTION
Mary Beth Altier

Clinical Associate Professor
Director, Transnational Security Concentration
NYU School of Professional Studies
Center for Global Affairs
Building a Better Future

How does the Center for Global Affairs at Office, New York City Cyber Command, the Institute for
the NYU School of Professional Studies the Healing of Memories, and the International Center
prepare individuals to confront the for Transitional Justice.
significant global challenges we’ve
witnessed over the past 15 months? Can you tell us how you are innovating to
The pandemic and other recent events, such as the build a better future?
attack on the U.S. Capitol, have highlighted funda- Changes in social and economic activity during the
mental flaws in the international system and within pandemic generated an important pause in climate
individual nation-states. However, these events have emissions and the improvement of air and water quality
also demonstrated the incredible resilience of demo- in certain locations. Our newly formed Energy, Climate
cratic and international institutions when confronted Justice, and Sustainability Lab is at the forefront of
with substantial challenges and offered important informing the debate around a rapidly changing energy
opportunities for reflection and much needed reform. sector and climate impacts. Faculty, students, and
At the Center for Global Affairs, we teach future leaders alumni also examine and publish on a range of timely
how to anticipate, prepare for, and respond creatively security issues—the reintegration of violent extremists,
and effectively to global threats and opportunities including those associated with ISIS, drug cartels’ use of
such as these. We do this through interdisciplinary social media, nuclear proliferation, climate change in the
and interactive coursework and applied learning and Sahel, the CIA’s use of torture—as part of our Initiative
networking activities. on Emerging Threats. Our Peace Research and Education
During the pandemic, we significantly expanded our Program is involved in on-the-ground post-conflict
consulting practicum offerings. In these courses, students peacebuilding efforts in Colombia, Libya, and Iraq. We’ve
work for a high profile partner on a project of critical developed an Executive Education program in Cyber
importance. Over the years, students have collaborated Leadership to help organizations prevent, mitigate,
with the UN Counterterrorism Executive Directorate on and respond to cyberattacks. Finally, our student body
terrorists’ use of social media, returning terrorist fighters, is international and diverse, and we do not shy away
the role of technology in counterterrorism, and the rise from the hard and potentially contentious questions in
of right-wing terrorism. They’ve worked with the Global global affairs. We address them head-on with mutual
Network on Women Peacebuilders to examine the impact respect for one another in an effort to identify solutions
of COVID-19 on women peacebuilders in Colombia, the that will move us forward.
Philippines, South Sudan, and Ukraine. They’ve partnered
with the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement
Center to investigate and propose strategic communica-
tions solutions to radicalization and recruitment into
terrorism in Nigeria and Somalia, polarization and state
sponsored disinformation in the Western Balkans, and
racially and ethnically motivated violence in the United
States. Other practicum partners now include Mastercard,
the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, the Manhattan District Attorney’s
sps.nyu.edu/cga | 212 . 998 . 7100 13

SPONSORED SECTION
Professor Haruyuki Shimada

Dean
The Graduate School of International Relations
Ritsumeikan University
Preparing Tomorrow’s Leaders From

the Ancient Capital Kyoto
T he Graduate School of International Relations at

Ritsumeikan University (GSIR) is located in Kyoto, the
ancient capital of Japan. Kyoto not only has a considerable
What does GSIR offer to students who are
seeking advantages for their careers?
In addition to providing ways for upgrading academic
number of world-class historical sites but is also home to knowledge and skills through the programs, GSIR invites
more than thirty higher educational institutions. Students experienced external lecturers, such as diplomats,
have the advantage to pursue their own study and research economists, journalists, managers of nongovernmental
in a unique environment where tradition and innovation organizations, and entrepreneurs from private sectors.
co-exist in harmony. This gives students opportunities to promote their
understanding of what is really happening in Japan and
How are you preparing students to adapt to in the world as well as encourages them to find clues to
a rapidly changing world? address global issues. Moreover, we are preparing various
In 2020, only a handful of our students from abroad could off-campus academic and practical training opportunities
enter Japan due to the pandemic. To cope with the ever- in Japan, which will also help students realize how the
changing situation, GSIR delivered classes combining Japanese political and economic system are operating
online conference, on-demand, and in-person classes. in both public and private sectors.
The pandemic has cast questions over the existing Furthermore, GSIR has been in the process of
framework of university and research institutions, urging strengthening the dual master’s degree program, which
us to reconsider the significance and our role. This led us offers qualified students an opportunity to study at
to launch a new curriculum that we had been working overseas partner universities and research institutes in
on for several years, which has a strong focus on classes countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States,
conducted in English. and in various Asian and European nations. Through this
Within the English-based program, GSIR offers program, students are able to earn two master’s degrees
four newly established clusters: ‘Global Governance’, in as short as two years.
‘Sustainable Development’, ‘Culture, Society and Media’ Our alumni are engaged in professions in the fields
and ‘Global Japanese Studies’. These clusters cover broad of international organizations, public and private sec-
academic disciplines, such as politics, economics, sociol- tors, civil society groups, and research and educational
ogy, and cultural studies. Our highly qualified academic institutions. GSIR is ready to offer committed students
team with extensive experience in their fields of expertise every opportunity to acquire high level of knowledge and
conduct the various cutting-edge courses. As our graduate skills for their future careers.
school has been admitting more students not only from
Asia but also from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the
Middle East, and North America year by year, students
can immerse themselves in a culturally and ethnically
diverse environment, where they learn from each other
on a daily basis.
14 ritsumei.ac.jp/gsir/eng | ir-adm@st.ritsumei.ac.jp
SPONSORED SECTION
Aileen Teague
Assistant Professor, PhD
The Bush School of Government and Public Service
Texas A&M University
A New Concentration Focused on Latin

America: Preparing Students to Address
the Region’s Most Pressing Challenges
T he state of Texas is no stranger to border and immigra-
tion issues that have been in the forefront of national
headlines for years. The Bush School of Government and
comprehensive immigration reform and improved border
security, given the highly partisan political environment.
Additionally, a capstone project features students
Public Service at Texas A&M University recently expanded interfacing with real-world governmental and non-
its regional focus to include Latin America, providing a governmental agencies operating in Latin America and
rigorous and interactive option for those interested in internships that help students develop their professional
studying the border, Mexico, and Latin America. Dr. Aileen networks. With the backing of one of the largest public
Teague brings a global perspective to the coursework, both universities in the country and alumni dedicated to giving
as a PhD in diplomatic history specializing in U.S.-Mexico back and supporting service, our students make their
relations and having travelled the world in a military family mark all over the world.
before serving in the Marine Corps.
How does the Bush School promote new
What makes the Bush School’s Latin America voices and new perspectives in U.S.
concentration unique? relations with Mexico and Latin America?
With the Brownsville-Matamoros border crossing located While research is a bedrock of our Latin America concentra-
only 6.5 hours south of our College Station campus, the tion, we also highlight a range of perspectives from U.S.
interdisciplinary Latin America concentration—drawing and foreign practitioners. In 2020, we launched “The Other
from history, politics, development, and border stud- Side of the Border: Ties that Bind and Issues that Divide,” a
ies—provides students with a dynamic curriculum and speaker series featuring human-centered and practitioner
practical tools to gain expertise in the region. perspectives on issues related to the border, Mexico, and
Our faculty help students gain a multi-perspectival Central America.
understanding of regional issues both within nation-states We live in uncertain times when it comes to achiev-
and across country borders, where the social, political, ing reforms in immigration and border security in the
and economic interconnectivity between the United States post-Trump era. This project aims to facilitate dialogue
and its Latin American partners have reverberations on between policy practitioners and our graduate students
a global scale. and is intended to unearth “off-the-book,” grassroots
Students’ training in U.S.-Latin America relations inte- perspectives, which are often where the road begins to
grates cutting-edge academic research with high impact achieving reform. This year, for example, the series will
learning experiences. For instance, as an historian of the feature a discussion with a Mexican journalist on the dan-
drug trade in Mexico, I instill in my courses an appreciation gers of reporting on the drug war, as well as a conversation
for the ways in which historical legacies contextualize and with an Amazonian activist on the challenges of utilizing
complicate current policymaking. international aid in the aftermath of the 2020 fires.
American domestic politics and interactions also play
a role when we bring in practitioners and policymakers to
engage in dialogue with our students. A former assistant
secretary in the Department of Homeland Security joined
us in seminar recently to discuss the possibilities for
bush.tamu.edu | bushschooladmissions@tamu.edu | 979.826.3476 15

SPONSORED SECTION
Leela Fernandes
Director
Stanley D. Golub Endowed Chair
The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies
University of Washington
Changing Global Connections

How do your programs prepare students for public writing and engagement with the support of the
a more open dialogue on the global stage? Calderwood program. Our inaugural graduate Calderwood
Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate seminar, Religion, Freedom, and the Public Sphere, will
change have revealed the urgency and complexities of be taught this coming winter. We have been expanding
addressing global challenges. Effective responses require our cybersecurity program and some master’s degree
a combination of good policies, strong institutions, and students in a graduate course from this past year will have
public communication and engagement. The Jackson the opportunity to produce a NATO publication related to
School prepares students to meet practical challenges this course. We have also created an inaugural professor
through a mission of public engagement that combines of practice position on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle
these varied aspects. This allows for a more open dia- East, which we will be filling in the coming year. Finally,
logue on the global stage. Public engagement includes we launched a speaker series titled, Protest, Race and
a variety of actors, ranging from governmental officials Citizenship Across African Worlds, that emphasized the
and policymakers to nongovernmental organizations and significance of global and regional understandings for an
social movements to the media. Our faculty have expertise understanding of the complexities of racial inequality and
that spans themes as wide-ranging as disability rights, justice in the United States.
space policy, and environmental justice. We combine
thematic areas with deep knowledge and professional How can we engage new voices and new
ties to particular regions. This allows us to train students perspectives in the fields of international
to learn about and to collaborate with communities and relations?
partners across the world. One of the few positive dimensions that came out of
the COVID-19 pandemic was a broadening of the use of
What role do matters of identity play in technology for collaborative work across the world. This
international relations and policymaking? has shown the significance of digital-based international
Global dialogue requires an understanding of identity studies. Over the coming years, we will be expanding such
in international relations. One of our unique strengths pedagogical platforms to bring in new perspectives and
is a robust program in comparative religion. Our school finding ways to address voices that are marginalized by
provides students with a deep understanding of the a lack of access to such technology.
critical role of religious literacy for policymaking and
conflict resolution. We also foreground the study of race,
indigeneity, and gender and train students to think about
the ways in which diasporic politics and global migration
deepen the centrality of identity in global affairs.
What innovations have your program

implemented in the last 15 months?
We have implemented a number of initiatives that are
designed to further these objectives. We have recently
set up a series of courses that seek to train students in
16 jsis.washington.edu | jsisma@uw.edu | 206.543.6001

SPONSORED SECTION
Alexandra Kahan
Chief of Staff to the Coordinator for Global
COVID-19 Response and Health Security
U.S. Department of State
Master in Public Policy, 2017
Preparing Leaders in International

and Domestic Public Affairs
T he Princeton School of Public and International Affairs’

one-year, full-time residential master in public policy
(MPP) degree is ideal for midcareer professionals who
How has Princeton’s unique midcareer
MPP program helped you advance within
your career?
are rising leaders in international and domestic public When I met my MPP class in the summer, I was blown away,
affairs. While MPP students are required to select a field of not only by their experiences and accomplishments, but
concentration when applying to the school, the structure by their humility, humor, and kindness. With peers from
of the degree is flexible and allows students to tailor their varied professions and governments, we spent the MPP
studies to their specific career goals. year in rich conversation, reflecting on lessons in policy,
As members of tight-knit cohorts, students foster leadership, and the aspiration for, and practicalities of,
lifelong relationships with their classmates and learn governing. Over the course of the year, we made lifelong
from one another’s diverse experiences, interests, and bonds and a community that I will continue to lean on
backgrounds. throughout my career and life.
We recently sat down with graduate Alexandra Kahan
(MPP ’17) to trace her steps from Princeton to the U.S. How has your job transformed over the last
Department of State and understand how the midcareer year throughout the pandemic?
program equipped her with new skills and perspectives
In the day-to-day, I had to navigate new ways of com-
to tackle the most pressing policy challenges.
municating and managing a team during a mostly virtual
work setting. The pandemic has transformed not only
How did Princeton prepare you to adapt
the way that I work but the focus of my efforts as well.
in the face of changing, complex global
COVID response, globally, has become the singular focus
challenges? of my career at present. In my current position at the U.S.
Earning my MPP from the School of Public and Department of State, our team is working to drive and
International Affairs was a pivotal experience for me. shape the U.S. leadership role in the response and recovery
With a truly unique academic setting made possible by effort. We are working across the U.S. government and
the financial generosity afforded to all students, each with international partners to drive action that will help
course and discussion was made richer by students mitigate impact, shorten the lifespan of the pandemic,
with incredible experiences and diverse points of view and build a sustainable global health security architecture
from all over the country and the world. I was able to to prevent, detect, and respond to future health and
take a step back from my career and reflect on critical, biosecurity threats.
complex global challenges that I had an opportunity
to see up close in practice based on my prior work. My
time at Princeton gave me an opportunity to grapple
with these issues anew, through the multiple lenses of
my peers, the faculty, and academic focus.
spia.princeton.edu | spiaadmissions@princeton.edu | 609.258.4836 17

SPONSORED SECTION
Yasushi Katsuma
Professor
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies
Waseda University
Response to COVID-19 in the Asia-Pacific:

A Multidisciplinary Perspective from Tokyo
T o imagine a post-pandemic world, Waseda University’s
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS) offers
an intellectually stimulating research environment in
Minister Shinzo Abe launched his plan to distribute two
small gauze masks to each household. Many people were
dissatisfied with his plan and its implementation, calling
Tokyo. Students will approach the COVID-19 response them “Abe no Masuku” (Abe’s masks).
in the Asia-Pacific from a multidisciplinary perspective. In addition to advocating for face-mask wearing
and hand washing, a campaign called Avoid the 3 Cs
Infectious Disease Outbreaks on International was launched, encouraging people to stay away from
Ships: Reimagining Global Health Governance? crowded places, close-contact settings, and confined and
A COVID-19 outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship enclosed spaces. Do you think the relative success of such
drew global attention in February 2020. The cruise program nonpharmaceutical interventions may have delayed the
was run by a U.S. company, Princess Cruises, which owns vaccination rollout in Japan?
the ship. When a passenger who disembarked at a port
in Hong Kong tested positive for COVID-19, authorities A State of Emergency During the Olympics:
reported the case to the World Health Organization and Public Health or Economic Development?
Japan, based on the 2005 International Health Regulations. The Japanese Constitution does not allow the government
After Vietnam, Taiwan, and Okinawa, the Diamond to enforce a hard lockdown, as it would be considered
Princess was on its way to Yokohama. According to the UN an infringement on personal freedoms. Instead, the
Convention on the Law of the Sea, jurisdiction over the ship Japanese government asks for cooperation in reducing
belongs to the flag state—the United Kingdom—while on human movements and restricting commercial activities.
the high seas and to the coastal state—Japan—while on Determined to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games,
Japan’s internal waters. Japan allowed the ship to call at the government declared another state of emergency,
Yokohama and extended support to passengers and crew. agreeing not to have spectators at venues in the greater
As the burden on coastal states is heavy, a new Tokyo area. As an unprecedented international mass
mechanism of international cooperation and burden gathering occurring during a pandemic, there will be
sharing among stakeholders needs to be established for many lessons to be learned.
future infectious disease outbreaks on international ships. What has happened in Japan may help students
How would you reimagine global health governance? identify knowledge gaps in an academic community and
encourage them to formulate their own research question.
The Politics of Wearing Face Masks: Public Waseda University’s GSAPS is an ideal location for students
Health or Individual Freedom? to conduct multidisciplinary research.
Many Asian countries have been successful in nonphar-
maceutical interventions to the pandemic. In Japan,
people wear face masks to mitigate spring allergies and
to prevent spreading seasonal influenza in winter. After
the first case of COVID-19 was identified in Japan, many
people started wearing face masks voluntarily when
commuting. However, due to the surge in demand and
the disruption of supply chains from China, disposable
non-woven masks vanished from stores. People blamed the
government for not doing enough. In response, then-Prime
18 waseda.jp/fire/gsaps/en | gsaps-admission@list.waseda.jp
SPONSORED SECTION
Sanjeev Khagram, PhD

Director-General and Dean
Thunderbird School of Global Management
Thunderbird: Where Global Meets

High Tech
What makes Thunderbird the world’s most Why is Thunderbird investing in a global
global and digital school? network of Centers of Excellence?
As Thunderbird School of Global Management observes Our regional Centers of Excellence deliver innovative and
its seventy-fifth anniversary, we celebrate not only our fit-for-purpose graduate degree programs and professional
origins in pioneering global business, management, certificate programs where they can make massive impacts.
and leadership education in the wake of World War II but These satellite hubs link students and alumni from Los
also our evolution into the world’s first truly global and Angeles to Tokyo and Moscow to Nairobi, providing a
multinational academic institution. Thunderbird has a truly global presence that sets Thunderbird apart with
global community of alumni serving in leadership roles academic offerings in major commercial centers, physically
and satellite Centers of Excellence in twelve countries, connecting and engaging our alumni, and supporting
soon expanding to twenty-five hubs worldwide. Our newly international recruiting.
constructed, state-of-the-art global headquarters opens
this year, equipped with the latest digital technologies, How will Thunderbird Global Headquarters
including cutting-edge tools for telepresence connectivity connect students to the latest technology
and data visualization on a planetary scale. and the world?
By pioneering learning technology and expanding our The nexus of our Centers of Excellence is our state-of-
global presence, Thunderbird is showing once again what the-art facility in Phoenix, Arizona, within the capital
it means to be at the vanguard of international business, city’s business district. This high-tech home connects
management, and leadership education. students to the world using cutting-edge collaboration
and education tools built into the architecture.
What makes Thunderbird’s global alumni Thunderbird HQ leverages the latest mixed reality (AR/
network unique? VR) and data visualization technology to immerse students
With more than 45,000 distinguished alumni in 145 coun- in executive and managerial leadership in real-time. Our
tries, Thunderbird’s tight-knit community of bilingual and global decision theater empowers students to manipulate
multilingual graduates resembles a giant, compassionate data using AI and VR. Our VR language lab helps students
family that spans the globe. Known as T-birds, they’re learn a required second language. The global forum hosts
uniquely equipped with a global mindset and high technical world-class speakers with hybrid presentation capability
aptitude to make a difference in this era of rapid change for events such as graduation ceremonies, broadcasting
and disruption. T-birds everywhere offer their talents to live to and from our satellite hubs using a 360-degree
empower our students and realize our collective vision of video ring that circles the forum space.
inclusive, sustainable prosperity worldwide. By reciprocally
engaging and supporting our alumni, we advance solutions
to global challenges, connect current students to transna-
tional and state enterprises, and form mutually beneficial
partnerships across sectors. Thunderbird future-proofs
alumni skills through lifelong learning opportunities and
connects alumni in a worldwide network of experts who
are all trained to work across boundaries of every kind.
thunderbird.asu.edu | admissions.tbird@asu.edu 19
SPONSORED SECTION
Jeremy Carrette
Dean for Europe
Brussels School of International Studies
University of Kent
Advanced International Studies

in the Capital of Europe with
World-Leading Academics and
Experienced Practitioners
What could a post-pandemic world look students and researchers from different backgrounds to
like at the Brussels School of International think together. Via our specializations, we allow students
Studies (BSIS)? to create rich interconnections for a stronger career profile.
In challenging times, we need a vision for the future that
will transform the world and provide solutions for rapidly How has innovation developed at BSIS
changing social and political environments. Such a vision during the pandemic?
requires an education that anticipates the next steps. At Innovation came quickly in the form of hybrid teaching.
BSIS, we provide an educational opportunity that support Our commitment to students is to offer safe in-person
future leaders and thinkers with the skills and ideas that teaching; while this remains as we look beyond 2021, the
offer effective solutions to new international problems and elements of online and digital delivery will supplement
with an understanding of how to build strong communities. lectures and seminars, where appropriate, to offer students
The pandemic has led us to find new, safe, and flex- the best of both approaches.
ible ways to live. Our dynamic and friendly community Looking beyond the pandemic as the world starts
has remained connected and thrived in these times, to re-open, our students will have the opportunity to
proving that connectivity and communication are vital attend conferences, seminars, and internships in Brussels
for our future educational flourishing. We have worked while having the advantage of looking beyond Brussels
hard to maintain the close-knit BSIS community, and we via new online deliveries, bringing a real international
are delighted with how our students have approached flavor to studies.
this new world—with the enthusiasm to study and the Our students have an appetite for critical thinking,
resilience in adjusting and engaging in hard work to and, undoubtedly, the topic over the next years will be
build new careers. an analysis of how the pandemic was handled at a local,
national, and international level. At our school, we believe
What changes will we see at BSIS? we are ideally located for students to be part of this—as
The pandemic has allowed us time to reflect on the subjects European Union and international players meet in Brussels
we deliver and the way in which we teach them. One to discuss and debate the topic. Being at the crossroads
theme that has emerged from the pandemic has been the of international affairs, BSIS will play a pivotal role in
focus on global health matters and its link to international challenging debates and shaping leaders of the future.
policy—this is a subject we intend to bring to BSIS over Join our world for tomorrow’s world.
the next year. We also plan to develop a focus on new
environmental concerns, which will inform some of our
additional research events during the academic year. We
are unique in addressing these new global issues through
our international and interdisciplinary approach, bringing
20 kent.ac.uk/brussels | bsis@kent.ac.uk
SPONSORED SECTION
Nobuko Maybin
Class of 2017
Master of Arts in International Development Studies
The Elliott School Welcomed Me

Why did you choose the Elliott School? in the field. The capstone project gave students funding to
I chose the Elliott School because of the school’s location partner with an international development organization
in Washington, DC, the flexibility of the International to conduct research on a particular area of development
Development Studies (IDS) program, and its emphasis work in the respective country of implementation. No
on putting theory to practice. I researched many other program I researched provided this level of insight,
international development and international education experience, and networking opportunities in the field of
programs and found that they were too narrowly focused, international development. The Elliott School was an
so that studying one field would mean forfeiting focus easy decision to make after I realized this.
on the other. The IDS program allowed me to actually As a mixed African-American woman coming from
be balanced in my studies of both. I was able to have a a historically Black college and university—or HBCU—it
substantial amount of courses in international educa- was not only important that the coursework bring value
tion while also maintaining the core knowledge and to my professional career but that the institution also
background needed in the international development recognizes and celebrates the added value that I bring
field. Under the umbrella of the George Washington to it. I attended during a tumultuous time, especially
University (GW), I was also eligible to apply for the GW following the 2016 presidential election in the United
UNESCO Fellows Program in International Education for States, where incidents of hate crimes were popping
Development, the GW UNESCO Chair is one of only three up everywhere around the city. I remember feeling
designated chairs in a U.S. school. anxious but reassured after the school administration
The Elliott School is also walking distance to many quickly spoke out and underscored its appreciation of
international and development organizations, such as the student body’s diversity. I also remember class-
the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the Asian mates and professors initiating tough discussions on
Development Bank, the Organization of American States, discrimination, racism, and neocolonialism and its effect
and the U.S. Department of State. This meant I engaged on development projects.
with these institutions’ networks because they regularly Against the backdrop of the Washington Monument, I
visited the school or were guest faculty for my classes. sat at graduation, feeling I didn’t just purchase the name
I also volunteered and attended many development of the university on my degree but also an experience that
summits and conferences hosted throughout the year amplified my voice and merit alongside my classmates
by these organizations. and professors.
Were there elements of the IDS program

that were attractive to a student seeking
flexibility, like yourself?
Above all, I was interested in the IDS program’s emphasis on
putting theory to practice, which was largely conveyed in
its final capstone project. Coming straight into a graduate
Elliott School of
program from undergraduate studies, I didn’t have a lot of
work experience in the international development field. So International Affairs
I was interested in getting as much hands-on experience
as possible to bolster both my confidence and knowledge T HE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
elliott.gwu.edu | esiagrad@gwu.edu | 202 .994 .7050 21

SPONSORED SECTION
Dr. Victor Cha

Vice Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs
Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
Building on Lessons from

the Pandemic
How has the Walsh School of Foreign coming out of the pandemic to include new specializa-
Service (SFS) integrated diversity, equity, tions in science, technology and international affairs,
and inclusion (DEI) into the graduate refugees, humanitarian disasters, and migration. While
student experience? we will all be happy to return to campus in the fall, we
We believe that diversity is critical to building a better, will capitalize on the best elements of online learning
more challenging, and more successful learning going forward.
environment in order to train the new generation of
international leaders. In the summer of 2020, SFS How did SFS build community networks
established a dedicated DEI office to ensure that our during the pandemic?
curriculum, pedagogy, and culture fully engage with Whether it was active SFS alumni going the extra mile
issues of social justice and equity. We have created to find jobs and internships, faculty holding additional
new graduate student scholarships, such as the MSFS one-on-one Zoom office hours, or the dean bringing
Futures Scholarship and the Institute for the Study of together political and corporate leaders from around the
Diplomacy McHenry Fellows program in our functional world for virtual coffee chats with students during the
and regional studies master’s programs, expanded our pandemic, SFS emerges with an even stronger community
efforts to update curricula and student initiatives, and going forward. Our ability, for example, to bring the most
broadened our admission and recruitment efforts to diverse group of recruiters to campus virtually greatly
reach students whose holistic experiences contribute enhanced job and internship placements for our students.
to the diversity of the school and its mission. We will build on those newly strengthened networks to
give students greater access to novel learning, research,
What kind of benefits resulted from the and internship opportunities that can be augmented by
virtual learning during the pandemic, and the virtual possibilities opened up by the pandemic. Not
how will this be integrated into the graduate unlike the moment of SFS’s founding in 1919, SFS faculty
program going forward? and students are inspired today to rebuild an inclusive,
open, and transparent post-pandemic world, each in their
As challenging as the pandemic was to life and learning
own unique and impactful way.
on campus, we found new ways to improve our pedagogy
in the virtual learning environment. Being online allowed
us to become truly global in the sense that authors and
leaders joined our virtual classrooms and gatherings
from cities all over the world, including World Bank
President David Malpass, HRH Princess Ghida Talal of
Jordan, and the CFOs of Gap, Inc. and UPS. Students
were not deterred from doing study abroad programs
and internships virtually in the far corners of the earth. In
addition, we continued to build our curricular offerings
22 sfs.georgetown.edu | sfscontact@georgetown.edu
SPONSORED SECTION
Gordon McCord
Associate Teaching Professor and Associate Dean
UC San Diego
School of Global Policy and Strategy
Sustainability in Action
Tell us about the Sustainable Development land use, and other sectors in order to move the country
Goals (SDG) Policy Initiative’s mission onto a pathway of decarbonization by midcentury.
and work.
The SDG Policy Initiative uses the United Nations’ SDGs Tell us about your work with local
as a framework for bringing together policymakers and governments.
researchers to inform evidence-based solutions for a We are very excited to partner with San Diego County
sustainable future. The initiative is based at UC San on a decarbonization framework. Drawing on expertise,
Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS), which including America’s Zero Carbon Action Plan, the SDG
is at the forefront of interdisciplinary research critical to Policy Initiative will work with partners to model technically
the 2030 Agenda. feasible pathways to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in
With interrelated challenges such as poverty, inequal- San Diego County. The project will evaluate key sectors,
ity, climate change, and biodiversity loss, achieving including energy, transportation, buildings, and land
sustainable and inclusive growth will require developing use, and evaluate employment impacts. Approaching
analytical tools that cut across disciplines and developing decarbonization from the regional perspective, the
new policymaking processes that go beyond the traditional framework will help policymakers identify opportunities
silos of governance. for collaboration across jurisdictional boundaries. As San
The initiative is engaged in a number of programs Diego works to become a global leader in decarbonization,
that put the SDGs into action to guide and measure a new comprehensive regional decarbonization framework
progress at all levels of government. From contributing can set the region on a path to zero carbon and be an
to a decarbonization policy plan for the United States to example for others to follow.
supporting the government of Paraguay in implement-
ing the SDGs as a framework for sustainable growth to What opportunities exist for students to
designing sustainable land-use planning tools for Mexico, help enact real-world policy goals?
the initiative is supporting achievement of the ambitious All the initiative’s projects offer opportunities for current
SDGs with evidence-based solutions. and former GPS students. Some of these positions are
paid graduate researcher positions, while in other cases,
What will be the initiative’s part in students take advantage of the initiative’s relationships
making sure the Biden administration’s with governments to do projects in their classes that are
sustainability agenda is put into action? immediately useful to policymakers. Many examples
In a series of executive orders, strategies, and policy of student involvement in projects and research are
announcements, President Biden has clearly signaled showcased in our student blog.
his intention to be a transformative leader with a deep
commitment to the sustainability agenda. The SDG
Policy Initiative is an active partner in projects that
support the agenda of inclusive and sustainable growth
in the United States. The most important of these is the
Zero Carbon Action Plan, which laid out policy recom-
mendations for the power, transportation, buildings,
gps.ucsd.edu | gps-apply@ucsd.edu | 858.534.5914 23

SPONSORED SECTION
Directory
American University The George Washington University

School of International Service Elliott School of International
american.edu/sis Affairs
sisgrad@american.edu elliott.gwu.edu
202.885.1646 esiagrad@gwu.edu
202.994.7050
Arizona State University

Thunderbird School of Global Georgetown University
Management Walsh School of Foreign Service
thunderbird.asu.edu sfs.georgetown.edu
admissions.tbird@asu.edu sfscontact@georgetown.edu
Diplomatic Academy of Vienna NYU School of Professional Studies

Vienna School of International Center for Global Affairs
Studies sps.nyu.edu/cga
da-vienna.ac.at 212.998.7100
info@da-vienna.ac.at
+43 1.505.72.72 x120
Princeton University
Princeton School of Public and
Fordham University International Affairs
Graduate Program in International spia.princeton.edu
Political Economy and spiaadmissions@princeton.edu
Development
609.258.4836
iped.fordham.edu
iped@fordham.edu
718.817.4064
24
SPONSORED SECTION
Ritsumeikan University Syracuse University

Graduate School of International Maxwell School of Citizenship
Relations and Public Affairs
ristsumei.ac.ip/gsir/eng/ maxwell.syr.edu/paia
ir-adm@st.ritsumei.ad.jp maxenroll@syr.edu
315.443.4000
Schwarzman Scholars
schwarzmanscholars.org Texas A&M University
info@schwarzmanscholars.org The Bush School of Government
and Public Service
212.314.8740
bush.tamu.edu
bushschooladmissions@tamu.edu
Seton Hall University 979.862.3476
School of Diplomacy and
International Relations
shu.edu/diplomacy UC San Diego
diplomat@shu.edu School of Global Policy
and Strategy
973.275.2142
gps.ucsd.edu
gps-apply@ucsd.edu
Stanford University 858.534.5914
Ford Dorsey Master’s in
International Policy
fsi.stanford.edu/masters-degree University of Kent
internationalpolicy@stanford.edu Brussels School of International
Studies
650.725.9075
kent.ac.uk/brussels
bsis@kent.ac.uk
25
SPONSORED SECTION
University of Pittsburgh Waseda University

Graduate School of Public and Graduate School of Asia-Pacific
International Affairs (GSPIA) Studies (GSAPS)
gspia.pitt.edu waseda.jp/fire/gsaps/en
gspia@pitt.edu gsaps-admission@list.waseda.jp
University of Washington Yale Jackson Institute for

The Henry M. Jackson School of Global Affairs
International Studies jackson.yale.edu
jsis.washington.edu jackson.admissions@yale.edu
jsisma@uw.edu 202.432.6253
206.543.6001
About APSIA
The Association of Professional Schools of Visit APSIA.org to discover what you can do with an
International Affairs (APSIA) brings together the APSIA degree, learn about hiring APSIA students and
leading graduate programs dedicated to profes- alumni, register for admissions events around the
sional education in international affairs. Members world and online, and find fellowship and scholarship
have demonstrated excellence in multidisciplinary, information.
policy-oriented international studies.
Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA)

apsia.org | apsia@apsia.org | 202 . 559 . 5831
THIS SPONSORED SECTION IS ALSO AVAILABLE ONLINE AT

ForeignAffairs.com/GraduateSchoolForum
26
ESSAYS
The CCP has made
perfectly clear its desire for
global preeminence, and
officials in Washington
have finally stopped
pretending otherwise.
– Matt Pottinger
Beijing’s American Hustle Iran’s War Within

Matt Pottinger 102 Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar 155
North Korea’s Nuclear Family The COVID Charter

Sue Mi Terry 115 Rajiv J. Shah 179
Strategies of Restraint The Center Cannot Hold

L I GA N G / X I N H UA
Emma Ashford 128 Thomas Wright 192
The United States of Sanctions

Daniel W. Drezner 142
Beijing’s American Hustle

How Chinese Grand Strategy
Exploits U.S. Power
Matt Pottinger
A
lthough many Americans were slow to realize it, Beijing’s en-
mity for Washington began long before U.S. President Don-
ald Trump’s election in 2016 and even prior to Chinese
President Xi Jinping’s rise to power in 2012. Ever since taking power
in 1949, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has cast the
United States as an antagonist. But three decades ago, at the end of
the Cold War, Chinese leaders elevated the United States from just
one among many antagonists to their country’s primary external ad-
versary—and began quietly revising Chinese grand strategy, embark-
ing on a quest for regional and then global dominance.
The United States and other free societies have belatedly woken up
to this contest, and a rare spirit of bipartisanship has emerged on
Capitol Hill. But even this new consensus has failed to adequately
appreciate one of the most threatening elements of Chinese strategy:
the way it exploits vital aspects of American and other free societies
and weaponizes them in the service of Chinese ambitions. Important
U.S. institutions, especially in finance and technology, cling to self-
destructive habits acquired through decades of “engagement,” an
approach to China that led Washington to prioritize economic coop-
eration and trade above all else.
If U.S. policymakers and legislators find the will, however, there is
a way to pull Wall Street and Silicon Valley back onside, convert the
United States’ vulnerabilities into strengths, and mitigate the harm-
ful effects of Beijing’s political warfare. That must begin with bolder
steps to stem the flow of U.S. capital into China’s so-called military-
civil fusion enterprises and to frustrate Beijing’s aspiration for leader-
MATT POTTINGER is a Senior Adviser at the Marathon Initiative and was U.S. Deputy
National Security Adviser from 2019 to 2021.
ship in, and even monopoly control of, high-tech industries—starting

with semiconductor manufacturing. The United States must also do
more to expose and confront Beijing’s information warfare, which
spews disinformation and sows division by exploiting U.S. social me-
dia platforms—platforms that are themselves banned inside China’s
own borders. And Washington should return the favor by making it
easier for the Chinese people to access authentic news from outside
China’s so-called Great Firewall.
Some have argued that because the CCP’s ideology holds little ap-
peal abroad, it poses an insignificant threat to U.S. interests. Yet that
ideology hardly appeals to the Chinese people, either, and that hasn’t
prevented the party from dominating a nation of 1.4 billion people.
The problem is not the allure of Leninist totalitarianism but the fact
that Leninist totalitarianism—as practiced by the well-resourced and
determined rulers of Beijing—has tremendous coercive power. Ac-
cordingly, U.S. leaders should not ignore the ideological dimension of
this contest; they should emphasize it. American values—liberty, in-
dependence, faith, tolerance, human dignity, and democracy—are not
just what the United States fights for: they are also among the most
potent weapons in the country’s arsenal, because they contrast so
starkly with the CCP’s hollow vision of one-party rule at home and
Chinese domination abroad. Washington should embrace those
strengths and forcefully remind American institutions that although
placating China might help their balance sheets in the short term,
their long-term survival depends on the free markets and legal rights
that only U.S. leadership can secure.
In past decades, the United States’ failure to reckon with the ways
that American society and businesses were being weaponized to serve
the CCP’s long-term agenda might have been chalked up to naiveté or
Pollyannaish optimism. Such excuses are no longer plausible. Yet Bei-
jing continues to run this play, turning American money and institu-
tions to its own ends—and making the need for real action from
Washington all the greater.
THE ART OF POLITICAL WARFARE

The West’s sluggishness in realizing that it has been on the receiving
end of China’s elaborate, multidecade hostile strategy has a lot to do
with the hubris that followed the United States’ triumph in the Cold
War. U.S. policymakers assumed that the CCP would find it nearly

Matt Pottinger
impossible to resist the tide of liberalization set off by the collapse of

the Berlin Wall. According to this line of thought, by helping enrich
China, the United States would loosen the party’s grip on its econ-
omy, people, and politics, setting the conditions for a gradual conver-
gence with the pluralistic West.
That was, to put it mildly, a mis-
If U.S. policymakers and calculation, and it stemmed in part
legislators find the will, from the methods the CCP employs
to prosecute its grand strategy. With
there is a way to pull Wall enviable discipline, Beijing has long
Street and Silicon Valley camouflaged its intention to chal-
back onside. lenge and overturn the U.S.-led lib-
eral order. Beijing co-opted Western
technologies that Americans assumed
would help democratize China and instead used them to surveil
and control its people and to target a growing swath of the world’s
population outside China’s borders. The party now systematically
cultivates Western corporations and investors that, in turn, pay defer-
ence to Chinese policies and even lobby their home capitals in ways
that align with the CCP’s objectives.
Beijing’s methods are all manifestations of “political warfare,” the
term that the U.S. diplomat George Kennan, the chief architect of the
Cold War strategy of containment, used in a 1948 memo to describe
“the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war,
to achieve its national objectives.” Kennan credited the Soviet Union
with “the most refined and effective” conduct of political warfare.
Were he alive today, Kennan would marvel at the ways Beijing has
improved on the Kremlin’s playbook.
Kennan’s memo was meant to disabuse U.S. national security offi-
cials of “a popular attachment to the concept of a basic difference be-
tween peace and war.” He was hopeful that Americans could shed this
handicap and learn to fight in the political realm to forestall a poten-
tially catastrophic military conflict with the Soviets. To a great extent,
Washington did exactly that, marshaling partners on every continent
to contain Soviet influence.
Today, free and open societies are once again coming to terms with
the reality of political warfare. This time, however, the campaign is
directed by a different kind of communist country—one that possesses
not just military power but also economic power derived from its
quasi-marketized version of capitalism and systematic theft of tech-

nology. Although there are holdouts—financiers, entertainers, and
former officials who benefited from engagement, for example—polls
show that the general public in the United States, European countries,
and several Asian countries is finally attuned to the malevolent nature
of the Chinese regime and its global ambitions. This should come as
no surprise, given the way the CCP has conducted itself in recent years:
covering up the initial outbreak of COVID-19, attacking Indian troops
on the Chinese-Indian border, choking off trade with Australia, crush-
ing the rule of law in Hong Kong, and intensifying a campaign of
genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China.
HIDE AND BIDE NO MORE

Those aggressive moves represent merely a new phase of a decades-
old strategy. In writing his recent book The Long Game, the U.S.
scholar Rush Doshi pored over Chinese leaders’ speeches, policy doc-
uments, and memoirs to document how Beijing came to set its sights
on dismantling American influence around the globe. According to
Doshi, who now serves on the National Security Council staff as a
China director, three events badly rattled CCP leaders: the 1989 pro-
democracy protests in Tiananmen Square; the lopsided, U.S.-led vic-
tory over the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces in early 1991; and
the collapse of the Soviet Union that same year. “The Tiananmen
Square protests reminded Beijing of the American ideological threat;
the swift Gulf War victory reminded it of the American military
threat; and loss of the shared Soviet adversary reminded it of the
American geopolitical threat,” writes Doshi. “In short order, the
United States quickly replaced the Soviet Union as China’s primary
security concern, that in turn led to a new grand strategy, and a thirty-
year struggle to displace American power was born.”
China’s new grand strategy aimed first to dilute U.S. influence in
Asia, then to displace American power more overtly from the region,
and ultimately to dominate a global order more suited to Beijing’s
governance model. That model isn’t merely authoritarian; it’s “neo-
totalitarian,” according to Cai Xia, who served for 15 years as a profes-
sor in the highest temple of Chinese communist ideology: the Central
Party School in Beijing. Cai, who now lives in exile in the United
States, recently detailed her falling out with the CCP in these pages
and has written elsewhere that the CCP’s “fundamental interests and

Matt Pottinger
its basic mentality of using the [United States] while remaining hos-
tile to it have not changed over the past seventy years.”
Xi didn’t sire the party’s strategy, argues Cai. He merely shifted it
to a more overt and aggressive phase. Had observers more carefully
pondered the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s precept for
China to “hide your capabilities, bide your time,” they would have
realized that Deng’s approach was always intended as a transitional
stage, a placeholder until China was strong enough to openly chal-
lenge the United States.
That moment has now arrived, and Beijing is no longer bothering to
camouflage its global ambitions. Today, party slogans call for China to
“take center stage” in the world and build “a community of common
destiny for mankind.” This point was displayed vividly in Alaska in
March, during the first face-to-face meeting between senior Biden ad-
ministration officials and their Chinese counterparts. In their opening
statements, the Chinese took advantage of the international TV coverage
of the meeting to lecture the Americans. “I don’t think the overwhelm-
ing majority of countries in the world would recognize that the universal
values advocated by the United States or that the opinion of the United
States could represent international public opinion,” the senior Chinese
diplomat Yang Jiechi said as part of a carefully scripted diatribe. Yang
juxtaposed “United States–style democracy” with what he called “Chi-
nese-style democracy.” The latter, he contended, enjoys the “wide sup-
port of the Chinese people,” while “many people within the United States
actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.”
Yang’s soliloquy was so arresting that the most consequential impli-
cation was easily lost in the majority of the press coverage: Beijing
was using its time in front of the cameras to openly declare its bid for
world leadership. Yang was following instructions issued by Xi at the
19th Party Congress, in October 2017, when the Chinese leader called
on party cadres to increase their ideological “leadership power” and
“discourse power” in defense of Beijing’s totalitarian brand of social-
ism, according to the China scholar Matthew Johnson. This process of
fighting and winning ideological battles on the global stage was also
given a name: the “great struggle.”
THE BEST DEFENSE

Kennan considered economic statecraft a vital component of political
warfare, and the CCP’s assimilation of economic weaponry into its grand
strategy would not have surprised him. Beijing’s economic objectives are
couched in a policy called “dual circulation,” which prioritizes domestic
consumption (internal circulation) over dependence on foreign markets
(external circulation). A close look, however, shows that this Chinese
strategy can really be thought of as “offensive leverage”—an approach
designed to decrease China’s dependence on high-tech imports (while
making the world’s technology supply chains increasingly dependent on
China), ensure that China can easily substitute imports from one coun-
try with the same imports from another, and use China’s economic lever-
age to advance the CCP’s political objectives around the globe.
The CCP has tried to spin these moves as defensive. “We must sus-
tain and enhance our superiority across the entire production chain
. . . and we must tighten international production chains’ dependence
on China, forming a powerful countermeasure and deterrent capabil-
ity against foreigners who would artificially cut off supply [to China],”
explained Xi in a seminal speech last year. In practice, however, China
is playing offense. In recent years, Beijing has restricted trade and
tourism with Canada, Japan, Mongolia, Norway, the Philippines,
South Korea, and other countries in an effort to force changes in their
laws and internal political and judicial processes.
The most aggressive of these campaigns is the one the CCP launched
against Australia. More than a year ago, Australia proposed that the
World Health Organization investigate the origins of the COVID-19
pandemic. The idea was supported by nearly all the members of the
World Health Assembly, but Beijing decided to punish Canberra for
its temerity. China soon began restricting imports of Australian beef,
barley, wine, coal, and lobster. Then, the CCP released a list of 14 so-
called “disputes” that are, in effect, political demands made of the
Australian government—including that Canberra repeal laws de-
signed to counter the CCP’s covert influence operations in Australia,
muzzle the Australian press by suppressing criticism of Beijing, and
make concessions to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
China targeted Australia with precisely the offensive economic strat-
egy that Xi’s speeches and party documents describe. When it comes
to grand strategy, at least, Xi is a man of his word.
UNDER THE INFLUENCE

The CCP’s campaign of offensive leverage represents the overt mani-
festation of Beijing’s grand strategy. But the strategy also relies on

Matt Pottinger
covert and invisible activities: information warfare and influence op-

erations designed to subvert the social and political institutions of
Chinas’ rivals. The most important element of those efforts is “United
Front” work, an immense range of activities that China’s leaders call a
“magic weapon” and that has no analog in the world’s advanced de-
mocracies. The party’s 95 million members are required to participate
in the system, which has many branches, and the United Front Work
Department alone has three times as many cadres as the U.S. State
Department has Foreign Service officers. Instead of practicing diplo-
macy, however, the United Front gathers intelligence about and works
to influence private citizens and government officials overseas, with a
focus on foreign elites and the organizations they run. Assembling
dossiers has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Beijing’s
penetration of digital networks worldwide has taken it to a new level.
The party compiles dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the
world, using the material it gathers to influence and intimidate, re-
ward and blackmail, flatter and humiliate, divide and conquer. The
political scientist Anne-Marie Brady calls United Front work a tool to
corrode and corrupt foreign political systems, “to weaken and divide
us against each other, to erode the critical voice of our media, and
turn our elites into clients of the Chinese Communist Party, their
mouths stuffed with cash.”
Newer to the party’s arsenal is the exploitation of U.S. social media
companies. Over the past several years, Beijing has flooded their plat-
forms with overt and covert propaganda, amplified by proxies and
bots, that is increasingly focused not only on promoting whitewashed
narratives of Beijing’s policies but also on exacerbating social tensions
within the United States and other target nations. The Chinese
government and its online proxies, for example, have for months
promoted content that questions the effectiveness and safety of
Western-made COVID-19 vaccines. Research by the Soufan Center has
also found indications that China-based influence operations are am-
plifying online conspiracy theories, including QAnon-related false-
hoods. The Soviet Union could never have dreamed of reaching a
mass audience in the United States for its agitprop such as the one
Beijing reaches daily through the tools provided by Silicon Valley
technology giants. “Currently there is no effective path for the [Peo-
ple’s Republic of China] to wage effective global information opera-
tions and increase its international discourse power that does not run
2022
APPLICATION
NOW OPEN
Matt Pottinger
through American social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube and

Facebook,” writes Bill Bishop, the author of the blog Sinocism and a
close observer of Beijing’s information warfare.
AN AMERICAN COUNTERSTRATEGY
After decades of naiveté and denialism, Washington’s approach to
Beijing finally began to adapt to reality and toughen up during the
Trump administration, and the Biden administration has largely
maintained its predecessor’s policy. The tariffs Trump imposed to
punish China’s theft of intellectual property are still in place, and
President Joe Biden is fleshing out a Trump-initiated Commerce De-
partment panel meant to keep dangerous Chinese software and equip-
ment out of U.S. domestic telecommunications networks. The current
administration is also deepening diplomatic initatives related to
China, such as the Quad—a group of democracies composed of Aus-
tralia, India, Japan, and the United States.
Despite those corrective steps, there are still several areas in which
Washington needs to further strengthen its approach, especially by
making sure that powerful private interests in the United States stop
undercutting the country’s ability to confront China. The realm of fi-
nance is the place to start. The retirement savings of millions of Amer-
icans currently finance Beijing’s military modernization and support
Chinese companies that are complicit in genocide and other crimes
against humanity. Even as Beijing was systematically expelling foreign
journalists from China and making the country’s investment climate
increasingly opaque, stock index providers such as FTSE Russell and
MSCI continued to add Chinese companies to their indexes, sometimes
under pressure from Beijing. Because many American funds bench-
mark their investments to those same indexes, billions of U.S. dollars
automatically flow to Chinese companies, including those that Wash-
ington has sanctioned or subjected to export controls. For Beijing,
there simply is no substitute for U.S. capital markets, whose depth and
liquidity outpace those of the rest of the world’s capital markets. Few
successful Chinese technology companies exist that were not launched
with money and expertise from Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
Both Alibaba and Baidu were seeded with U.S. capital.
Although executive orders issued by the Trump and Biden admin-
istrations already prohibit U.S. investment in 59 named Chinese
companies involved in the Chinese military’s modernization or hu-
man rights atrocities, the Treasury Department needs to expand that

list by at least an order of magnitude to better encompass the galaxy
of Chinese companies developing so-called dual-use technologies—
those with both civilian and military or surveillance applications. The
Biden administration should also en-
force a ban on the purchase of debt
instruments from blacklisted compa- Today, free and open
nies and clarify that their subsidiaries
are off-limits to U.S. investors, as
societies are once again
well. The European Union should coming to terms with the
adopt a similar investment blacklist reality of political warfare.
and permanently abandon the trade
agreement it recently negotiated with
Beijing. The deal is already on ice after Beijing sanctioned European
parliamentarians and think tanks for highlighting Chinese human
rights abuses. The EU should now withdraw once and for all.
The United States and European countries should also challenge
the naked hypocrisy of some firms that tout investment products
they claim will further “environmental, social, and governance” goals.
Some money managers who offer such options eschew investing in
Western companies that don’t meet a particular set of criteria (called
“ESG criteria”) but happily invest in Chinese companies that feature
atrocious records in all three categories. There are U.S. university
endowments, for instance, that could deliberately decide to invest in
only ESG-compliant companies in the United States but simultane-
ously invest in a raft of Chinese firms that flout all accepted stan-
dards of corporate governance and environmental stewardship.
Chinese firms contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions, ocean
plastic pollution, and illegal fishing than do the companies of any
other country on earth. As for social responsibility, a wide variety of
Chinese companies—from leading technology firms to manufactur-
ers that export globally—work with Beijing’s security apparatus to
track, incarcerate, and extract forced labor from ethnic Uyghur and
Kazakh Muslims. With respect to corporate governance, CCP cells,
operating mostly in secret, wield significant and often decisive con-
trol over Chinese companies—making a mockery of Western stan-
dards of corporate transparency and independence.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission needs to fulfill its
legal obligations under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable

Matt Pottinger
Act of 2020, which prescribes an overly generous three-year grace

period before Chinese companies are to be delisted from U.S. ex-
changes if they fail to meet U.S. accounting standards. The SEC has
yet even to start the clock on the three-year countdown for noncom-
pliant firms. Having judged the U.S. law hollow, Chinese companies
continue to launch initial public offerings in the United States.
Washington also needs to do more to stymie Beijing’s plans to
dominate semiconductor manufacturing. Chinese leaders are well
aware that most twenty-first-century technologies—including 5G
telecommunications, synthetic biology, and machine learning—are
built around advanced semiconductors. Accordingly, those leaders
have poured more than $100 billion in subsidies into building Chi-
nese chip foundries, with mixed results.
Most of the world’s cutting-edge chips are produced by the Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The CCP has many ideo-
logical and strategic reasons to consider invading Taiwan; its quest
for control of the market for chips represents an economic incentive
to do so. Of course, a war could seriously damage Taiwan’s foundries,
which, in any case, would struggle to maintain production without
Western chip designs and equipment. And such a shock to chip sup-
plies would affect millions of downstream jobs in China, not just
those in other large economies. Even so, Beijing might believe that
China could recover from a crisis more quickly than the United
States. That is precisely the lesson Beijing drew from the COVID-19
pandemic, which has taken a far greater toll on China’s adversaries
than on China itself. To be sure, Beijing would not take the fateful
step of attacking Taiwan and risking war with the United States based
on semiconductor inventories alone. The point is that Chinese lead-
ers may not view the disruption of semiconductor supply chains as an
inhibitor to launching a war.
Regardless of Beijing’s calculus, Washington should seek to elimi-
nate any potential Chinese advantage in semiconductors by subsidiz-
ing new chip foundries in the United States—something the 2020
CHIPS Act and the 2021 U.S. Innovation and Competition Act seek
to do. The U.S. Commerce Department must also slow Beijing’s ef-
forts to scale up its foundries by applying sharper restrictions on the
export of U.S.-made equipment used to manufacture semiconduc-
tors—not just for cutting-edge chips but also for those that are a
couple of generations older.
Finally, Washington needs to do more to address Beijing’s informa-

tion warfare. One of the weirder ironies of our time is the fact that
U.S. citizens are sometimes censored and even deplatformed for po-
litical speech by the same American social media giants that channel
CCP disinformation and agitprop to millions of people worldwide.
U.S. companies, Congress, and the courts should act to address both
of these phenomena—supporting the free speech of U.S. citizens
while exposing the ways in which Beijing boosts its messaging. This
can and should be done while still upholding the letter and spirit of
the First Amendment. The idea is not to censor Beijing’s statements
but to expose government-orchestrated efforts to camouflage propa-
ganda as organic discourse among private citizens through fake ac-
counts and covert schemes. Washington’s best partners in this effort
should be the Silicon Valley social media giants themselves. Because
they have the means to detect Beijing’s proxies, these firms can take a
leading role in tamping down the sheer amplitude of Chinese govern-
ment influence operations online.
At the same time, free and open societies—and the companies that
flourish in them—must make it easier for Chinese citizens to access
information from outside China’s Great Firewall, and to communi-
cate with one another away from the watchful eye of Beijing’s digital
panopticon. The Great Firewall is formidable but less technologically
advanced than many observers often assume. In contrast to the CCP’s
information warfare, U.S. efforts need not involve manufacturing dis-
information or even generating much content at all. Washington
needs only to provide the Chinese people with safer means to ex-
change news, opinions, history, films, and satire with their fellow citi-
zens and others around the world.
One good place to start would be with the Chinese diaspora. There
are very few Chinese-language news outlets left that resist toeing the
CCP’s line. Under a new national security law imposed by Beijing,
authorities in Hong Kong recently arrested the owner and editors of
one of the few that remained: the now-defunct Apple Daily. The U.S.
government can help by offering grants to promising private outlets
and reenergizing federally funded media such as Radio Free Asia.
U.S. universities should also hand a second smartphone to every
Chinese national who comes to study in the United States—one free
from Chinese apps such as WeChat, which monitor users’ activity
and censor their news feeds.

Matt Pottinger
DEMOCRACY VS. TYRANNY

During a visit to Beijing in 1995, the U.S. democracy activist Dimon
Liu met with a former Chinese official sympathetic to democratic
reform. He provided Liu with an insight into U.S.-Chinese relations
that she never forgot: “If the contest is based on interests, tyranny
wins. If the contest is based on values, democracy wins.”
The failure of Beijing’s recent attempt to coerce Australia into
compliance with Chinese policy illustrates this point nicely. CCP lead-
ers gambled that Australian businesses, suffering from a targeted
trade embargo, would lobby their government to make political con-
cessions to Beijing. But the Australian people—business leaders and
exporters included—understood that accepting China’s ultimatum
would mean submitting to a dangerous new order. Australian busi-
nesses absorbed the losses, weathered the embargo, and found new
markets. Australians decided that their sovereignty was more impor-
tant than lobster sales—no doubt confounding those in Beijing who
had assumed that Canberra would put Australia’s economic interests
ahead of its foundational values. The CCP, having played this card, will
not be able to do so again with much effect in Australia or elsewhere,
so long as democracies remain alert to what is at stake.
The CCP has made perfectly clear its desire for global preeminence,
and officials in Washington have finally stopped pretending other-
wise. Americans, Europeans, and people the world over are now in-
creasingly clear-eyed about Beijing’s intentions and the sources of its
hostile behavior. Elected leaders must now take the next step: apply-
ing their tough new line not just to Beijing but also to elite institu-
tions in their own societies that need to join the fight against the CCP.
Because companies are economic actors, not political ones, it is the
government’s responsibility to establish guidelines for engaging with
adversaries. With strict new parameters, Washington can level the
playing field for all U.S. firms—refreshing their commitment to the
United States’ 245-year-old experiment with democracy instead of
bowing to the Chinese government’s experiment with neo-totalitari-
anism. Without such guidelines, however, U.S. firms, money, and in-
stitutions will continue to be coerced into serving Beijing’s ends
instead of democratic principles.∂
North Korea’s Nuclear

Family
How the Kims Got the Bomb and
Why They Won’t Give It Up
Sue Mi Terry
W
hen the Biden administration, following a months-long
review, announced its North Korea policy this past April—
“diplomacy, as well as stern deterrence”—the news barely
registered. The question of how to deal with the nuclear-armed pariah
state, a matter never resolved but never fully escalating into an exis-
tential threat, has dogged a long succession of U.S. administrations.
The prevailing sense today, amid a pandemic and heightened great-
power tension, seems to be that Washington has bigger fish to fry and
more urgent crises to focus on.
That impression is dangerously misguided. Years of inconsistent,
and at times counterproductive, U.S. efforts to contain the North Ko-
rean nuclear threat have only let it fester, such that U.S. President Joe
Biden now faces a far more capable adversary in Pyongyang than his
predecessors ever did. In the 15 years since North Korea’s first-ever
nuclear test, the country has amassed up to 60 nuclear warheads and
enough fissile material to build at least six additional bombs every year.
More alarming still, these weapons can now most likely reach the con-
tinental United States. North Korea already fields long-range missiles
capable of hitting the East Coast. It is impossible to know for certain
whether it has figured out how to place a nuclear warhead on top of
those missiles, but the available evidence suggests that it has. North
Korea is likely moving on to the next step: placing multiple warheads
SUE MI TERRY is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A
former CIA analyst, she served on the National Security Council in 2008–9 and the National
Intelligence Council in 2009–10.

Sue Mi Terry
on a single missile, which would allow it to frustrate U.S. missile de-

fenses. What was once a pure hypothetical—a North Korean nuclear
strike on the American mainland—is fast becoming a real possibility.
North Korea is still unlikely to launch a nuclear attack against the
United States, knowing it would suffer devastating retaliation. But an
emboldened North Korean regime with growing nuclear capabilities
could resort to increasingly reckless behavior, such as conventional
strikes, terrorist plots, or cyberattacks. Japan and South Korea, in
turn, could lose confidence in the U.S. nuclear umbrella and feel com-
pelled to field their own nuclear weapons, setting off a destabilizing
nuclear arms race across the region. Moreover, if North Korea’s leader,
Kim Jong Un, believes that his nuclear and missile programs provide
some degree of protection for his misbehavior, his cash-strapped re-
gime could be tempted to sell nuclear weapons, materials, or expertise
to other states and nonstate actors. (In the past, North Korea helped
build a nuclear reactor in Syria and sold missiles to Iran, Myanmar,
and other countries.) In short, a nuclear-armed North Korea is a secu-
rity nightmare for Washington even if the regime never uses its arse-
nal, and the years ahead could prove a turning point for the region.
North Korea’s nuclear program has been a thorn in the side of five
American presidents, sometimes approaching crisis levels, sometimes
receding to secondary importance. But over the past few years, as Pyong-
yang’s warheads have come into striking distance of the American heart-
land, the threat has become a qualitatively different one. If the United
States ever had an opportunity to turn back the clock on North Korea’s
nuclear program—and it is far from clear that it ever did—that moment
has passed. That this change was so long in the making has inured ana-
lysts and policymakers to its gravity. But before long, a crisis is all but
certain to drive home how much more difficult and dangerous the North
Korean nuclear challenge has become. This realization requires a new
approach: one that considers the lessons of Pyongyang’s successful
quest, in defiance of broad international opposition and consistent U.S.
efforts, to become a nuclear power—and one that recognizes how much
more constrained U.S. options in North Korea have become.
HOW THE NORTH WON OUT

Although poor and isolated, North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons
relentlessly in the face of growing international condemnation. The
state’s nuclear aspirations date back to the 1950s, when North Korean
North Korea’s Nuclear Family
His way: Kim Jong Un on Mount Paektu, North Korea, October 2019
scientists first gained basic nuclear expertise with Soviet assistance.

Over the course of the following decades, the regime continued accu-
mulating sensitive nuclear technologies, and in the 1980s, it built its
first nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. In 1985, North Korea signed the Nu-
clear Nonproliferation Treaty, but it did so under Soviet pressure, not
out of genuine conviction. Soon thereafter, it began covertly reprocess-
ing spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
Years of further research and enrichment culminated in the country’s
first nuclear test in October 2006. Five more tests have followed.
Only a handful of states have ever ended their nuclear programs or
given up their nuclear weapons voluntarily, and it often took some
form of regime change for them to do so. North Korea is no different:
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons are a military asset, an insurance policy,
KO R EA N C E N T R AL N EWS AG E NCY
and a vast source of prestige all in one. The Kim family, which has
ruled the country without interruption since 1948, does not want to go
the way of Saddam Hussein of Iraq or Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya—
tyrants who gave up their weapons of mass destruction programs only
to be overthrown and killed. Leaders in Pyongyang are convinced that
nobody, not even a superpower such as the United States, would dare
to attack or even seriously undermine a state armed with the ultimate

Sue Mi Terry
weapon. At home, the nuclear weapons confer a degree of legitimacy

on the regime: a point of national pride, they justify the deprivations
that ordinary citizens suffer to support the state and its military.
Abroad, they raise the country’s diplomatic profile, making up for its
deficits in political, economic, and
soft power. The bomb also raises the
Washington appears to potential cost to the United States of
have exhausted its peaceful defending its ally South Korea in a
options to no avail. war and thus serves Pyongyang’s goal
of driving a wedge between Seoul
and Washington. The regime is, and
has always been, unlikely to give up that trump card, no matter what
political or economic concessions it is offered in return. To truly steer
Pyongyang off its current course would have required stepping in be-
fore it ever produced its first warhead—and even then, success would
have come at too high of a cost.
Consider the events of 1994, perhaps the best opportunity the
United States ever had to permanently undo the North’s nuclear prog-
ress. At the time, Pyongyang’s enrichment efforts were well under-
way, and the regime was preparing to remove several nuclear fuel rods
from its research reactor in Yongbyon. Inside the rods, experts sus-
pected, was enough weapons-grade plutonium to build half a dozen
nuclear bombs. Despite intense pressure, Pyongyang refused to grant
international inspectors access to the site.
Washington saw the danger—a hostile state might be on the verge
of crossing “the nuclear finish line,” as Ashton Carter, then U.S. as-
sistant secretary of defense, put it—and seriously contemplated mili-
tary action. In one plan that reached U.S. President Bill Clinton’s
desk, American cruise missiles and F-117 stealth fighters would carry
out a precision strike on Yongbyon, burying the fuel rods in a moun-
tain of rubble and thus preventing North Korea from weaponizing its
fissile material. But as Clinton was weighing his options, former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang and, on his own initia-
tive, negotiated a deal: North Korea would freeze its nuclear weapons
program in exchange for oil and assistance for its civilian nuclear
sector. Clinton assented, and later that year, he signed an agreement
with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Under the deal, known as
the Agreed Framework, the North pledged to halt its plutonium-
producing reactors in Yongbyon. In return, an American-led consortium
would deliver about ten years’ worth of heavy oil to North Korea and
build two civilian light-water nuclear reactors in the country, among
other concessions. A potential war had been averted.
Knowing how history unfolded (spoiler alert: North Korea did not
stop its nuclear program), one wonders if Clinton was right not to strike
when he had the chance. But the picture is muddled and full of question-
able counterfactuals. A single airstrike, or even a series of strikes, would
have only slowed down Pyongyang’s nuclear progress, not reversed it. A
full-scale war, on the other hand, would almost certainly have meant
North Korea’s defeat at the hands of the United States and South Korea,
likely followed by regime change and a guaranteed end to the North’s
nuclear program. But the cost would have been prohibitive. Pyongyang’s
artillery, although inferior to U.S. and South Korean firepower, was still
formidable. North Korean shelling could have led to 250,000 casualties
in Seoul alone, and some estimates put the total number of possible
deaths at one million—a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.
Clinton’s and Carter’s diplomacy, however, could not rein in the
North Koreans. Although Pyongyang froze its plutonium capabilities
after the 1994 deal, it secretly continued working with A. Q. Khan, the
father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, to enrich uranium instead. When
a U.S. envoy confronted North Korean officials about their cheating in
October 2002, they were unrepentant. Within a few months, North
Korea expelled international inspectors and withdrew from the Nu-
clear Nonproliferation Treaty, triggering renewed tensions.
For defenders of the Agreed Framework, the blame for its break-
down lay partly with U.S. President George W. Bush. Earlier in 2002,
Bush had lumped North Korea together with Iran and Iraq as part of
what he called “an axis of evil”—bellicose rhetoric that, coming on the
heels of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, was said to have spooked
Pyongyang and contributed to its decision to withdraw from the
agreement. Meanwhile, the construction of the promised light-water
reactors was behind schedule, and the United States had never fully
normalized relations with North Korea, as laid out in the Agreed
Framework. But what was the Bush administration supposed to do
once it had evidence of North Korean cheating? Offering more con-
cessions to coax the regime back into compliance, as some critics later
suggested, would have simply rewarded Pyongyang for its transgres-
sions and incentivized more cheating down the line. In truth, the fail-
ure of the agreement was of North Korea’s own making.

Sue Mi Terry
To imagine what paltry results more engagement in 2002 would

have brought, consider South Korea’s separate efforts to sway its
neighbor. Under the so-called Sunshine Policy, the South Korean
government sent the North approximately $8 billion in economic as-
sistance from 1998 to 2008 in the hope of improving bilateral rela-
tions. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung even won a Nobel Peace
Prize for a historic meeting with Kim Jong Il—a summit, it was later
divulged, made possible through the payment of $500 million in cash
to the reclusive dictator. Yet all these inducements did little to shift
the North’s course. On the contrary, after North Korea withdrew from
the Agreed Framework in 2002, it accelerated its nuclear program.
The United States, for its part, seemed stuck in an exasperating
cycle of sanctions and pressure campaigns followed by overtures and
agreements that invariably fell apart. Among other steps, the Bush
administration worked to cut off North Korea’s access to hard cur-
rency—obtained mostly through drug smuggling, counterfeiting, and
money laundering—and thus target the money flows that funded the
extravagant lifestyles of North Korean elites. As the centerpiece of this
new initiative, Washington imposed sanctions in 2005 on the Macao-
based Banco Delta Asia, where North Korea kept $25 million in various
accounts, triggering heightened scrutiny by other banks around the
world. The squeeze worked as intended: North Korean officials called
the sanctions “intolerable.” According to The Wall Street Journal, one
official, after one too many drinks, told his American counterparts
that they had “finally found a way to hurt us.”
Despite the encouraging feedback, the sanctions remained short
lived. When Pyongyang tested its first nuclear weapon the following
year, Bush decided to unfreeze the accounts at Banco Delta Asia in an
effort to jump-start talks. Protracted negotiations eventually pro-
duced a joint statement in which North Korea pledged to disable all
its nuclear facilities and stop the export of nuclear material and tech-
nology; in return, Washington promised to remove North Korea from
its list of state sponsors of terrorism and resume oil shipments and
food aid. But Pyongyang refused to agree to robust verification meas
ures, dooming the accord just as Bush left office. Despite this failure,
Washington did not reimpose sanctions on Banco Delta Asia or put
North Korea back on the terrorism list until almost a decade later,
thus in effect rewarding Pyongyang for its saber rattling.
Discover our online master’s
degrees in Criminal Justice,
Global Security Studies,
Homeland Security, and
Intelligence and Analysis.
Flexible and Cost-Competitive Programs

• 8-week courses
• Totally online degrees
• Worldwide accessibility
• Experienced and expert faculty
We employ world-class faculty to educate military and civilian students

using cutting-edge, culturally based curriculum.
We also have partnership agreements with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army
and National Security Agency that grant credit for specific training and
can shorten the time it takes to earn a degree.
FMI: angelo.edu/kbh-css
Sue Mi Terry
FALLING IN LOVE WITH ROCKET MAN

The same hopeless dynamic characterized the Obama years, which
North Korea rang in with a second nuclear test in May 2009. After
several years of impasse, U.S. President Barack Obama briefly reached
an agreement with North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, in 2012.
(Kim had taken power after his father’s death a year earlier.) This
time, the United States would provide food aid in exchange for a
moratorium on ballistic missile tests and any nuclear activities. Shortly
after the agreement was rolled out, however, North Korea launched a
satellite into orbit using the same technology that would be used to
fire a long-range missile. Another deal thus fell apart. To top things
off, Pyongyang declared that its nuclear weapons were not a bargain-
ing chip and would not be relinquished even for “billions of dollars.”
The episode put an end to the Obama administration’s hopes for a
deal. Washington reverted to a policy of “strategic patience,” which
was designed, as Jeffrey Bader, a National Security Council staffer, put
it, to “break the cycle of provocation, extortion, and reward.” This
meant maintaining sanctions without launching any major diplomatic
initiatives. In kicking the can down the road, Obama managed to
peeve both liberal and conservative Korea watchers: liberal “engagers”
saw the policy as forgoing diplomacy in the face of a worsening nu-
clear threat, whereas hard-liners complained that Washington was
failing to ratchet up the pressure.
The waiting game came to a sudden stop when U.S. President
Donald Trump took office in 2017. Casting aside “strategic patience”
in favor of “maximum pressure,” Trump doubled down on sanctions
and authorized the U.S. Treasury Department to blacklist any foreign
business or individual that facilitated trade with North Korea. His
administration also convinced the UN Security Council to adopt a new
set of tough sanctions aimed at cutting off nearly all of Pyongyang’s
sources of hard currency. Meanwhile, a series of leaks suggested that
the administration was considering launching a preemptive, “bloody
nose” military strike on North Korean nuclear sites. All of this was
accompanied by Trump’s threats to rain “fire and fury” down on
“Rocket Man”—his belittling nickname for the North Korean leader.
Kim responded with bluster of his own, but he also extended an
unexpected olive branch. In his 2018 New Year’s Day address, he de-
clared that his country’s nuclear program was “complete” and offered
to hold conditional talks with South Korea. Through South Korean
envoys, he also proposed a summit with the U.S. president. Trump,

sensing an opportunity to play dealmaker, accepted the offer the mo-
ment he heard of it. In an instant, maximum pressure was transformed
into maximum engagement.
Trump reveled in the three meetings he had with Kim over the course
of 2018 and 2019, at one point declaring that he and Kim had “fallen in
love.” But the lovefest failed to produce any tangible results. At their
first summit, Trump brought Kim a bizarre, make-believe movie trailer
showcasing the prosperity that North Korea could enjoy if it gave up its
nuclear weapons. It eluded Trump entirely that Kim himself already had
all the luxury goods he could ever hope for and that he was not going to
give up the security that nuclear weapons afforded his regime. Trump
walked away with a vague commitment for both sides to “work toward
complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Subsequent at-
tempts to put meat on this bare-bones agreement went nowhere.
That Trump managed to leave office without inviting some sort of
catastrophe on the North Korean front may count as a success in and
of itself. But it is worth noting just how well his initial strategy of
pressuring and isolating the rogue regime seemed to be working. By
late 2017, about 90 percent of North Korean exports were illegal un-
der international law. On top of far-reaching U.S. sanctions, nine
major Security Council resolutions had banned the country’s most
lucrative exports—coal, iron ore, seafood, and textiles, among oth-
ers—which had been netting the regime $3 billion a year. UN resolu-
tions are effective only if enforced, and China, to everyone’s surprise,
was finally doing its part after years of dragging its feet. Meanwhile,
over 20 countries had restricted North Korea’s foreign diplomatic
presence, which Pyongyang was known to use to evade sanctions.
It is unlikely that maximum pressure would have forced North Ko-
rea to give up its nuclear weapons had it been sustained for longer.
Still, it stood a better chance than Trump’s summitry of securing
meaningful limits on Pyongyang’s nuclear activities. Recall that Iran
agreed to roll back—but not eliminate—its nuclear program in 2015
only after three years of maximum pressure from Washington. North
Korea, too, would have had a greater incentive to negotiate in good
faith and move away from maximalist demands if it had suffered longer-
lasting economic pressure. Unfortunately, following Trump’s pre-
mature pivot to dealmaking, the air started to leak out of the sanctions
campaign. China and Russia both eased up on their sanctions enforce-

Sue Mi Terry
ment. Today, even South Korea is unlikely to support a return to the

no-holds-barred approach of 2017; South Korean President Moon
Jae-in, currently in his last six months in office, is eager to jump-start
dialogue with the North and move ahead with inter-Korean projects
that have stalled in recent years.
FALSE HOPES
What emerges, in retrospect, is a dispiriting picture. Washington
appears to have exhausted its peaceful options to no avail. The one
policy that could have achieved denuclearization—invading North
Korea and toppling its regime—was fraught with uncertainty and
would have exacted an unacceptable human toll. What little leeway
Washington did have to slow the North Koreans’ progress and thus
buy more time for a permanent solution it squandered through its
endless zigzagging—from diplomacy to “strategic patience” to “fire
and fury” and back to diplomacy, without ever giving any one approach
a fair chance to succeed.
Some might argue that it was U.S. hostility that compelled North
Korea to seek the bomb in the first place—that things would have
turned out differently had the United States normalized relations,
lifted sanctions, concluded a peace treaty, and pulled its troops out of
South Korea. This confuses cause and effect. American soldiers were
sent to South Korea following the North Korean invasion of 1950, and
they stayed because the North Korean threat never went away. (As
recently as 2010, North Korea torpedoed and sank a South Korean
naval vessel, killing 46 seamen.) And it’s not as if a U.S. withdrawal
would dispel North Korea’s pervasive sense of insecurity. The Kim
dynasty, a Stalinist dictatorship built on deception and oppression, is
ultimately threatened by its own lack of legitimacy. It can never feel
safe as long as a freer, more prosperous rival Korean state exists next
door. The nukes are as much about the regime’s own desperation as
they are about deterring U.S. military action.
It is true, however, that U.S. policymakers have often failed to un-
derstand the North Korean regime. Those in the engagement camp—
including Trump, once he was meeting with Kim—have falsely
convinced themselves that North Korean leaders share their hopes for
peace and could be enticed away from nuclear weapons with offers of
increased aid and economic incentives. Some hard-liners, for their
part, have been led astray in thinking that there was a military option,
either in 1994 or more recently, that could have surgically neutralized

the North Korean nuclear program without triggering a catastrophic
war. Unfortunately, there has never been an easy way out.
If there is a government that could have made a real difference, it
is not Washington but Beijing. China is North Korea’s largest trading
partner by far and a major source of energy supplies. It can bring
North Korea to its knees simply by stopping the flow of oil—as it did
for a few months in 2013 and again in 2014, when it was infuriated by
yet another nuclear test and by the execution of Jang Song Thaek,
Kim’s uncle and Beijing’s main interlocutor in Pyongyang. But the
pressure was not sustained. China, albeit no fan of the North Korean
nuclear program, is far more afraid that too much pressure might
cause the regime in Pyongyang to collapse, sending refugees flooding
into China and possibly bringing U.S. troops and their South Korean
allies right up to its doorstep. And with U.S.-Chinese relations at a
low point, Beijing has little reason to give Washington a helping hand.
A NEW THREAT
In dealing with Pyongyang, Biden is the latest American leader to con-
front a set of unappealing options, but the potential consequences of
failure, already severe to begin with, have worsened dramatically. Unlike
past presidents, Biden now faces a determined adversary with a robust
nuclear deterrent that includes the ability to hit the continental United
States with nuclear missiles. He has not had to acknowledge as much, as
Kim—likely distracted by the fallout of the pandemic—has so far for-
gone the missile and nuclear tests that have usually greeted new U.S.
presidents. But the odds are that Kim will eventually resume his tried-
and-true strategy of provocations followed by insincere peace overtures.
Before long, things will inevitably come to a head.
How will Biden respond to the next crisis? Come what may, a pre-
emptive military strike should remain off-limits. If that option was
deemed too risky and costly to pursue in 1994, it is all the more so
today. Many of the North’s nuclear warheads and missiles are believed
to be hidden in covert facilities and buried in impenetrable bunkers;
some can be moved around with ease. Airstrikes are unlikely to elim-
inate these capabilities in one fell swoop, meaning that Kim could
retaliate with a nuclear strike.
Diplomacy is a better option, but it is no more likely to bring about
denuclearization. At most, Pyongyang might agree to an interim nu-

Sue Mi Terry
clear freeze deal that limits its nuclear weapons capabilities for a given
period. But history suggests that negotiations will ultimately fail over
the issue of verification. Instead of making concessions and getting
nothing in return, Biden must come to terms with two fundamental
facts. First, North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons as long
as its totalitarian regime remains in charge. Second, U.S.-led regime
change, at least in the short term, is not an option. Biden’s best bet is
to contain the threat and then work to gradually weaken the regime’s
hold on power from the bottom up.
Start with sanctions. It will be hard, perhaps impossible, to return
to the maximum-pressure policy of 2017 as long as China does not
prioritize sanctions enforcement. But renewed North Korean provo-
cations, such as a nuclear or a long-range missile test, could bring
Beijing back onboard. In the meantime, Washington can still revive
its efforts to target the North’s illicit revenue streams and foreign
bank accounts. It could also impose secondary sanctions on Chinese
companies doing business with North Korea, provided that this
doesn’t disrupt its wider China strategy.
At the same time, the United States should continue its efforts to
deter North Korea from acts of aggression against its neighbors. Do-
ing so will require increasing cooperation with its allies Japan and
South Korea, which in turn need to be encouraged to work more
closely with each other. Together, the three allies could integrate their
missile defenses, streamline their intelligence sharing, and enhance
their antisubmarine warfare, among other steps.
Counterproliferation measures will be essential, too. North Korea
has been known to share ballistic missile technology with Iran and
Syria, in addition to other countries. The more nuclear weapons and
missiles the regime produces, the greater the risk that it will share its
knowledge with more states, or even nonstate actors, in return for what
it needs the most—hard currency. Washington will need to build a
coalition of states to conduct extensive surveillance on the ground, at
sea, and in the air to detect any such proliferation activities, and Biden
must make clear that any infractions will carry severe consequences.
With these containment measures in place, Washington should fo-
cus on small steps to loosen the regime’s grip on the North Korean
people. News from the outside world already seeps into the North
across its porous border with China. Black and gray markets inside
the country have made it easier to distribute banned technologies and
media. As a result, more North Koreans than ever can see the gap
between the state’s myths and the cruel reality. To a regime built on
lies, that burgeoning awareness poses a threat—one that Washington
can work to amplify with its own clandestine information operations.
The Biden administration should also maintain a global focus on the
North’s appalling record of abusing its own population. The regime has
devoted its scarce resources to building nuclear weapons rather than
feeding its own people or providing
them with basic services. Washington
should highlight this link and push for Years of inconsistent, and at
renewed UN human rights investiga- times counterproductive,
tions and resolutions on the matter.
This strategy—combining infor- U.S. efforts to contain the
mation operations and a human rights North Korean nuclear
campaign—would echo the Western threat have only let it fester.
policies that once contributed to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Kim is
entering his second decade in power, but with swirling rumors about
his health and a persistently dire economic outlook, no one knows how
stable his rule really is. Whatever the regime’s immediate future, its
long-term prospects are bleak unless it carries out genuine economic
reforms, but reforms might engender political instability of their own.
Against that background, an information and human rights campaign
would not yield any quick results on the nuclear front, but it might
plant the seeds of a more enduring shift. Only when North Korea be-
comes more accountable and responsive to its own people will there be
any chance for meaningful progress toward denuclearization. A trans-
formed regime under a future leader might perceive less of a need to
develop nuclear deterrent capabilities and pose less of a threat to its
own people or its neighbors.
Absent such a regime change or transformation—highly unlikely
but not impossible—the only other durable solution to the nuclear
crisis is the country’s reunification under the democratically elected,
pro-Western government in Seoul. Even if a unified, democratic Ko-
rea decided to keep a nuclear arsenal, it would still not pose the kind
of threat that the world currently faces from the tyrannical regime in
Pyongyang. Ultimately, the North Korean nuclear crisis is a reflection
of North Korea’s government. Until that regime either dramatically
reforms itself or collapses, the nuclear threat will remain.∂

Strategies of Restraint
Remaking America’s Broken Foreign Policy
Emma Ashford
F
or nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, U.S.
foreign policy was characterized by a bipartisan consensus:
that as the world’s “indispensable nation” and with no com-
petitor, the United States had little choice but to pursue a transfor-
mational agenda on the world stage. Over the last few years, however,
that consensus has collapsed. A growing chorus of voices are advocat-
ing a strategy of restraint—a less activist approach that focuses on
diplomatic and economic engagement over military intervention.
And they have found a receptive audience.
In that, they have undoubtedly been helped by circumstance: the
United States’ failed “war on terror,” the rise of China, and growing par-
tisan polarization at home have all made it clear that U.S. foreign policy
cannot simply remain on autopilot. Even those who continue to argue
for an interventionist approach to the world typically acknowledge that
their strategy must be shorn of its worst excesses. Where restraint was
once excluded from the halls of power and confined largely to academic
journals, now some of its positions have become official policy.
Although President Donald Trump’s record was defined by dys-
function more than any coherent strategy, he did wind down the war
in Afghanistan, raise doubts about the value of U.S. alliances in Eu-
rope and Asia, and question the wisdom of military intervention
and democracy promotion. President Joe Biden, for his part, has
begun withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, has initiated a
review of the United States’ global military posture, and has taken
steps to stabilize the U.S.-Russian relationship. In 2019, Jake Sulli-
van, now Biden’s national security adviser, wrote, “The U.S. must
get better at seeing both the possibilities and the limits of American
power.” That this sentiment is now openly embraced at the highest
EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow at the New American Engagement Initiative at the
Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
levels of government is nothing short of a win for those who have

long called for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy.
Yet victory also raises a question: Where do restrainers go from
here? With Washington having dialed down the war on terrorism,
the most politically popular of their demands has been achieved.
Now, they are liable to face an uphill battle over the rest of U.S. for-
eign policy, such as how to treat allies or what to do about China—is-
sues that have little public salience or on which the restrainers are
divided. Although often bundled together by Washington’s foreign
policy elites and derided as isolationists, the members of the restraint
community include a diversity of voices, running the gamut from
left-wing antiwar activists to hard-nosed conservative realists. It
should not be surprising that they disagree on much.
If the restraint camp focuses on what divides them rather than
what unites them, then it will find itself consumed with internecine
battles and excluded from decision-making at the very moment its
influence could be at its height. But there is a viable consensus, a
path forward for restraint that can achieve the most important goals,
alienate the fewest members of the coalition, and win new converts.
This more pragmatic strategy, which would entail the gradual lessen-
ing of U.S. military commitments, would not achieve the most ambi-
tious of the restrainers’ goals. But it has the best chance of moving
U.S. foreign policy in a more secure and more popular direction.
A DEBATE REBORN
The idea that the United States is uniquely qualified to reshape the
world has manifested itself in different ways in the 30 years since the
collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of a bipolar world. Hu-
manitarian intervention, democracy promotion, and counterterror-
ism—all were attempts to mold the world according to American
preferences. Yet the unipolar moment has largely failed to live up to
expectations. Today, democracy is in decline, there are more state-
level conflicts than at any time since 1990, the war on terrorism has
largely failed, and China’s rise has given the lie to the notion that the
United States can prevent the emergence of peer competitors. Wash-
ington’s foreign policy community now appears to accept the need
for a course correction, although it remains divided on the specifics.
Today, opinion is increasingly coalescing around three distinct
views. The first of these is a modified form of liberal international-

Emma Ashford
ism, the school of thought that believes that U.S. leadership is a

stabilizing force in the world, emphasizes militarized deterrence, and
has faith in a liberal, rules-based international order. Proponents of
this approach often frame threats from China and Russia as threats
to this order rather than as threats to concrete U.S. security interests.
Yet the strain of this view dominant today is also, at least in theory, a
softer, reformed version of the post–Cold War consensus, one that
takes into account critiques of recent U.S. foreign policy and rejects
parts of the war on terrorism.
Because they are more aware of the limits of American power than
their predecessors, advocates of this view are best described as lib-
eral internationalists, rather than liberal interventionists. The schol-
ars Mira Rapp-Hooper and Rebecca Lissner—both of whom now
serve on the National Security Council—belong to this camp. As
they wrote in these pages in 2019, “Rather than wasting its still con-
siderable power on quixotic bids to restore the liberal order or re-
make the world in its own image, the United States should focus on
what it can realistically achieve.”
Another alternative has percolated out of the synthesis of the Re-
publican foreign policy establishment and the Trump administration:
a form of belligerent unilateralism that prioritizes maintaining U.S.
military primacy. This “America first” approach to the world is also a
clear successor to the old consensus, but one that privileges power
over diplomacy and U.S. interests over a liberal order. Like their lib-
eral internationalist counterparts, the America firsters—both Trump
administration alumni and more mainstream Republican foreign pol-
icy hands—have absorbed the notion that U.S. foreign policy has be-
come unpopular, particularly among the gop base. They have therefore
shifted from democracy promotion and nation building toward a mil-
itarized global presence more akin to classic imperial policing.
They also reject some of the core liberal components of the old con-
sensus, spurning diplomacy and arms control, fetishizing sovereignty,
and preferring American solutions to global problems over multilateral
solutions. For them, the liberal order is a mirage. As Nadia Schadlow, a
veteran of the Trump White House, wrote in these pages in 2020, “Wash-
ington must let go of old illusions, move past the myths of liberal inter-
nationalism, and reconsider its views about the nature of the world order.”
Both approaches to the world are still problematic. A rebooted lib-
eral internationalism may succeed at rehabilitating the United States’
F i g h t th e pow er: a t a n a n ti w a r ra l l y i n W a s h i n g ton , D . C . , J a n u a ry 2021
image, but it is unlikely to advance democracy or build a unified lib-

eral order through nonmilitary means when military ones have failed.
And as the global balance of power shifts, liberal internationalism si-
multaneously overestimates the contributions that U.S. allies can
make to collective defense and underestimates the differences they
have with Washington. The ì America firstî approach, for its part, may
yield short-term dividendsó Trump, after all, was able to force U.S.
allies to abide by sanctions on Iran and renegotiate the North Ameri-
can F ree Trade Agreementó but it has diminishing returns. The more
the United States uses coercive tools against other countries, the more
they will look for ways to blunt those tools. And both approaches lean
heavily on a forward U.S. military presence in ways that could all too
easily trigger an unplanned conflict, particularly in Asia.
The remaining alternative, restraint, comes from outside the Wash-
L I U J I U / X I N H UA
ington policymaking world and is largely focused on these flaws. It is

far more ideologically diverse than the other two, but most restrainers
agree on several core principles. They share a conviction that the United
States is a remarkably secure nation, that unlike many great powers in

Emma Ashford
history, it faces no real threat of invasion, thanks to geography and nu-

clear weapons. They argue that U.S. foreign policy has been character-
ized in recent years by overreach and hubris, with predictably abysmal
results. And they think U.S. foreign policy is overmilitarized, with
policymakers spending too much on defense and too quickly resorting
to force. Most important, advocates of restraint strike directly at the
notion of the United States as the indispensable nation, considering it
instead as but one among many global powers.
RESTRAINT’S MOMENT
The most common slap at restrainers is that they focus too much on
criticism without offering plausible policy alternatives. That is not an
entirely accurate evaluation; individual proponents of restraint have
offered detailed prescriptions for everything from the war in Af-
ghanistan to U.S.-Russian relations. But it is true that restrainers
have often focused on what draws them together—namely, their
shared criticisms of the status quo—rather than what would pull
them apart: the question of which specific policies to implement in-
stead. As restraint enters the mainstream conversation, the distinc-
tions within this group are coming to the surface.
Restraint contains several different overlapping ideas. The first
(and best defined) of these is an academic theory of grand strategy
formulated by the political scientist Barry Posen in his 2014 book,
Restraint. His version of restraint envisages a much smaller military
based primarily within the United States. Other restrainers—such
as the international relations theorists John Mearsheimer and Ste-
phen Walt—advocate a grand strategy of offshore balancing, a dis-
tinct but related approach that also calls for downsizing the United
States’ global military role. (The distinction between the two is one
of degree: Posen backs an entirely offshore military presence,
whereas Mearsheimer and Walt admit that the United States may
occasionally need to intervene to keep a hostile state from dominat-
ing a key region.) As grand strategies, both leave many granular
policy details unstated, but they present internally coherent and
fully formulated approaches to the world.
There is also a looser definition of “restraint.” Increasingly, the term
is Washington shorthand for any proposal for a less militarized and
activist foreign policy. That includes those put forth not just by aca-
demic realists but also by progressive Democrats and conservative Re-
Gain competitive skills for the global workplace plus experience the business,
policy and cultural environments of Russia and the region. This unparalleled
opportunity has enabled over 200 professionals to elevate their careers since 2004.
RUSSIA+
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
CULTURAL IMMERSION
LANGUAGE TRAINING
MONTHLY STIPEND
ACCOMMODATION
NETWORKING
TRAVEL
Learn more: Apply by

culturalvistas.org/alfa DECEMBER 1
OJSC Alfa-Bank is incorporated, focused and based in Russia, and is not affiliated with U.S.-based Alfa Insurance.
Arm Yourself for the 21st Century

Salve �t
�v�i�� Regina University’s
�� Ph.D. ��
�� t�i��s in ��
International Relations is the nation’s
first fully online doctoral program in this
field, providing the historical perspective and
academic understanding needed to interpret
the world in front of you. Additionally, we offer
an online M.A. in international relations. With
an advanced degree from Salve Regina, you 401.341.2212
will be equipped to offer innovation solutions salve.edu/grad
to the world’s political dilemmas. Apply today. graduate_studies@salve.edu
visit �� t��t i��i��i��t��is��s��
Emma Ashford
publicans in Congress, as well as various antiwar groups (such as Code

Pink and the Friends Committee on National Legislation) and newer
entrants into the antiwar space (such as the veterans’ group Common
Defense). Thus, the term “restraint” is now used as often to signify
this broader political movement as it is to describe a grand strategy.
Any movement that includes Mearsheimer and Code Pink is by
necessity a big tent, and indeed, there are many motivations for re-
straint. For some, it might be a moral consideration: many libertari-
ans believe that war grows the state, and anti-imperialists want to
rein in what they see as an overbearing military-industrial complex.
For others, the motivation is financial: although conservative deficit
hawks are far less vocal on defense than on other issues, they exist,
and many progressives and even some mainstream Democrats view
cuts to military spending as an easy way to free up resources for in-
frastructure or social programs. For others in the restraint commu-
nity, it is personal: some of the recent activism around ending the
war on terrorism has been driven by veterans who are concerned
about what the conflict has done to their fellow soldiers and to Amer-
ican society writ large. Then there are the strategists, for whom the
pursuit of restraint is largely about avoiding the failures and risks of
the current approach. There are even those who might be called
“restraint-curious,” people who are open to a more restrained foreign
policy on specific issues but reject the broader notion.
The result is a coalition that—much like its opposition—is broad
and bipartisan, a partnership of the left and the right in which the two
sides don’t agree with each other on much else. Consider the congres-
sional activism around ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in
Yemen, a movement that was spearheaded by two liberals, Senator
Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat
from Connecticut, and two Republicans, Senators Rand Paul of Ken-
tucky and Mike Lee of Utah. Or consider the strange bedfellows made
by the war in Afghanistan. In the House of Representatives, advocates
of withdrawal included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the
standard-bearer of the Democratic Party’s left wing, and Matt Gaetz
of Florida, a Republican devotee of Trump. The transpartisan nature
of the coalition pushing for restraint is one of its core strengths.
It is also a sign of restraint’s increasing influence on an important
and growing segment of American society. After all, there have al-
ways been people calling for a less activist U.S. foreign policy: presi-
dential candidates who opposed the Spanish-American War, senators

who refused to support joining the League of Nations, students who
protested the Vietnam War. After the Cold War, these voices were
pushed aside in policy debates, chided as unrealistic or isolationist.
This ire fell both on activists protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq,
who were derided as ì Saddamí s idiots,î and on once mainstream real-
ists such as George Kennan and Brent Scowcroft, whose opposition
to NATO expansion was met with derision from politicians such as
Biden, then a senator, who described them as ì isolationist.î It was
easy for elites, in the heat of the unipolar moment, to brush past the
concerns and critiques of those who pointed out that nation building
in the Middle East would be difficult or that seemingly benign poli-
cies in Europe might have unexpected consequences.
Today, it is not so easy. Not only has the war on terrorism publicly
failed; the balance of power is also shifting globally, with the United
States in relative decline and China rising. Political polarization and
gridlock are weakening the United States domestically and tarnishing its
image internationally. Polls show that a majority of voters now favor di-
plomacy over military interventionó hence the rise of restraint.
A HOUSE DIVIDED
Although they remain mostly outside government, restrainers have
achieved some notable successes in recent years. Thanks to a peace
process initiated by the Trump administration, the United States is
finally withdrawing from Afghanistan after 20 years. Congress has suc-
ceeded in curtailing U.S. military support for the war in Yemen.
Meanwhile, the Biden administrationí s plans to conduct reviews of the
U.S. global force posture and U.S. sanctions suggest a growing aware-
ness within government of the criticisms lobbed by restrainers. Then
there are the suspension of sales of precision-guided munitions to Saudi
Arabia, the opening of strategic stability talks with Russia, and the draw-
down of U.S. missile and air forces from the Middle East. None goes as
far as most restrainers would like, but all are steps in the right direction.
More important, establishment figures now routinely make points
that used to get advocates of restraint excluded from polite conversa-
tion. Consider the way in which Mara Karlin and Tamara Cofman
Wittes (both of whom have been appointed to senior posts in the
Biden administration) described the Middle East in these pages in
2019: ìI t is time for Washington to put an end to wishful thinking

Emma Ashford
about its ability to establish order on its own terms or to transform

self-interested and shortsighted regional partners into reliable al-
lies.” Or as Martin Indyk, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama ad-
ministrations, put it more bluntly in The Wall Street Journal: “The
Middle East isn’t worth it anymore.” It is too early to take a victory
lap, but proponents of restraint have
certainly notched some major victories
U.S. foreign policy has in the debate over U.S. foreign policy.
been characterized in Yet it is notable that those victories
recent years by overreach have come in debates over Afghanistan
and the Middle East, where the stark
and hubris. realities of the United States’ strategic
bankruptcy have been most obvious,
where the solutions have been politically palatable, and on which
public opinion has been strongly supportive of restraint. More im-
portant, these issues drew support from across the pro-restraint com-
munity; realists, doves, fiscal hawks, and even Trumpian nationalists
largely agreed that democracy promotion and nation building in Af-
ghanistan and Iraq was problematic. With that debate won, restrain-
ers will have to turn to issues that are a harder sell and on which they
themselves are not of one mind. Although many of them have laid
out viable policies on issues from U.S. support for Taiwan to burden
sharing in NATO, these visions are not always compatible. For exam-
ple, European states will likely decline to shoulder a greater burden
within NATO—and instead strengthen the EU’s own capabilities—if
they believe that the United States’ ultimate goal regarding the alli-
ance is abandonment rather than reform.
In other words, restrainers have not offered a single, coherent al-
ternative to today’s foreign policy because they do not themselves
always agree. In their days of irrelevance, that would have been quite
literally an academic point. But now that they are actively beginning
to influence policy, their internal disagreements could shape the fu-
ture of U.S. foreign policy. Today, these debates are as important as
those between restrainers and liberal internationalists.
Some of these divergences are the inevitable result of restraint’s bipar-
tisan appeal. Just as there is no consensus between Democratic and Re-
publican liberal internationalists on questions of trade, there is no
consensus on them among restrainers. Many realists tend to be classi-
cally liberal on trade, with the academics promulgating grand strategies
of restraint seeing the maintenance of free trade as a core U.S. interest.

Progressive politicians who back restraint, by contrast, hold more tradi-
tional, pro-labor attitudes. During the 2020 Democratic presidential pri-
mary, for example, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts promised:
“I want to . . . use our leverage to force other countries to raise the bar
on everything from labor and environmental standards to anti-corrup-
tion rules”—a decidedly different position from that of many realists.
Similar tensions can be found on the topic of immigration, where pro-
gressives’ embrace of greater immigration runs into opposition from
more conservative restrainers. These differences of opinion mean that
there may be some inherent tensions in a more restrained foreign policy.
Trade wars, for example, could complicate the ability of the United
States to shift the burden of military defense to European or Asian coun-
tries and could make friction with China more challenging to manage.
On other topics, the divergence among restrainers is mostly one of
degree. In academia, most restrainers agree that the United States
should largely move its forces offshore, but they disagree about how
far offshore. Some think that the United States could remain safe
while downsizing the military and closing most foreign bases, whereas
others prefer a Goldilocks approach: maintaining some U.S. pres-
ence in crucial regions. As a result, estimates of how much retrench-
ment would save the U.S. government differ. The Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has projected that a fully im-
plemented strategy of restraint—one that conformed to Posen’s
grand strategic vision—could save $1 trillion over ten years. Writing
in these pages in 2020, Kathleen Hicks (now U.S. deputy secretary
of defense) proposed a more limited retrenchment, a strategy she
estimated would save $20–$30 billion a year.
The two central questions dividing the restraint camp are the same
ones dominating the rest of the U.S. foreign policy debate: What is the
future of U.S. alliances, and what should be done about China? On the
former, most restrainers highlight the downsides of alliances—namely,
that they encourage free-riding and raise the risk of getting entangled
in conflict. Yet alliances remain widely popular; few Americans want to
gut nato. Sanders has called for European allies to spend more on de-
fense, but he has also argued that alliances remain valuable, a position
shared by a majority of the public. And in Asia, partnerships will un-
doubtedly be necessary to deal with China even under a grand strategy
of offshore balancing. The result is an uneasy truce within the restraint

Emma Ashford
coalition: all agree that some level of reform is necessary, but while
some seek to mitigate the risks and costs of alliances by downsizing the
U.S. military or forcing other countries to bear more of the burden,
others argue that only a complete withdrawal from the United States’
permanent alliances will do the trick.
On China, few voices within the restraint community would argue
that the country’s rise is insignificant; the debate is over how to re-
spond to it. For some realists, China’s rise is the foundational issue
driving their advocacy for restraint outside East Asia. In 2016, for
example, Mearsheimer and Walt argued in these pages that China “is
likely to seek hegemony in Asia” and called on the United States to
“undertake a major effort to prevent it from succeeding.” Such real-
ists are mostly not arguing for retrenchment in East Asia; instead,
they advocate a restructuring of the U.S. force posture to focus on
the threat from China, coupled with a reconsideration of the putative
U.S. security commitments—especially to Taiwan—that pose the
biggest risk of misperception and war.
There are, however, two other main camps on China within the
restraint community. The first argues that retrenchment, home-
land defense, and nuclear weapons are sufficient to preserve U.S.
interests and security in the face of a more powerful China. In this
view, China may be a threat to the United States’ military primacy
but not to its security. The second group argues, conversely, that
the China problem is best viewed not in terms of security but in
terms of shared challenges such as climate change. In July, more
than 40 progressive groups signed a letter to Biden urging him to
“eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China rela-
tions and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and coop-
eration with China to address the existential threat that is the
climate crisis.” It is not clear that these differences can be recon-
ciled even over the long term, raising the disquieting notion that
the restraint movement may succeed when it comes to the Middle
East but founder on the question of China.
COME TOGETHER
The restraint community is in some ways an accident of history, the
unintended consequence of the United States’ remarkable overexten-
sion after the Cold War. Only such an unbalanced foreign policy could
generate such a diverse coalition against it. Today, restrainers find
themselves advocating the right idea at the right time; they have made
significant inroads with their most persuasive arguments. So what now?
The most viable path through which restraint could become the
dominant strand of strategic thinking among U.S. policymakers is
the promotion of a foreign policy that is realist yet not doctrinaire,
internationalist yet prudent. Such an
approach is better suited for a world Establishment figures now
where the United States can no lon-
ger dictate policies from on high, routinely make points that
where it is merely first among equals. used to get advocates of
On issues of common concern, such restraint excluded from
as climate change, this realist inter-
nationalist approach would argue for polite conversation.
the United States to use its outsize
power to act not as an antagonist but as a convener, building coali-
tions to address global problems to the extent possible. When it
comes to the U.S. military’s size and posture, it would advocate suf-
ficiency, rather than primacy, focusing mostly on the forces needed
to defend the United States and its core security interests. There
would be some level of global retrenchment, including a reduction in
the United States’ network of overseas bases. Washington would
push allies to bear a greater share of the burden for their own de-
fense. In Europe, that would take the form of ending the U.S. mili-
tary presence over a period of years, while working with European
states to bolster homegrown capabilities to deter Russia. In Asia, it
would mean resisting further U.S. military buildup and increasing
the capabilities of Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asian
allies. Most important, since this strategy’s central goal is to avoid a
great-power war, the United States would have to hedge its bets on
China and Russia, maintaining the necessary defense capabilities
while avoiding destabilizing arms races and security dilemmas.
If this sounds like an argument for moderation by restrainers, it is. It
would not be prudent—and could be destabilizing—to immediately or
completely withdraw from Europe or Asia. Likewise, ending alliances
should be a last resort, not a first resort. In an ideal world, perhaps the
United States would not have enlarged NATO or extended a security
guarantee to South Korea, but policymakers must grapple with the world
as it is. Equally important, this vision of restraint is far more politically
viable than other variants. A campaign to leave NATO would, if success-

Emma Ashford
ful, undoubtedly reduce U.S. military overstretch, the risks of entangle-

ment, and tensions with Russia. But it would be widely unpopular and
be opposed by a wide coalition, including the American public, Wash-
ington foreign policy elites, and European allies. An alternative approach
of promoting burden sharing and drawing down U.S. troop levels over a
decade would achieve many of the same benefits without provoking a
domestic backlash. It might even garner
support from European allies.
The restraint movement To put it another way: one of the
may succeed when it most important things that restrainers
comes to the Middle East bring to the table is the notion of mod-
eration and pragmatism. Restrainers
but founder on the are some of the loudest voices arguing
question of China. that the United States should resist
grand crusades and transformational
goals in foreign policy, whether it be
the war on terrorism or the struggle of democracy versus autocracy.
A consensus approach for restrainers would apply this moderation
not only to the broader questions of U.S. foreign policy but also to
their own ambitions. It will be tempting for restrainers on either side
of the internal divides to shun calls for consensus and work instead
with their external opponents in the foreign policy debate on the
more limited areas where they align. Offshore balancers might choose
to work with America firsters on reining in democracy promotion
and nation building. Progressives might make common cause with
liberal internationalists on fighting kleptocracy or bolstering the role
of multilateralism and diplomacy. Although this might indeed be a
viable path forward, nudging both Democrats’ and Republicans’
increasingly divergent foreign policies closer to restraint, it also
carries significant risks.
Chief among these is the risk that this approach will solve smaller,
surface-level problems with current U.S. foreign policy while leaving
the biggest problems untouched. Cutting the defense budget without
rolling back the military’s massive forward-deployed presence might
be worse than no cuts at all, leaving a hollow and weak force that is
nonetheless forward deployed in ways that could spark an unintended
conflict. That could increase the likelihood of a war, while decreasing
the military’s ability to win it. Likewise, getting European and Asian
allies to pay up without shedding U.S. commitments to defend non-
treaty allies would be more prudent financially than the current policy,
but no more strategically sound. Restrainers should be wary of part-
nerships that require them to compromise on core principles. Progres-
sives who push for Ukraine’s membership in nato as a pro-democracy
step are liable to find their antiwar goals undermined in the long run
by Russian military action, as they did in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine
in 2014. Offshore balancers who partner with hawkish unilateralists to
contain China may find themselves pulled into a far riskier approach
than they intended. Partisan polarization is liable to heighten these
distinctions; it would be a serious mistake for restrainers to get sucked
more deeply into partisan fights over foreign policy.
Ultimately, restrainers will find it better to stick together and coop-
erate as a transpartisan bloc. This will require compromise, in which
the coalition hammers out differences internally to advance a shared
vision of a less militaristic and more restrained U.S. foreign policy.
Proponents of a grand strategy of restraint may have to accept an ap-
proach that is less radical in its military retrenchment. Offshore balanc-
ers may have to accept that it will be challenging, perhaps impossible,
to achieve the most ambitious reforms of U.S. alliances. Progressives
may have to accept the core insights of realism and admit that some
problems, such as oppression abroad, cannot be solved through inter-
national compromise, diplomacy, or sanctions. In other words, restrain-
ers should downplay their own internal differences and prioritize their
continuing differences with the splintering consensus.∂

The United States

of Sanctions
The Use and Abuse of Economic Coercion
Daniel W. Drezner
I
n theory, superpowers should possess a range of foreign policy
tools: military might, cultural cachet, diplomatic persuasion,
technological prowess, economic aid, and so on. But to anyone
paying attention to U.S. foreign policy for the past decade, it has
become obvious that the United States relies on one tool above all:
economic sanctions.
Sanctions—measures taken by one country to disrupt economic
exchange with another—have become the go-to solution for nearly
every foreign policy problem. During President Barack Obama’s first
term, the United States designated an average of 500 entities for sanc-
tions per year for reasons ranging from human rights abuses to nu-
clear proliferation to violations of territorial sovereignty. That figure
nearly doubled over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency. Presi-
dent Joe Biden, in his first few months in office, imposed new sanc-
tions against Myanmar (for its coup), Nicaragua (for its crackdown),
and Russia (for its hacking). He has not fundamentally altered any of
the Trump administration’s sanctions programs beyond lifting those
against the International Criminal Court. To punish Saudi Arabia for
the murder of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi, the Biden administra-
tion sanctioned certain Saudi officials, and yet human rights activists
wanted more. Activists have also clamored for sanctions on China for
its persecution of the Uyghurs, on Hungary for its democratic back-
sliding, and on Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.
This reliance on economic sanctions would be natural if they were
especially effective at getting other countries to do what Washington
DANIEL W. DREZNER is Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
wants, but they’re not. The most generous academic estimate of sanc-
tions’ efficacy—a 2014 study relying on a data set maintained by the
University of North Carolina—found that, at best, sanctions lead to
concessions between one-third and one-half of the time. A 2019 Gov-
ernment Accountability Office study concluded that not even the
federal government was necessarily aware when sanctions were work-
ing. Officials at the Treasury, State, and Commerce Departments, the
report noted, “stated they do not conduct agency assessments of the
effectiveness of sanctions in achieving broader U.S. policy goals.”
The truth is that Washington’s fixation with sanctions has little to do
with their efficacy and everything to do with something else: American
decline. No longer an unchallenged superpower, the United States can’t
throw its weight around the way it used to. In relative terms, its military
power and diplomatic influence have declined. Two decades of war, re-
cession, polarization, and now a pandemic have dented American power.
Frustrated U.S. presidents are left with fewer arrows in their quiver,
and they are quick to reach for the easy, available tool of sanctions.
The problem, however, is that sanctions are hardly cost free. They
strain relations with allies, antagonize adversaries, and impose eco-
nomic hardship on innocent civilians. Thus, sanctions not only reveal
American decline but accelerate it, too. To make matters worse, the
tool is growing duller by the year. Future sanctions are likely to be
even less effective as China and Russia happily swoop in to rescue
targeted actors and as U.S. allies and partners tire of the repeated
application of economic pressure. Together, these developments will
render the U.S. dollar less central to global finance, reducing the ef-
fect of sanctions that rely on that dominance.
Washington should use sanctions surgically and sparingly. Under a
more disciplined approach to economic statecraft, officials would clar-
ify the goal of a particular measure and the criteria for repealing it.
But most important, they would remember that there are other tools
at their disposal. Sanctions are a specialized instrument best deployed
in controlled circumstances, not an all-purpose tool for everyday use.
Policymakers should treat them like a scalpel, not a Swiss Army knife.
A HISTORY OF ECONOMIC VIOLENCE

Economic statecraft has been a vital component of U.S. diplomacy
since the early days of the republic. As president, Thomas Jefferson
urged passage of the Embargo Act of 1807 to punish the United

Daniel W. Drezner
Kingdom and Napoleonic France for harassing U.S. ships. That ef-
fort at sanctions was a disaster. Back in the day, the United States
needed European markets far more than the United Kingdom and
France needed a fledgling country in the New World; the Embargo
Act cost the United States far more than it did the European great
powers. Even so, the United States continued to use trade as its main
foreign policy tool, focusing on prying open foreign markets for ex-
port and promoting foreign investment at home. This was only natu-
ral given the paltry size of the U.S. military for most of the nineteenth
century. The preeminence of the British pound in global finance also
meant that the U.S. dollar was not an important currency. Trade was
the primary way the United States conducted diplomacy.
At the end of World War I, the United States renewed its enthusiasm
for trade sanctions as a means of regulating world politics. President
Woodrow Wilson urged Americans to support the League of Nations by
arguing that its power to sanction would act as a substitute for war. “A
nation boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender,” he said in 1919.
“Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be
no need for force. It is a terrible remedy.” Americans were unconvinced,
and the United States never joined the League of Nations. In the end,
sanctions imposed by the league failed to deter Italy from invading Ethi-
opia in 1935 or stop any other act of belligerence that led to World
War II. To the contrary, the U.S. embargo on fuel and other war
materials going to Japan helped precipitate the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The advent of the Cold War expanded the array of tools of eco-
nomic statecraft available to the United States. For the first time, the
country supplied a significant amount of multilateral and bilateral
foreign aid; stopping that aid was an easy way of applying economic
pressure. The United States’ most successful use of economic sanc-
tions in this period came during the 1956 Suez crisis. Outraged by
the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, Washington prevented
the United Kingdom from drawing down its International Monetary
Fund reserves to defend its currency. The subsequent run on the
pound forced London to withdraw its troops.
Most of the time, however, U.S. sanctions failed. In the early years of
the Cold War, the United States embargoed Soviet allies to deny them
access to vital resources and technologies. That embargo succeeded as
an act of containment. But sanctions designed to compel changes in
behavior had little bite, since the Soviet Union simply stepped in to of-
Chokepoint: at a shipping terminal in Busan, South Korea, July 2021

fer economic support to the targeted economies. In the early 1960s, for
example, as the United States tightened its embargo on exports to Cuba,
the Soviets threw Fidel Castro’s regime an economic lifeline by chan-
neling massive amounts of aid to Havana. Later in the Cold War, the
United States used economic sanctions to pressure allies and adversaries
alike to improve their human rights records. Beyond the rare success
of sanctioning a close ally, economic pressure worked only when it
came from a broad multilateral coalition, such as the UN sanctions
against apartheid-era South Africa.
The end of the Cold War brought an initial burst of hope about
sanctions. With the Soviets no longer automatically vetoing UN Se-
curity Council resolutions, it seemed possible that multilateral trade
sanctions could replace war, just as Wilson had dreamed. Reality
quickly proved otherwise. In 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the
Security Council imposed a comprehensive trade embargo on Iraq.
These crushing sanctions cut the country’s GDP in half. They were
nonetheless unable to compel Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Ku-
KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
wait; it took the Gulf War to accomplish that. Sanctions against Iraq
continued after the war, but the humanitarian costs were staggering:
infant mortality rates were widely viewed to have skyrocketed, and
per capita income remained stagnant for 15 years. Iraq manipulated
figures to exaggerate the humanitarian costs of the sanctions, but the

Daniel W. Drezner
deception worked. Policymakers came to believe that trade sanctions

were a blunt instrument that harmed ordinary civilians rather than
the elites whose behavior they were intended to alter. So they searched
for smarter sanctions that could hit a regime’s ruling coalition.
The centrality of the U.S. dollar seemed to offer a way of doing just
that. Beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating after 9/11, the United
States made it harder for any financial
institution to engage in dollar transac-
U.S. presidents are quick tions with sanctioned governments,
to reach for the easy, companies, or people. U.S. and foreign
available tool of sanctions. banks need access to U.S. dollars in or-
der to function; even the implicit threat
of being denied such access has made
most banks in the world reluctant to work with sanctioned entities,
effectively expelling them from the global financial system.
These sanctions have proved more potent. Whereas restrictions
on trade incentivize private-sector actors to resort to black-market
operations, the opposite dynamic is at play with measures concern-
ing dollar transactions. Because financial institutions care about their
global reputation and wish to stay in the good graces of U.S. regula-
tors, they tend to comply eagerly with sanctions and even preemp-
tively dump clients seen as too risky. In 2005, when the United States
designated the Macao-based bank Banco Delta Asia as a money-
laundering concern working on behalf of North Korea, even Chinese
banks responded with alacrity to limit their exposure.
As U.S. sanctions grew more powerful, they scored some notable
wins. The George W. Bush administration cracked down on terrorist
financing and money laundering, as governments bent over backward
to retain their access to the U.S. financial system. The Obama admin-
istration amped up sanctions against Iran, which drove the country to
negotiate a deal restricting its nuclear program in return for the lift-
ing of some sanctions. The Trump administration threatened to raise
tariffs and shut down the U.S.-Mexican border to compel Mexico to
interdict Central American migrants; in response, the Mexican gov-
ernment deployed its new National Guard to restrict the flow.
Yet for every success, there were more failures. The United States
has imposed decades-long sanctions on Belarus, Cuba, Russia, Syria,
and Zimbabwe with little to show in the way of tangible results. The
Trump administration ratcheted up U.S. economic pressure against
Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela as part of its “maximum pressure”

campaigns to block even minor evasions of economic restrictions. The
efforts also relied on what are known as “secondary sanctions,” whereby
third-party countries and companies are threatened with economic co-
ercion if they do not agree to participate in sanctioning the initial tar-
get. In every case, the target suffered severe economic costs yet made
no concessions. Not even Venezuela, a bankrupt socialist state experi-
encing hyperinflation in the United States’ backyard, acquiesced.
SANCTIONS SETBACK
There are multiple problems with the way the United States currently
employs economic sanctions. The biggest is the most banal: with max-
imum pressure has come maximum demands. The United States
wants North Korea to denuclearize, Iran to denuclearize and then
some, and Venezuela to accept the end of Bolivarian rule. To the rul-
ers of these countries, these demands are tantamount to regime
change. It should come as no surprise that they have opted to endure
economic pain in lieu of making such massive concessions.
The Iran episode highlights an additional problem: the increas-
ingly unilateral nature of U.S. economic pressure. Until recently, the
United States had usually been able to impose financial sanctions with
the explicit or implicit cooperation of allies. When the Trump admin-
istration decided to reimpose financial sanctions on Iran, however, it
did so over the objections of European allies. The administration suc-
ceeded in ratcheting up the economic pressure on Iran by threatening
secondary sanctions on other countries. The countries complied, and
the gambit increased the costs to Iran, but success came at the price of
straining long-standing ties.
At the same time, Washington has grown more comfortable sanction-
ing other great powers. What works with Mexico, however, does not
work with China or Russia. Bigger targets have more resources to use to
resist. The sanctions placed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine might
have deterred Moscow from more aggressive actions on its periphery,
but that is a low bar for success. By any reasonable standard, the sanc-
tions have failed to achieve their objective, since Russia has continued to
violate international norms. Similarly, the myriad tariffs and other re-
strictive measures that the Trump administration imposed on China in
2018 failed to generate any concessions of substance. A trade war
launched to transform China’s economy from state capitalism to a more

Daniel W. Drezner
market-friendly model wound up yielding something much less excit-

ing: a quantitative purchasing agreement for U.S. agricultural goods that
China has failed to honor. If anything, the sanctions backfired, harming
the United States’ agricultural and high-tech sectors. According to
Moody’s Investors Service, just eight
percent of the added costs of the tariffs
Sanctions have alienated were borne by China; 93 percent were
allies, impoverished paid for by U.S. importers and ulti-
mately passed on to consumers in the
populations, and form of higher prices.
encouraged diversification A related problem is the ratchet ef-
away from the dollar. fect. Presidents are always eager to im-
pose sanctions but wary of removing
them, because it exposes leaders to the
charge of being weak on foreign policy. This makes it difficult for the
United States to credibly commit to ending sanctions. When Biden
considered lifting a few sanctions on Iran, for example, Republican law-
makers criticized him as a naive appeaser. Furthermore, many U.S.
sanctions—such as those against Cuba and Russia—are mandated by
law, which means that only Congress can permanently revoke them.
And given the polarization and obstructionism now defining Capitol
Hill, it is unlikely that sufficient numbers of lawmakers would support
any presidential initiative to warm ties with a long-standing adversary.
Even when political problems can be overcome, the legal thicket of
sanctions can be difficult to navigate. Some countries are subject to so
many overlapping sanctions that they find themselves trapped in a
Kafkaesque situation, unsure if there is anything they can do to comply.
The difficulty of removing sanctions from some countries compli-
cates the United States’ efforts to bargain with all countries. If targets
do not believe that Washington can lift its coercive measures, they have
no incentive to bother with negotiations. What’s the point of comply-
ing with U.S. demands if there will be no reward? That was one reason
Saddam refused to negotiate with the United States in the 1990s and
one reason Iran refused to negotiate with the Trump administration.
Sanctions also exact a humanitarian toll. Targeted financial sanc-
tions were supposed to reduce the suffering associated with compre-
hensive trade embargoes, on the theory that going after banking
systems and assets held by bad actors would spare the general popu-
lation. In practice, most financial measures have been larded on top
of trade sanctions, damaging the overall economies of targeted coun-

tries even more. International relations scholars do not agree on a
lot, but the literature on sanctions is unanimous on the harm these
measures inflict on populations in targeted countries. Even financial
sanctions are likely to trigger repression, corruption, and backsliding
on human development indicators.
Finally, targets have learned to adapt to life under sanctions. In the
case of great powers such as China and Russia, this means finding alter-
native trading partners; Beijing lowered tariffs to European countries
at the same time as it retaliated against the United States in their trade
war. Russia countersanctioned European food imports to stimulate do-
mestic production. Targets also respond with retaliatory sanctions,
leading to a tit-for-tat escalation that imposes costs on U.S. producers
and consumers. This tendency will only increase as other major econo-
mies view U.S. sanctions ostensibly imposed for national security rea-
sons as a stalking-horse for trade protectionism. When the chief
financial officer of the Chinese company Huawei was arrested in Can-
ada and charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with trying to evade
U.S. sanctions against Iran, China saw the move as part of the larger
trade war; Trump did not help matters when he casually suggested that
the executive could be released in return for trade concessions.
The greater long-term concern is that financial sanctions could un-
dercut the U.S. dollar’s standing as the world’s primary reserve cur-
rency. It is the preeminent role of the dollar, along with the centrality
of U.S. capital markets, that enabled the boom in financial sanctions
in the first place. After a generation of these sanctions, however, tar-
gets are searching for alternatives to the dollar to protect themselves
from coercion. Digital currencies offer one way out. The People’s Bank
of China has rolled out a digital yuan that will enable those who use it
to bypass the U.S. dollar entirely. Even U.S. allies in Europe devel-
oped the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (instex), a
means through which they could circumvent the dollar and trade with
Iran. Little wonder, then, that the U.S. dollar’s share of global foreign
exchange reserves fell to a 25-year low at the end of 2020. For now, the
dollar remains the primary global reserve currency. But if its use de-
clines further, so will the power of American financial statecraft.
U.S. sanctions have notched a few significant accomplishments. But
they have also alienated allies, impoverished populations, and encour-
aged diversification away from the dollar, all while failing to generate

Daniel W. Drezner
much in the way of tangible concessions. Policymakers seem to have

confused the potency of sanctions with effectiveness. Much as generals
erroneously relied on body counts as their metric of success in prosecut-
ing the Vietnam War, policymakers are now using the pain inflicted by
sanctions as a metric of success. In November 2020, for example, U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the maximum-pressure cam-
paign against Iran “extraordinarily effective.” As evidence, he pointed
out that “Iran’s economy faces a currency crisis, mounting public debt,
and rising inflation.” Left unsaid by Pompeo was that despite all the
economic pain, Iran was in fact accelerating its enrichment of uranium.
THE POLICY OF FIRST RESORT

If economic sanctions are so enervated, why are foreign policy elites so
enthused about them? It is not because they are irrational. Rather, shifts
in world politics and in American society have made sanctions look
more attractive, particularly in comparison with other options. Simply
put, it is easier to impose sanctions than it is to do anything else.
To paraphrase Sun-tzu, the best kind of sanction is the one that never
has to be imposed. For much of the post–Cold War era, the United
States was so powerful that few countries dared challenge it even if they
wanted to. Others were cajoled by American soft power into wanting
what the United States wanted. Those that did challenge Washington
usually faced swift pushback, amplified by multilateral structures such
as the un Security Council. Only in a small subset of international rela-
tions—regarding nuclear proliferation and war crimes—did the United
States find it necessary to impose economic sanctions.
But now, as U.S. hegemony has declined, there are simply more
countries with an interest in challenging the status quo. The demo-
cratic recession and the fraying of the liberal international order have
created more revisionist states that disagree ideologically with Wash-
ington. At the same time, visible U.S. policy failures—in Afghani-
stan, Iraq, Libya, Syria—have made the threat of U.S. coercion seem
less scary. As the number of actors willing to challenge U.S. interests
has gone up, so has the demand for sanctions against them.
Meanwhile, the political appeal of other foreign policy tools has
declined considerably. It is not a coincidence that even as Biden has
preserved most of the Trump administration’s sanctions, he has also
honored the pledge to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan later
this year. The generation-long war on terrorism has caused policymak-
ers and the public to lose their taste for large-scale military interven-
tions. A 2020 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans think
the United States should not strike another country first—the highest
percentage since the question was first asked, in 2002. Even small-
scale uses of military force, such as drone strikes and targeted bomb-
ings, have become less politically appetizing among policy elites. The
wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq have convinced many Ameri-
cans that what may start out as a limited military intervention can
easily grow into a long and costly war.
If sticks have lost out to changing tastes, carrots have become down-
right unpalatable. For more than 80 years, the United States was willing
to proffer both foreign aid and preferential trade arrangements to coun-
tries as a means of encouraging more amenable foreign policies. Over
the last decade, however, the politics of economic openness has curdled.
Foreign aid has never been well liked, but in this populist age, it has
become even less so. As for trade, both Trump’s “America first” platform
and Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class” mantra exclude new
free-trade deals. And even if a president wanted such an agreement,
political polarization would make congressional passage a heavy lift.
While other instruments have become more costly to use, sanc-
tions have never been easier to implement. The array of U.S. laws
authorizing sanctions has expanded considerably. For Congress, eco-
nomic coercion hits the political sweet spot: it is viewed as less costly
and less risky than a declaration of war but tougher than a symbolic
resolution. Politicians can tell their constituents that they are doing
something about a problem even if that something isn’t working.
Another factor that has made sanctions more enticing is the addi-
tional leverage that globalization has afforded the United States. Glo-
balized economic networks increase the power of central hubs, and the
United States stands at the center of most. Because a strikingly high
proportion of global transactions involve U.S. banks, the United States
has been able to weaponize economic interdependence more than many
once thought possible. It has even exploited economic ties with its own
allies. Before globalization really took off, countries were reluctant to
sanction treaty allies, because as the allies sought new economic part-
ners, the initiating country would suffer as a result. The strength of
U.S. financial networks, however, reduces the ability of U.S. allies to
find alternatives to the dollar (even though that strength has encour-
aged these countries to seek long-term alternatives to the dollar).

Daniel W. Drezner
KICKING THE HABIT

The United States faces a conundrum. It confronts a growing number
of foreign policy challenges and yet has a shrinking set of tools to fix
them. Meanwhile, its favorite tool, sanctions, is wearing out through
frequent use. The Biden administration at least seems to be aware of
the problem. In her confirmation hearing, U.S. Secretary of the Treas
ury Janet Yellen promised a review of U.S. sanctions policy to ensure
that the measures are used “strategically and appropriately.” But what
would it mean in practice to change such an entrenched policy?
The most obvious advice will also be the hardest to follow: the
United States needs to sanction less often. Even if an individual act
of sanctioning makes sense, policymakers should consider the aggre-
gate effect of too many sanctions. This does not mean never sanction;
the United States does need to push back against egregious norm vio-
lations, as when Belarus forced down a civilian airliner in May to take
a reporter into custody. But the fewer sanctions imposed, the more
effective will be those that are warranted.
Economic coercion works best when the state imposing the sanc-
tions is unambiguous about the conditions under which they will be
threatened, enacted, and lifted. To preserve its future ability to use
economic statecraft, the United States must reassure other countries
that it will apply sanctions smartly. It should, in word and deed, make
it clear that it turns to sanctions under narrow and precisely defined
circumstances. It should create standard operating procedures to se-
cure multilateral support for sanctioning those well-defined categories
of behavior. And it should swiftly lift sanctions and allow cross-border
exchange to resume when actors comply with the stated demands.
The executive branch can take a few concrete steps to clarify the
U.S. approach. The most explicit would be for the Treasury Depart-
ment or the White House to publish an economic statecraft strategy
every five years. The use of force is guided by a series of official strat-
egy documents, including the National Security Strategy and the
National Defense Strategy. A similar logic should apply to economic
pressure. The Treasury Department, in particular, would be well
served by clear articulations of its approach to economic sanctions; it
is damning that the four-year “strategic plan” the department re-
leased in 2018 mentioned the word “sanctions” just twice in 51 pages.
To be useful, an economic statecraft strategy would need to include
explicit guidelines for when sanctions are being imposed for the pur-
pose of containment (that is, to limit the power of another state’s econ-
omy) or compellence (that is, to induce a well-defined change in
another state’s behavior). Sanctions designed to contain are akin to the
strategic embargo on the Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold
War. In a world of great-power competition, such embargoes should
indeed be part of U.S. statecraft. By declaring some economic meas-
ures as containment, the U.S. government could eliminate any expec-
tations of concessions; rather, sapping a rival’s power would be the
explicit goal. Sanctions designed for com-
pellence, on the other hand, would need to
be attached to specific, concrete demands The most obvious advice
that could be met by the target—signaling
to the target that relief was a real possibility
will also be the hardest to
and thus increasing the odds of compliance. follow: the United States
One way to alleviate the pressure on needs to sanction less often.
sanctions as a policy instrument is to pro-
mote viable alternatives, so an economic
statecraft strategy should also highlight the various economic induce-
ments the U.S. government can dangle. Policymakers need to get back
in the business of using the lure of access to the American market as a
means of promoting more constructive behavior in world politics. This
includes holding discussions with U.S. firms that have to implement
sanctions and putting in place safeguards to ensure that sanctions in-
deed end when they are supposed to. More explicit procedures for lift-
ing sanctions would enhance the Treasury Department’s ability to
reassure private-sector actors that once the sanctions are lifted, they
should feel safe doing business with the erstwhile targets. Such reassur-
ance would reduce the phenomenon of banks “de-risking” their balance
sheets by permanently freezing out previously targeted actors that have
mended their ways, causing sanctions to bite for longer than intended.
All policies benefit from regular review. Sanctions have escaped such
scrutiny, as the Government Accountability Office report acknowl-
edged. Mandating such reviews annually—along with assessments of
the sanctions’ humanitarian effects—would help policymakers decide
when it’s time to give up on a particular campaign of economic pressure.
Congress could even automatically require the Government Account-
ability Office to conduct such reviews for every new measure it passes.
Congress should institute another standard operating procedure:
the insertion of a sunset clause into any new sanctions legislation.

Daniel W. Drezner
Congressionally mandated sanctions could be set to automatically ex-

pire after, say, five years unless Congress voted to extend them. Some
sanctions may well need to remain in place longer, but requiring a
new vote would at least offer decision points where the ratchet effect
of continued sanctions could be reversed. It could also offer some
elected officials a graceful way out of a policy dead end.
Finally, if embargoes are going to be built to last, the United States
needs to revive multilateral structures for maintaining them. During
the Cold War, CoCom—short for the Coordinating Committee for
Multilateral Export Controls—was the organization that preserved
the strategic embargo of the Warsaw Pact states. A modern-day equiv-
alent could originate in the G-7 and then expand to other trusted al-
lies. Developing an informal international group with standing
committees would have the added benefit of making it difficult for
successive U.S. administrations to reverse the policies of their prede-
cessor without consulting allies because of partisan whims.
A BETTER WAY
Sanctions cannot and will not go away anytime soon. Other great pow-
ers, such as China and Russia, are becoming increasingly active sanc-
tioners. China has used an array of informal measures to punish Japan,
Norway, South Korea, and even the National Basketball Association
over the past decade; Russia sanctioned former Soviet republics to
deter them from joining an eu initiative in eastern Europe. Aspiring
great powers, such as Saudi Arabia, have also tried their hand at eco-
nomic coercion. There will be more sanctions in the future, not fewer.
But that doesn’t mean the United States has to be part of the problem.
Even the countries now discovering sanctions still rely on them for only
a fraction of their foreign policy goals; they also sign trade deals, engage
in cultural diplomacy, and dole out foreign aid to win friends and influ-
ence countries. So did the United States once. Washington needs to
exercise the policy muscles it has let atrophy, lest a statecraft gap emerge
between it and other governments. U.S. policymakers have become so
sanctions-happy that they have blinded themselves to the long-term
costs of this tool. To compete with the other great powers, the United
States needs to remind the world that it is more than a one-trick pony.∂
Iran’s War Within

Ebrahim Raisi and the Triumph of the
Hard-Liners
T
he Islamic Republic of Iran is a state divided against itself. Since
its inception in 1979, it has been defined by tension between the
president, who heads its elected government, and the supreme
leader, who leads the parallel state institutions that embody modern
Iran’s revolutionary Islamist ideals. The current supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei, served as president from 1981 to 1989. During his tenure as
president, he clashed over matters of policy, personnel, and ideology
with the supreme leader at the time, Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic
cleric who had spearheaded the Iranian Revolution. After Khomeini
died, in 1989, Khamenei was appointed supreme leader and went on to
do battle with a long line of presidents more moderate than himself.
Iran’s recent presidents have not been radicals by the standards of the
country’s political establishment. But despite their differing worldviews
and social bases, all of them pursued domestic and foreign policies that
the parallel state labeled as secular, liberal, antirevolutionary, and subver-
sive. In each case, Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), which answers directly to the supreme leader, moved aggressively
and at times brutally to contain and control the elected government.
The battles left the government bureaucracy depleted and paralyzed.
With the election of Iran’s new president, this struggle may have
finally been decided in favor of the parallel state. Ebrahim Raisi,
who captured the presidency in a meticulously engineered election
in June, is a loyal functionary of Iran’s theocratic system. For dec-
ades, he served as a low-profile prosecutor and judge, including two
MOHAMMAD AYATOLLAHI TABAAR is Associate Professor of International Affairs at

Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and a Fellow at Rice
University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The
Politics of Islam in Iran.

years as the head of Iran’s judiciary. Over the course of his career,
Raisi became notorious for his alleged role in the summary execu-
tion of thousands of political prisoners and members of leftist armed
groups in the late 1980s. His eagerness to stamp out any perceived
threat to the parallel state clearly endeared him to Khamenei, and
there is little doubt that as president, one of his priorities will be to
tighten the supreme leader’s control over the administrative agen-
cies of the elected government.
The context in which Raisi assumed the presidency will also re-
quire a break from the past. Iran has been impoverished by the stran-
glehold of U.S. sanctions and the toll of the covid-19 pandemic. The
democratic aspirations of the devastated middle class are waning,
and a collective sense of isolation and victimhood is rising in their
place. The surrounding region remains threatening, strengthening
those who pose as guardians of national security. Amid all this tur-
moil, Iran will soon need a new supreme leader—a transition in
which the new president is set to play a critical role, and which could
potentially result in his own rise to head of the Islamic Republic.
These changes promise to usher in a new era in the Islamic Repub-
lic’s history. The turmoil created by a divided system could give way to
an Iran that is more cohesive and more assertive in trying to shape the
region in its own image. As many of the leaders and movements that
defined Iranian politics for the past three decades fade away, a faction
of right-wing leaders has the opportunity to reshape Iran’s politics and
society in ways that will expand the irgc’s control over the country’s
economy, further diminish political freedoms, and yet display limited
tolerance on religious and social issues. It will champion Iranian na-
tionalism to widen its popular base domestically, while relying on Shi-
ite and anti-American ideologies to project power regionally.
These changes could also reshape Iran’s relationship with the world,
and particularly with the United States. With the backing of a self-
assured irgc and no fear of domestic sabotage, the new government will
not shy away from confronting perceived existential threats from the
United States. Although it may compromise on the nuclear issue to mit-
igate mounting economic and environmental crises at home, the incom-
ing foreign policy team will shelve previous presidents’ aspirations of a
rapprochement with the West and instead pursue strategic alliances with
China and Russia. Its primary focus will be the Middle East, where it will
seek bilateral security and trade agreements with its neighbors and dou-
Iran’s War Within
ble down on strengthening its “axis of resistance,” a sprawling network

of proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and the rest of the region.
U.S.-Iranian relations will be transactional and revolve around
immediate security concerns. The alluring promise of a broader
rapprochement will no longer find fertile ground in Tehran. The
window of opportunity for a “grand bargain” between the two coun-
tries has likely closed.
BORN IN STRUGGLE
The political order that Khomeini ushered into being in 1979 emerged
in struggle. Removing the shah, the dictator who had ruled Iran since
1941, was a relatively peaceful affair, but the contest between Islamists
and their rivals was bloody and protracted. Khomeini’s acolytes battled
traditional clergy, nationalists, and Marxists for power. The 1979 take-
over of the U.S. embassy by students loyal to Khomeini consolidated the
Islamists’ grip on power, as did the war that Iran fought against its neigh-
bor Iraq from 1980 to 1988, which helped expand their paramilitary
force, the irgc, as a counterweight to the U.S.-trained Iranian army.
The victorious Islamist forces established parallel institutions that
collectively they call nezam, or “the system,” which is designed to neu-
ter any threats from the secular state. Iran soon found itself riven by
fault lines, however: between the supreme leader and the president,
between the commanders of the irgc and the army, and between the
religious jurists of the Guardian Council (the body that holds a veto
power over legislation) and members of parliament. The fissures
deepened after Khomeini died, when the Islamists’ conservative wing
took over and removed its leftist brethren from power. The ruling fac-
tion soon split between the parallel state and the government, headed
by the new supreme leader and the president, respectively.
The supreme leader is constitutionally the ultimate decision-maker in
Iran, but the president and the government bureaucracy can occasionally
exploit popular sentiment to outmaneuver him. Elections have high-
lighted polarizing issues such as civil rights, mandatory dress codes, cor-
ruption, and relations with the United States, spurring social movements
and protests that the parallel state cannot ignore. The 1997 presidential
election gave birth to a formidable reform movement whose “religious
democratic” aspirations altered even the supreme leader’s lexicon.
But for Iran’s recent presidents, efforts to exploit popular senti-
ment to push for reform usually ended in frustration and failure. As

candidates, all the men who have served as Iran’s president during the
past three decades—Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Kha
tami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Rouhani—promised to
chart an independent course and open the country up to the world.
Once in office, however, they inevitably fell short, constrained by the
supreme leader’s active opposition. All these men also began their
careers as fervent loyalists of the parallel state, and indeed they helped
build the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
Rafsanjani made the first attempt to weaken the parallel state. He
was himself one of the founders of the theocratic establishment, as
well as an instrumental backer of Khamenei’s appointment as supreme
leader. But as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997, Rafsanjani tried to
shepherd the country out of its revolutionary phase and rebuild its
fractured economy by strengthening ties with the United States and
Europe. Before long, he was locked in a power struggle with Khame-
nei, as he sought to subsume the irgc into the army or at least reduce
it to a small, elite division. His objective was to centralize decision-
making within the government and prevent the parallel state’s inter-
ests from determining national security.
Khamenei foiled that plan and nixed a proposed constitutional
amendment that would have allowed Rafsanjani to run for a third
consecutive term. But when Rafsanjani left office in 1997, he did not
exit the political scene. Instead, the competition between him and
Khamenei introduced an element of volatility into Iranian electoral
politics that lasted for a quarter century.
Khatami owed his stunning landslide electoral victory in 1997 in part
to Rafsanjani, who used his control over the political machine to back
the unlikely reformist candidate. Khatami’s progressive platform ap-
pealed to disgruntled youth, women, and a middle class that had swelled
because of Rafsanjani’s economic reforms. As president, Khatami pre-
sided over a brief moment of liberalization: hundreds of new media
outlets emerged, and intellectuals put forward ideas about religious plu-
ralism that threatened the supreme leader’s monopoly on divine truth.
Khamenei and the irgc moved aggressively to thwart Khatami’s re-
formist agenda and head off any rapprochement with the United States,
arresting hundreds of journalists, intellectuals, and students.
Following this crackdown, the parallel state seemed to be on the verge
of winning its power struggle with the government. Ahmadinejad ran a
populist campaign in the 2005 election and defeated Rafsanjani, whom
Iran’s War Within
he portrayed as the symbol of a corrupt system. Throughout Ahmadine-

jad’s presidency, the irgc penetrated state institutions, accelerated the
country’s nuclear program, and exploited Iran’s international isolation
under sanctions to bolster its own economic activities. When millions of
Iranians protested Ahmadinejad’s contested reelection in 2009, the
irgc violently crushed the demonstrations. The parallel state impris-
oned many reformist leaders and placed others under house arrest.
Among the dead and detained were children and relatives of senior
conservative officials. For a moment, even the parallel state cracked:
irgc commanders had to travel around the country to brief rank-and-
file members and other conservative figures to justify their excessive use
of violence against the protesters.
But even Ahmadinejad eventually clashed with Khamenei and the
irgc. In his second term, he dropped his anti-American stance in
favor of overtures toward Washington and replaced his earlier Is-
lamist rhetoric with appeals to Persian nationalism. He accused the
irgc and the intelligence agencies of smuggling luxury commodities
such as cigarettes and women’s makeup products (and other goods)
disguised as sensitive items into and out of Iran. In an effort to by-
pass the very religious establishment that had brought him to power,
he intimated that he enjoyed a connection of some sort to the “Hid-
den Imam,” a messianic figure revered by the Shiites.
After eight years with a loose cannon as president, Iranians began to
support reformists who promised a return to normalcy. Rafsanjani was
disqualified from running in the 2013 election by the Guardian Council,
which is charged with assessing whether candidates hold loyalty to the
supreme leader, and so he rallied support for his protégé, Rouhani, a
former national security adviser to and nuclear negotiator for Rafsanjani
and Khatami. Rouhani campaigned on an ambitious platform, pledging
to defend citizens against the militarism of the irgc and the religious
extremism that restricted citizens’ daily lives, secure the release of re-
formist leaders from house arrest, and improve the economy by resolv-
ing the nuclear impasse. He linked economic growth to the nuclear
negotiations by declaring, “It’s good to have centrifuges running, but
people’s lives also have to run; our factories have to run.”
With Rafsanjani and the reformists behind him, Rouhani was elected
president in 2013 and reelected in 2017. Technocrats returned to senior
positions and resumed the nuclear negotiations they had started a decade
earlier under Khatami, but this time, they spoke not only with European

powers but also directly with the United States. Preliminary nuclear talks
between Iran and the United States had started secretly in Oman, with
Khamenei’s blessing, a few months before Rouhani’s election. But the new
team used its popular mandate to pressure the supreme leader to show
more flexibility in the negotiations than he would have liked. After two
years, Rouhani’s negotiators concluded an agreement with six world pow-
ers, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (jcpoa), which offered Iran
some relief from sanctions in return for agreeing to allow inspections of its
nuclear facilities and to limit its uranium enrichment, at least for a time.
LEAKED SECRETS
The parallel state struck back hard to dampen the euphoria that
greeted the 2015 nuclear deal. In doing so, it provided graphic evi-
dence of the internal struggles within the Iranian state. In April of
this year, a three-hour audio file that was part of a classified oral his-
tory commissioned by an arm of the president’s office was anony-
mously leaked to the media. In it, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif can be heard bluntly stating that Iran’s foreign policy has consis-
tently been at the service of the irgc.
This leak confirms that the Rouhani administration viewed Iran’s
nuclear program as an irgc project not entirely in the interests of the
state. In the taped conversation, Zarif says that he told Khatami and
Rouhani that “a group [presumably the irgc] has thrown the country
down into a well, and that well is a nuclear well.”
Zarif even accuses the irgc of collaborating with Russia to sabo-
tage his diplomatic efforts on the nuclear issue. The Russians feared
that a nonproliferation agreement could bring Iran closer to the
United States. According to Zarif, immediately after the jcpoa was
announced, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Qasem Solei-
mani, the commander of the irgc’s Quds Force, to discuss the Syrian
conflict. Russian missiles and planes then began intentionally flying a
longer route through Iranian skies to attack forces battling the regime
of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Zarif implies that Putin intended to lock
Iran into a collaboration with Russia in a regional battle as a way to
keep Tehran in conflict with Washington.
In the leaked audio, Zarif howls that the parallel state spent the six
months before the nuclear agreement went into effect trying to sabotage
it. The irgc’s “firing a missile with ‘Israel must be wiped out’ inscribed
on it, those affairs with Russia and the following regional events, raiding
NEW FROM GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS
“Anyone contemplating a “I recommend this as
career in national security essential reading for
should read this book.” anyone who studies,
—Hon. Anne Patterson, practices, or cares
former assistant secretary about US national
of state and former security.”
ambassador —Admiral James
Stavridis USN,
Supreme Allied
Commander at NATO
(2009-2013)
“Mello produces a clearly “Unprecedented insight

written and well-reasoned into the mind of one of
guide to understanding the most influential public
QCA and how to conduct it intellectuals of our time.”
effectively.” —Helena Rosenblatt,
—Claude Rubinson, author of The Lost History
associate professor of of Liberalism
sociology, University of
Houston-Downtown
“The Biden administration “A readable, coherent, and

should take careful note well-argued synthesis of
of the authors’ smart the lessons the US military
and practical proposals learned (and ignored)
for restoring America’s observing the conflicts
traditional welcome to outside its borders.”
those seeking safety from —Brian McAllister Linn,
persecution.” Ralph R. Thomas Class of
—T. Alexander Aleinikoff, 1921 Professor in Liberal
former UN Deputy High Arts, Texas A&M University
Commissioner for Refugees
“Crocker, Hampson, and “An insightful assessment

Aall have assembled of all important facets
an impressive group of China’s growing, and
of authors to offer increasingly capable,
a comprehensive nuclear arsenal.”
assessment of global and —Thomas G. Mahnken,
regional challenges, with a senior research professor
useful focus on contrasting at the Philip Merrill Center
global scenarios.” for Strategic Studies, Johns
—Anne-Marie Slaughter, Hopkins
CEO, New America
@GEORGETOWN_UP
the Saudi embassy [in Tehran], seizing U.S. ships—they were all done
to prevent the jcpoa from implementation,” he says on the tape.
In the years after the jcpoa was adopted, Zarif found himself con-
stantly scrambling to repair the irgc’s damage to his careful diplomacy.
Soleimani told Zarif little about his plans. For instance, in January
2016, U.S. sanctions on Iran’s flagship airline, Iran Air, were relaxed as
part of the nuclear deal. But five months later, Zarif learned from U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry that Iran Air not only had resumed the
use of putatively civilian flights to funnel weapons to Hezbollah in
Syria, the action that had gotten it sanctioned in the first place, but also
had increased those flights sixfold on Soleimani’s direct orders.
The flights put Iran Air’s aging fleet at risk and courted new sanc-
tions. Zarif furiously summarizes the irgc’s view of the matter—that if
using Iran Air for this purpose conferred a two percent advantage over
the alternatives, “even if it cost the country’s diplomacy 200 percent, it
was worth using it!” (Soleimani’s risk acceptance and willingness to pro-
voke the United States may have contributed to his own demise; in early
2020, he was targeted and killed by an armed U.S. drone in Baghdad.)
Zarif bemoans the fact that his popularity among Iranians dropped
from 88 percent to 60 percent in the years after the jcpoa was final-
ized. Meanwhile, Soleimani’s approval jumped to 90 percent thanks
to his heroic portrayal in the irgc-backed media.
Throughout his time in office, Rouhani found himself at war with
the parallel state, just like predecessors. Back in the 1980s, Rouhani
had helped expand the irgc from a small volunteer organization into
a full-fledged army, with ground, naval, and air forces. Three decades
later, he publicly accused the irgc of sprawling interference. In a 2014
anticorruption conference with the heads of the judiciary and the par-
liament, he demonstrated his frustration with the irgc’s nonmilitary
activities. Without explicitly naming the irgc, he stated, “If guns,
money, newspapers, and propaganda all gather in one place, one can
be confident of corruption there.”
DEUS EX MACHINA
This familiar struggle between Iran’s elected government, under Rou-
hani, and its parallel state institutions, under Khamenei, could have
ended as inconclusively as previous clashes. But an impetus from out-
side—namely, Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States
in 2016—tipped the balance decisively toward the parallel state. The
Iran’s War Within
Rouhani government had assured Iranians that it would be impossible

for the United States to unilaterally abrogate the nuclear deal, because
it was an international agreement negotiated among six world powers
and further endorsed by the UN Security Council. But the IRGC made a
different wager, as it trusted neither U.S. promises nor international
agreements. No sooner had Trump won the U.S. presidency than the
IRGC’s front companies lined up at
Iran’s central bank, its Ministry of Pe-
troleum, and other state agencies to The window of opportunity
bid for contracts to circumvent likely for a “grand bargain”
U.S. financial and energy sanctions.
When Trump formally withdrew between Iran and the United
from the agreement in May 2018, these States has likely closed.
“sanctions profiteers” stood poised to
take over Iran’s financial sector. Due to
the reimposition of U.S. sanctions, Iran now had to rely on the IRGC’s
network to circumvent international banking networks to sell its oil and
bring revenues back into the country. According to the former head of
Iran’s central bank, Abdolnaser Hemmati, the IRGC’s takeover of these
financial transactions resulted in the equivalent of a 20 percent commis-
sion on every transfer the government makes. U.S. policies had effec-
tively empowered the IRGC to deepen its economic influence.
The Trump administration denied the existence of meaningful po-
litical divisions within the Islamic Republic. It adopted a “maximum
pressure” policy designed to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero and
strangle its economy. Inside the White House, there was no agree-
ment on the endgame. While Trump’s goal was to force Iran to nego-
tiate a new agreement, his then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and
his national security adviser at the time, John Bolton, pushed for re-
gime change. Regardless of its ultimate objective, the new approach
did not spare even those Iranian officials who opposed the IRGC from
within: the Trump administration sanctioned Zarif in July 2019.
The Trump administration’s insistence that Iran’s elite was
monolithic became something like a self-fulfilling prophecy:
Trump’s actions pushed Iranian politics in a more extreme direc-
tion. Under the existential threat of a draconian U.S. sanctions
policy, internal divisions abated. The White House’s policies helped
forge a broad agreement among Iran’s elites that the only way to
protect the country’s national interests was to secure the regime,

which allowed the irgc to present itself, for the first time in its
existence, as the champion of Iranian nationalism.
The irgc had long claimed that its advanced ballistic missiles and
network of proxies across the Middle East protected Iran’s territorial
integrity. In 2019, after it became clear that Iran’s policy of “strategic pa-
tience” in upholding the jcpoa was not paying off, the irgc sprang into
action to establish deterrence against further pressure from the United
States. It began carrying out brazen attacks, launching a startling, precise
drone strike on an oil-processing facility in Saudi Arabia and shooting
down a U.S. drone over the Persian Gulf. In January 2020, the irgc
launched ballistic missiles against American forces in Iraq in response to
Soleimani’s assassination. These operations also served to silence the
irgc’s opponents within the state and society.
For decades, the parallel state had feared that Iranian society would
unite with the elected government to overpower it. The parallel state
had acted, nimbly and often violently, to forestall that possibility.
Now it could envision a new future, one in which both Iranian society
and the government united behind the parallel state, making the su-
preme leader and the irgc the vehicles for their aspirations.
CO-OPTING THE FIELD

By this year’s election, Iran’s political and social landscape had been
transformed. Rafsanjani, for decades a powerful force in elite politics,
had died suddenly from a heart attack in 2017. Khatami remains under
virtual house arrest, and the government forbids Iranian media from
mentioning him or publishing his photograph. Ahmadinejad is still an
outspoken critic: former advisers have described in Iranian media how
he envisions himself as an Iranian Boris Yeltsin, destined to ride mass
protests to power to save the nation. But Ahmadinejad’s faction has
been purged from every important institution.
The reformist bloc was the biggest loser of the 2021 campaign, dur-
ing which its aging leadership failed to present a united front or a co-
herent plan of action. The movement had once mobilized enough
public support to propel Khatami to the presidency and later formed a
crucial part of the coalition behind Rouhani. Now, however, it seems
out of touch. The inflation rate in Iran soared to 40 percent after Trump
withdrew from the jcpoa, and the country is plunging into poverty.
According to Iran’s Social Security Organization, the absolute poverty
rate doubled within only two years, from 15 percent in 2017 to 30 per-
Iran’s War Within
cent in 2019. The efforts by student groups and women’s organizations

to organize protests against political repression and human rights vio-
lations have tailed off, replaced by impromptu violent riots over eco-
nomic grievances, water shortages, and power outages. The rioters’
angry slogan—“Reformists, conservatives, your time is up”—suggests
that they view the reformists as accomplices in their misery.
In the past, reformists succeeded in elections by polarizing the po-
litical landscape. Khatami ran on a platform of promoting civil society
and democracy, and Rouhani promised the resolution of the nuclear
issue and improved ties with the United States. These qualify as wedge
issues in Iran, and invoking them transformed those candidates’ cam-
paigns into social movements, thus increasing voter turnout, particu-
larly among women and young people. That strategy doomed Raisi’s
first bid for the presidency, in 2017, when he lost badly to Rouhani.
In this year’s election, however, Khamenei and the irgc found little
resistance on their way to choreographing Raisi’s win. The Guardian
Council disqualified all the candidates who could have potentially en-
ergized the electorate, barring not only all the reformists and Ahma-
dinejad but also Ali Larijani, a relatively moderate former Speaker of
the parliament and chief nuclear negotiator. The only moderate candi-
date left in the game was Rouhani’s head of the central bank, Hemmati.
In the end, the reformists’ supporters fractured into three camps:
those who boycotted the election, those who cast blank ballots, and
those who voted for Hemmati. Turnout came in at 49 percent, the
lowest for a presidential election in the Islamic Republic’s history. In
the reformist stronghold of Tehran, only 26 percent of eligible voters
participated. According to official figures, Raisi won 62 percent of the
vote, and Hemmati only eight percent.
The hard-line campaign succeeded not solely due to repression
but also by stealing a page from its opponents’ playbook. Raisi’s
background is almost entirely in the theocratic judiciary, but as a
presidential candidate, he emphasized security and prosperity rather
than religion and ideology. He ran on a platform devoted to building
a “strong Iran,” promising to tackle government corruption and neu-
tralize the effect of sanctions by replicating the irgc’s self-reliance in
the defense industry in nonmilitary arenas, too. When he campaigned
at bazaars, factories, and Tehran’s stock market, irgc-affiliated media
showed him talking to workers and technocrats about reopening
bankrupt businesses and reviving the economy.

Raisi not only posed as a centrist technocrat but appropriated the

reformists’ secular discourse, as well. He promised to fight domestic
violence and pledged to discourage the much-despised morality po-
lice from harassing ordinary people and to encourage them to instead
go after economic and bureaucratic corruption. Images released by his
campaign suggested that his supporters included women who did not
follow the strict official dress code.
Other hard-liners have struck a similar tone. In a debate between
reformists and hard-liners held on the chat app Clubhouse during the
campaign, Masoud Dehnamaki, a notorious vigilante and militia leader
who since the 1990s has physically attacked intellectuals, students, and
ordinary people for “un-Islamic” behavior, ridiculed the reformists for
focusing on social restrictions. In a telling moment, he said that com-
pulsory veiling was no longer a serious concern for the regime.
Raisi has also repeatedly said that he advocates engagement with
the world. This represents a significant shift from the confronta-
tional approach that hard-liners have traditionally taken. He also
has made clear that he does not object to the nuclear deal as such,
only to the specific aspects of the agreement that allowed the United
States to violate it with impunity. The most dramatic shift has come
among Raisi’s hard-line supporters, who were adamantly opposed to
the jcpoa until a few weeks before his campaign began but have
since made a U-turn, pledging compliance with the agreement.
Mojtaba Zonnour, a senior member of parliament, once led a group
of conservatives to the podium and set a copy of the jcpoa on fire
after Trump withdrew from the agreement. After criticizing the
jcpoa for years, he is now backing Raisi’s adherence to it, as long as
the United States honors its obligations.
THE PARALLEL STATE AS UNITARY STATE

This time, those who anticipate a repetition of the familiar conflict
between the president and the supreme leader may be disappointed.
The impending transition to the next supreme leader will loom over
Raisi’s presidency. There is limited information on the 82-year-old
leader’s health, except for a much-publicized prostate surgery in 2014.
But it is widely expected that the decision to replace Khamenei will
have to be made during the new president’s tenure.
The forces that engineered Raisi’s victory are purging the highest
echelons of the Islamic Republic to smooth this succession process. If
Iran’s War Within
he is not himself named Khamenei’s successor, Raisi will play a key

role in determining who is. He is thus unlikely to spend his presi-
dency challenging the current occupant of the nation’s highest office.
Raisi is simply part of a larger political project that Khamenei is
pursuing in his final years. The new president may tactically moderate
his positions, but any real policy shift will occur in close coordination
with the supreme leader. The parallel state is widening its social base
beyond Islamists to nonreligious nationalists, in an attempt to co-opt
the growing influence of those who despise the official and selective
imposition of Islamic law. Many veiled women have joined the anti-
veiling campaign, since they see the dress code as divisive, generating
resentment toward them in the street. Raisi’s selective and reversible
appropriation of the reformists’ social and foreign policy agendas is
designed to further undermine their ability to return to the political
scene at this critical moment in Iranian history.
Despite its smooth start, this high-stakes gambit could quickly fall
apart. Raisi and his team of young, right-wing technocrats will need
to use state patronage to co-opt resentful elites, particularly the fac-
tion of marginalized conservatives. They also must address the needs
of the impoverished population, a portion of which backed Raisi be-
cause of his economic promises.
On foreign policy, Raisi will attempt to turn the failed globalist
aspirations of his predecessors on their head. Previous presidents
came to believe that the best way to forge a safe and secure Iran was
to make the country a prosperous part of the global economy. Raisi
believes that, on the contrary, only a strong Iran with undisputed re-
gional leverage can deter external forces and achieve economic pros-
perity. Therefore, he is expected to enhance the irgc’s military
capabilities in order to counter U.S. pressure. That means bolstering
the corps’s network of proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond,
all in the service of protecting the original parallel state in Iran.
The new administration will also deepen Iran’s security and eco-
nomic ties with both China and Russia. Putin issued one of the first
and strongest congratulations to the new president, expressing his
confidence that Raisi’s election will lead to “further development of
constructive bilateral cooperation between our countries.” Tehran
also recently signed a 25-year trade and military partnership with
Beijing, which was initially delayed in 2016 because Iran hoped to
improve ties with the United States and Europe.

Paradoxically, the elimination of any potential rapprochement with

the United States has brought coherence to Iran’s foreign policy. There
is now a general consensus across Iran’s political spectrum that their
country’s hostile relationship with the United States will persist in-
definitely. Consequently, Iran’s competing factions are no longer ob-
sessed with the domestic ramifications of improved ties with
Washington. This means that neither the jcpoa’s success nor its fail-
ure can dramatically upset the internal balance of power. This new
dynamic has reduced the likelihood of domestic sabotage in the event
a diplomatic breakthrough is achieved—but it has also hardened Iran’s
bargaining position in the ongoing negotiations.
Raisi needs a diplomatic success on the nuclear front to deal with a
sea of internal problems. But unlike Rouhani, he is not betting his po-
litical fortune on it. His hawkish foreign policy team perceives the
United States as ideologically committed to destroying the Islamic Re-
public. Its assumption is that Washington will attempt to renege on any
agreement either bluntly, as Trump did, or subtly, as the Obama admin-
istration did, by not properly removing financial sanctions on Iran. The
political forces that propelled Raisi to the presidency are therefore pre-
paring step-by-step retaliatory measures in case a revived jcpoa falters.
They are also committed to preserving Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, to
maintain the option to weaponize the program rapidly if the agreement
falls apart. At the same time, the signing of a new nuclear deal could
inadvertently create a more combustible region: Tehran fears that it
would give the United States a free hand to go after its regional influ-
ence, and Tehran’s enemies are concerned that it would provide Iran
with more resources to bolster its proxies and missile program.
The resulting security dilemma appears poised to escalate ten-
sions between Iran and the United States. The two countries are al-
ready embroiled in a low-level but continuous conflict in Iraq, where
U.S. forces and pro-Iranian militias clash sporadically. Although
Raisi has held out the prospect of talks with regional powers to lower
tensions, the emerging unified leadership in Iran sees itself in a win-
win position. It is confident in its military and has long known how
to thrive on conflicts and expand its nonstate allies. Thanks to the
new domestic political transformation, it can also make tactical com-
promises with its adversaries without the risk of exacerbating inter-
nal divisions. As a new era of the Islamic Republic begins, Iran and
the United States are on a collision course.∂
SPONSORED SECTION
[www.gmipost.com] JAPAN EDUCATION
ADAPTING TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
A
s the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic continues to bear down on economies and disrupt the lives of
billions of people around the world, Japan’s universities and schools have remained vigilant
about safeguarding the health of their students, faculty and staff. While most classes are still
conducted remotely, all schools are preparing to reopen classrooms once the pandemic is contained.
The country’s most renowned universities have exhibited students located in different places and even different
much resilience during this prolonged health crisis. With countries.
their reputations intact, Japanese schools have stayed top- “Last March, I sent a message to students of TIU around
of-mind, judging from the number of international appli- the world, stating that although some of our students were
cants to the country’s most prestigious universities. not able to enter Japan, we were all connected and linked
“We currently provide online courses to foreign students to the university and that we would do our best to still pro-
who, according to our survey, were very happy that we provide opportunities and education, albeit remotely. I felt it
vided them with that opportunity. They would have been was a very important message to send: that we were not
happier if they got to study in the campus, but the situation abandoning our international students or leaving them
didn’t allow us to do so. We thought we wouldn’t get the
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
same number of students this year, but our graduate school
enrollment actually increased,” said Tohoku University
President Hideo Ohno.
Unfortunately, some universities were not prepared to
handle the disruption caused by the global pandemic. Due
to sudden international travel restrictions, they saw a slow-
down in their student exchanges.
For Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, the situation
might have been daunting. But it boldly faced difficulties
and looks to the future with confidence and optimism.
“It was especially challenging for an international uni-
versity like us because we recruit around 50 percent of
our students from outside the country and want to have
all domestic students spend their time abroad during their
time at APU. So you can imagine that during this pandemic,
when travelling is severely restricted, it was a huge chal-
lenge for us. But one of our strengths, as a university, is
resilience,” said Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University Vice
President Marian Beise-Zee.
Despite the challenges, Japanese universities have prov-
en their resilience by quickly adapting and creating oppor-
tunities to strengthen their current systems.
“Although the Japanese government restricted receiv-
ing foreigners and sending students to foreign countries
because of COVID-19, we succeeded to operate through
an online system. We are using this online system to have
some sort of student exchange program. This is only a sub-
stitute, but we must utilize the system because most of the
students won’t get the chance to go abroad. That’s how we
have made the most out of the situation,” said Kanagawa
University Vice President Akihiro Matoba.
On the practical level, many universities faced the chal-
lenge to create effective connections with its students
thousands of miles away and building a community of
[Global Media Post / www.gmipost.com] SSSPONSORED
PONSORED RRECTION
PONSORED S EPORT
EPORT
behind just because they could not enter Japan,” Tokyo “JANU, has several important agreements with similar
JAPAN EDUCATION
International University Chancellor Nobuyasu Kurata said. groups in the UK, France, Australia, the US, like the American
“Another challenge for our international students in particu- Council of Education. Those agreements allow us to encour-
lar was how they could support their cost of living because age national universities to send students abroad and recruit
they were away from their families. We were one of the first international students to Japan. At the same time, the gov-
universities to respond by providing financial assistance to ernment is also preparing to make competitive study grants
those students in need,” Kurata added. available,” said JANU President Dr. Kyosuke Nagata.
Others, like Hitotsubashi University, used the disruption Fully supportive of the efforts of the Hyogo prefectural gov-
to build stronger and wider connections with international ernment and its colleagues, University of Hyogo hopes to
partners during a time when travel is restricted and student increase enrollment of students from around the world.
exchange programs are suspended. “We want to take in students from around the world, partic-
“Hitotsubashi University, Singapore Management University ularly from developing countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia,
and Renmin University in China are members of SIGMA Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America, rather than those
(Societal Impact and Global Management Alliance), togeth- only in Europe and the United States. That’s because we want,
er with top European business universities, like Copenhagen from the first year, to develop intellectuals who understand
Business School and WU Wien (Austria). It is very important for Japanese culture and consequently, develop human resources
us to develop this kind of alliances with SIGMA and other uni- who will be bridges between Japan or Hyogo and their home
versities,” Hitotsubashi President Satoshi Nakano stressed. countries in the future. This will lead not only to the achieve-
In the last 40 years, Japan has stayed committed to inter- ment of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but
nationalize its higher education system. The wider use of the also, by extension, contribute to world peace,” University of
English language has allowed Japanese students to adapt Hyogo President Isao Ohta said.
more easily when they go abroad and has attracted more in- Among its peers, International University of Japan stands
ternational applicants wishing to study in the country. With out for its initiative to internationalize. Not only has IUJ tak-
regards to economic development and demographic terms, it en in more international students, a significant part from de-
is a win-win policy. veloping countries, (Only 10 percent of its student body is
The internationalization of the Japanese higher education Japanese), it also conducts all its classes in English.
system has also nurtured a new breed of Japanese, one with a “We have been welcoming students from many develop-
more globalized outlook and a wider perspective of the world. ing countries. We are also developing new programs, like
Working closely with the government, the Japan Association the International Public Policy program, which will bring to-
of National Universities (JANU) has taken the lead in promot- gether students, diplomats, and government officials from
ing student exchange programs. Japan and western Pacific countries here in our campus. They
SPONSORED SECTION [Global Media Post / www.gmipost.com]
will be able to build a network for the future and hopefully, It was the first time I met a teacher from another country. I
JAPAN EDUCATION
help build better diplomatic relations in the Western Pacific,” was nervous because I couldn’t speak the language. But
International University of Japan President Hiroyuki Itami through time, I learned that the language itself wasn’t the only
said. thing needed in order to communicate with non-Japanese.
Meanwhile, International Christian University (ICU) plans I learned there were differences in body language, expres-
to send its students abroad again in the near future, and is sions, and culture that came along with it. It was then that I
working with key partners to resurrect the various Study realized that partnerships and face-to-face interactions played
Abroad programs that have been largely on hold for the past an important role in becoming an individual who is globally
eighteen months. aware. That is something I have been doing ever since,” Asahi
At the same time, for those who are not able to travel University President Katsuyuki Ohtomo said.
abroad, ICU is also committed to offering virtual study abroad “Asahi University provides unique experiences to both in-
opportunities to all students who remain on campus. ternational and local students through its face-to-face interac-
“With our commitment to provide a global experience to tions. From the start, internationalization was at the core of
each and every student here, we are seeking to build on our the university and we remain committed to fostering partner-
current percentage of approximately 60% of students partici- ships. We train our students to contribute to the future of so-
pating in one of our Study Abroad opportunities during their ciety through their knowledge and ability. We look to develop
four years here at ICU. To this end, we are committed to de- their intelligence and creative spirit in line with that,” Ohtomo
veloping new partnerships and to expanding the extent of also said.
our collaborations with existing partners. We are also looking With the growing awareness and increasing importance of
to increase the scope of the activities initiated by our service sustainable development around the world, several Japanese
learning center and using this to develop new ventures in re- universities have wholeheartedly integrated SDGs into their
gions such as Africa and Southeast Asia”, said ICU President programs.
Shoichiro Iwakiri. “Okayama Region is one of the best places in the world to
Reflective of the close ties between Japan and the United see how education for sustainable development (ESD) is inte-
States, many Japanese universities have formed partnerships grated in advancing the SDGs in a multi-stakeholder partner-
with several prestigious American universities. ship manner. As the first UNESCO Chair in ESD across Asia
Since 1993, the cooperation between Asahi University and and the only national university that received a special prize
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) continues to ben- at the Japan SDGs Award from the Government of Japan, we
efit both sides in terms of research, knowledge sharing and led a profound cultural shift for higher education institutions
cultural understanding. and they implemented SDG-based management systems,”
“When I was little, my parents took me to an English school. Okayama University President Hirofumi Makino said. ,
[Global Media Post / www.gmipost.com] SSPONSORED
PONSORED SRECTION
EPORT
Acting locally, thinking globally

JAPAN EDUCATION
A
mere mention of Japan conjures up images of its sprawl- In Yamanashi prefecture, Tsuru University has built strong
ing, densely populated, ultramodern urban centers, like partnerships with the local government and the community.
Tokyo and Osaka. Apart from those well-known hubs, the The prefecture is the largest local producer of grapes, plums,
country boasts other regions and cities that play an important peaches, and wines in Japan, as well as a major source of bot-
part in the country’s development and its engagement with tled mineral water. The university, located at the foot of Mt.
the wider world. Fuji, maintains a particularly distinguished record in teacher
University of Nagasaki has contributed to efforts to education.
strengthen Japan’s links with the rest of the world. It was “Our university was founded and continues to be supported
among the first universities in the country to set up an informa- by the city of Tsuru. As a public institution, we value region-
tion security department, which has since attracted the atten- ality, internationality, and a distinctive learning environment
tion of Japanese multinationals like Fujitsu. extremely highly. The university’s Regional Exchange Center
“Because of positive reviews and a growing demand for its provides many educational, cultural and sports programs for
graduates from several other companies, the Department of the people of the community, also promoting and managing
Information Security has doubled its enrollment for its cours- regular field work initiatives,” said Tsuru University President
es in the field this year. Other initiatives of the university in- Hidenori Fujita.
clude partnerships with local and international organizations, “Exchange programs are also critical. They help us improve
like lectures arranged by the Department of International our students’ cultural knowledge and sensitivity, and allow
Management, which aims to provide students with a more them to open up their future. We want to use our resources to
globalized outlook. One lecture, delivered by the U.S. chief develop both our university and our city. These efforts will con-
consul, was so popular we had to also broadcast it online be- sequently benefit the university, local communities, society and
cause the venue could not accommodate all the participants,” the world,” Fujita added.
said University of Nagasaki President Tsutomu Kimura. Located in the subtropical region of Japan, Okinawa boasts
The lecture series, Kimura added, has also encouraged a of a rich history and distinct qualities that no other part of the
significant number of students to seek further studies in the country holds. Sharing similar characteristics to Pacific islands
United States and thus prompted him to eagerly widen its U.S. like, Hawaii, the Ryuku islands play an important position in in-
partnerships. ternational collaboration and knowledge exchange regarding
the preservation of local

Keepers of Japanese culture
JAPAN EDUCATION
ecosystems.
“In the country, our uni-
T
versity is ranked 6th in he Japanese aesthetic possesses a singu- Japan and overseas as unprecedented forms of
the promotion of the lar status in the world. Because of its long instruction.
preservation of underwater period of isolation, art forms in the coun- “With agreements with 37 major art universities
life, aside from being classi- try developed virtually absent of Western influ- around the world, and MAU’s tradition of global
fied No. 1 in the promotion ence and planted very deep roots among the educational development, it was recognized by
of quality education This is Japanese. MEXT as the first Japanese art university to de-
With the end of Japan’s isolation, Japanese art velop global human resources. Global programs
quite significant as it certainly reached the West and reignited the creativity of are offered in both classes and as projects on a
shows our strength in being several artists there. More than a century after, daily basis. Its achievements and scale have long
able to give back and develop the influence of Japanese art and design is very led Japanese art universities”, Musashino Art
the local community,” said visible in the buildings we inhabit, the products University President Tadanori Nagasawa said.
University of the Ryukyus we use, the pictures we hang on our walls, and For more than 120 years, Joshibi University
President Mutsumi Nishida. the clothes we wear. of Art and Design has trained female artists,
With its reputation as an Through their international partnerships, many of whom have achieved success not only
excellent research institute, Japan’s art universities have served as bridges in Japan, but also in New York, Paris, London and
the university not only com- with the global community, guardians of the Milan. It was the first women-only fine arts in-
country’s culture and promoters of its art and stitution and the oldest private art school in the
mits its efforts towards aca- design. One such school is Musashino Art country.
demics, but also caters to the University (MAU) in Tokyo. “We are proud of our graduates. It’s interesting
revival of local heritage sites Founded in 1929 as Teikoku Art School, the to see that applicants come to us because they
such as the Shurijo Castle. university has grown to become one of Japan’s look up to our graduates. We have this strength in
“The castle was burned most prestigious art schools. In addition to en- training these students and passing them along
down in 2019 and was a cul- compassing all the existing areas of an art uni- to the wider world,” said Joshibi University of
tural icon and symbol of the versity, MAU established the College of Creative Art and Design President Fumiko Ogura.
independence of Okinawa. Thinking for Social Innovation in 2019 to develop “We are also proud to have bred many artists
We wanted to take the ini- new disciplines in the field. that have received the Order of Culture as well
With two undergraduate and two post- as artists that have been selected as Persons of
tiative to use our expertise graduate schools, MAU is now one of the larg- Cultural Merit in the field of Japanese paintings,
and academic network to est art universities in Japan. Its groundbreaking and Western paintings and crafts. We have the
reconstruct and revive an im- educational innovations for the next generation most number of these awards among other art
portant part of our history,” have attracted a great deal of attention both in schools and universities,” she added.
Nishida added.
PONSORED SRECTION
EPORT
JAPAN EDUCATION
Partners in social development

A
mong Japan’s most serious and longest running de- the world and incorporating the latest knowledge and break-
mographic challenges is its rapidly ageing population. throughs into its programs.
Despite incentives from the government to reverse the “We believe deeply the founding spirit of our university –
trend, population growth remains negative, while the number Philanthropy and Public Interest – will save countless lives, not
of marriages has decreased since the early 1970s. only through dentistry but also through medicine as a profes-
To address this protracted problem, successive govern- sion. Looking towards the future, we aim for sustainable ex-
ments have relaxed immigration laws and have encouraged pansion and development as a comprehensive medical uni-
non-Japanese to study, work and live in the country. To fur- versity by nurturing medical professionals that will look after
ther ease assimilation, Japanese universities have instituted patients closely and live out our founding spirit,” said Osaka
English-only degree programs. Dental University President and Chairman Takayoshi
At the same time, Japan has needed to strengthen govern- Kawazoe.
ment programs to support its elderly population and look af- A deeply patriarchal society, Japan has not fared as well in
ter their health. Playing a key role in this mission are the coun- terms of gender equality as other highly advanced econo-
try’s many medical and dental universities and schools. mies. Reflective of its very conservative values, the country
“Even though we are small now, we are focused on spread- has many all-female universities and educational institutions
ing awareness of the importance of dental health, which is not which, while they differ in terms of style of instruction and fo-
only about our teeth but about oral health as a whole. That cus, have not compromised on quality of education.
is one of Fukuoka Dental College’s main goals. We want to “We are a private school. Compared to some others, we
change people’s perception of dentistry, given that Japan al- are relatively small. But, we look at our students as individu-
ready targets a large global market for general medicine,” said als, not as a group. We have a more human-centered or in-
Fukuoka Dental College Chairperson Dr. Sachiyo Suita. dividual-centered approach. The most important thing for
Osaka Dental University shares the same goal, which is to us is that each faculty consults with each student to know if
educate more people about the huge role of dental health in they have any problems and know what we need to improve.
one’s general wellbeing and improve the quality of dental ed- Those are very important things we focus on,” Kobe Women’s
ucation in the country by gathering information from around University President Nobutaka Kurihara.
Society 5.0: Building smarter, living better
JAPAN EDUCATION
C
onsistently a trailblazer, Japan has led the world in imag- they mastered, can support all people and their communities,”
ining the future, starting with the high-speed bullet said Tohoku Institute of Technology President Hironori
train, pocket calculators, the Sony Walkman and android Watanabe.
robots. The country has always found solutions to do things Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
faster with less cumbersome equipment and ideally, with fewer Science and Technology continues to step up efforts to ad-
people involved. vance Society 5.0 and revise the country’s education model
Dubbed Society 5.0, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first to adopt technological innovation and utilize them to build a
mentioned this ambitious initiative in 2017. This vision for a more intelligent environment. Should they succeed, the gov-
“super smart” society aims to bring together technologies, like ernment hopes it will provide the world with a model on how
big data, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and to teach and fully capitalize on advanced technology.
robots, and incorporate them into every industry and across all “We want to collaborate more with world-leading industries
social segments, resulting in solutions to difficult problems and and organizations, in addition to acquiring national grants, cre-
in more comfortable lives. ating new businesses and improving our education system. As
While this vision for the future directly involves infrastructure, diversity and inclusion are very important for our university,
finance technology, healthcare, logistics and AI, it will have we will accept more international professors and students. It
significant implications on the education sector, as well. After should be important as a university to stimulate our Japanese
all, Japan’s schools and universities are the training grounds of and international students to become more active and global-
the country’s future workforce, business leaders, engineers and ized,” said Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
entrepreneurs. (Tokyo NoKo University) President Kazuhiro Chiba.
Already, several universities have expressed their full support As digital technology and artificial intelligence become more
for Society 5.0 and have begun to institute changes to support developed and more present in our daily lives, the Japanese
the initiative. government believes Society 5.0 allows the country’s schools
“Our goal is to equip our students with new ideas and re- and universities to adopt a flexible approach in their task to
sources that will benefit society in the long-term future. strengthen communication, leadership, as well as reading and
We hope they convey this message to the wider world and comprehension skills.
demonstrate, in their future endeavors, how the things they Many universities strongly agree and strive to comply with
learned here, along with the techniques and technologies CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
PONSORED SRECTION
EPORT
the vision the government has presented for the country’s ed- technology should be heading. That’s how we can contribute
JAPAN EDUCATION
ucation system. Meanwhile, Kyoto University of Advanced to Society 5.0. We have a lot of technology-minded faculty
Science has worked actively to establish its own vision for the members and many excellent students who can use their skills
future and nurture the kind of graduates that society needs and know-how into designing this new model,” said Future
today and will need in the centuries to come. University Hakodate President Yasuhiro Katagiri.
“KUAS is a new university. We’ve been around for only three Under this new education regime, schools will require a mas-
years. However, we built a university from the ground up, tery of basic skills from students starting from the 5th year un-
producing the kind of top tier talent and professionals that til the 7th year at the elementary level. Underperforming stu-
business leaders and business owners want for their compa- dents will not be promoted to the next year until they gain a
nies and organizations,” said Kyoto University of Advanced satisfactory mastery of those basic skills. Also, to prepare stu-
Science President Masafumi Maeda. dents for a “super smart” society, schools will focus less on sub-
Other universities have focused on practical training for their jects and more on skills proficiency.
students ahead of their entry into the workplace. Because of the ever-changing needs of society, there has
“In Hakodate, we talk directly to local people to find out been a significant increase in the number of smaller, more spe-
the challenges they face. That gives us an idea of where cialized schools in Japan over recent years. In line with gov-
ernment guidelines and societal trends, Kobe Institute of
Computing Graduate School of Information Technology
(KIC) has focused on developing and preparing individuals for
roles in the IT industry regardless of their previous background.
“Our main mission is to improve society through the appli-
cation of technology. As a professional graduate school, our
purpose is to not only give lectures but to also monitor and en-
courage our graduates to make an impact, said KIC President
Toshiki Sumitani.
As Japan leads Society 5.0, there is an opportunity for
schools not only to make a local impact but also to serve as an
example globally, specifically to developing countries.
“Our distinct feature is that we have more international stu-
dents than Japanese students. That said, we highly encour-
age and invite individuals from all over the world, including
those in the smaller regions of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East,”
Sumitani added.
JAPAN EDUCATION
Aiming to be a global frontrunner in oral medicine
Fukuoka Dental College

IMAGINES THE FUTURE
C
elebrating its 50th anniversary next year, medical care has grown even closer. Sachiyo Suita, M.D., Ph.D., MACS (Hon), FAAP
Fukuoka Dental College was founded in In order to promote “patient-centered (Hon), Chairperson of Board of Trustees of the
1972 with the approval from the Ministry medicine,” Fukuoka Dental College believes educational institution Fukuoka Gakuen
of Education, now the Ministry of Education it is essential for their students to acquire
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It a comprehensive knowledge of systemic
received its first batch of students the following medicine. It incorporates elements of general
year. medicine and welfare into conventional
Nearly half a century later, the college has not dentistry, with the aim of training dentists
waned in its commitment to form competent who will “protect the health of the whole body
dentists and develop pioneers in oral medicine. through oral health”.
So far, more than 4,700 graduates have made “To reflect the college’s new approach to
successful careers in the medical field, the the outside world, in 2013, we changed the
academe and in their own local communities. name of our faculty from ‘Faculty of Dentistry’
and ‘Division of Dentistry’ to ‘Faculty of Oral
From dentistry to oral medicine Dentistry’ and ‘Division of Oral Dentistry,’ said Faculty and students of Fukuoka Dental
College and their international partners benefit
Chairperson Dr. Sachiyo Suita.
Dental medicine does not cover only lesions mutually from their exchange programs.
of the teeth and surrounding tissues. The field
Practiced-oriented research
covers a wide range of diseases affecting the oral
cavity, including the lips, palate, tongue, salivary In 2020, Fukuoka Dental College ranked 11th
glands, jawbone, and temporomandibular joint. among 802 Japanese universities in terms of
This widened coverage came as a response the ratio of students and researchers under
to expanded knowledge about the structure 40 years old selected for the grants-in-aid
of diseases, the demographic changes due to for scientific research administered by the
the declining birthrate and ageing population Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
in Japan, the increasing prevalence of general and Technology and the Japan Society for the
medical diseases among dental patients and the Promotion of Science.
improvement of dental technology. “As a place that cultivates excellent personnel, The educational institution Fukuoka Gakuen is
In addition, oral care contributes greatly we will continue to make further progress in made up of Fukuoka Dental College, Fukuoka
to the prevention of aspiration pneumonia education, research, and in our contribution Nursing College and Fukuoka College of Health
and improves the quality of life of the elderly to society, with all students, faculty, and staff Sciences, all of which collaborate closely to
among in Japan’s ageing population. Thus, the working together to provide happiness to provide excellent education and pioneering
relationship between dentistry and general people,” Suita said. research.
Fukuoka Nursing College Fukuoka Dental College Medical and Dental Hospital
www.fdcnet.ac.jp/english/col_e/index.html
PONSORED SRECTION
EPORT
Tohoku
JAPAN EDUCATION
University:
Wireless, Borderless,
Limitless
L
ocated in the cosmopolitan city of Sendai
in Japan’s Northeast region, Tohoku
University is renowned for its innovative
research and dynamic global network.
It was among the first to be conferred the
status of a Designated National University
by the government in 2017, and is currently
ranked number one on Times Higher
Education’s list of top Japanese Universities for
a second year in a row.
Earthquake, it pioneered research in disaster science, giving local
Progressive Education and global communities the tools and knowledge to be better
A trailblazer since its founding in 1907, Tohoku University was the prepared for natural disasters. At the same time, the Tohoku Medical
first university in Japan to admit female students, and also one of Megabank Organization began the world’s first large scale three-
the first to welcome foreigners. These days, 10 percent of its 18,000 generation cohort survey, to develop more effective medical treat-
students are international, spread across 10 faculties, 15 graduate ment and personalized healthcare for the future.
schools and six research institutes. More recently, Tohoku University has been all-in in the fight
against COVID-19. Its Clinical Skills Lab has been providing ECMO
simulation training to medical personnel from around the region to
help them treat COVID-19 patients, as well as research projects that
cover a range of topics, from medicine, testing and public health to
the various technologies that support the search for treatments and
a cure. International research collaborations have also been stepped
up.
Present Future
But COVID-19 is not the only challenge the world is currently facing.
With climate change and widening social disparities also a perennial
threat, Tohoku University recognizes the importance of the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals. Under the umbrella of a Green
Goals Initiative, it is committed to developing green technology, and
The diversity on campus is best reflected in University House, the putting in place actions that focus on recovery and resilience, as well
largest student housing complex to be built at a Japanese national as social innovation and inclusion.
university. There, international and Japanese students share apart- And the university’s vision forward extends beyond the familiari-
ments, in a multicultural living environment that is both supportive ties of Earth. Through partnerships with JAXA and other space
and inclusive. agencies, the Space Robotics Lab at the Department of Aerospace
In 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tohoku Engineering has already contributed to critical domestic and inter-
University took immediate action, moving all classes online to pro- national space projects, such as the Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-
tect its students and staff. By leverageing its strengths in information return mission, and the Google Lunar XPRIZE race to the moon. It
technology and by utilizing the benefits of digital connections and is now planning to launch university-based microsatellite missions
resources, it was able to complete the academic year without signifi- from Earth into lunar orbits; and developing a multi-limbed climbing
cant disruption. robot capable of reaching challenging locations, such as lunar caves
A year and a half into the pandemic, Tohoku University is adjusting and asteroid surfaces.
its activities to incorporate a combination of real and virtual interac- At Tohoku University, the story of innovation never ends, and the
tions. International exchange programmes have also had to adapt. next step in its journey of discovery is already wireless, borderless…
To accommodate travel restrictions, the university established the Be and limitless.
Global Project, which offers joint academic courses and co-curricular
cultural programmes online.
Innovative Research
Among the early inventions that were born at Tohoku University are
the split-anode magnetron used in microwave ovens, the steel-wire
recorder and the Yagi-Uda antenna, the university’s first foray into a
wireless world that put it well ahead of its time.
With a vision to “collaborate, innovate and activate,” the university
takes an interdisciplinary approach to research. Its large campus
includes a science park that is conducive to in-development tests
and experiments, as well as industry co-creation of production-grade
new materials and technology.
Tohoku University is also focused on developing new academic
fields. For example, in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan
The COVID Charter

A New Development Model for a
World in Crisis
Rajiv J. Shah
I
n August 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill met aboard the USS Augusta
in the waters off Newfoundland to discuss the war then raging in
Europe and Asia. As they considered the future, the two leaders re-
membered the past. The deprivations and divisions fueled by World
War I and the Great Depression, they knew, had eventually led to
the devastation of World War II.
The president and the prime minister were determined not only to
win the war but also to establish the foundation for a more durable
peace. The Atlantic Charter, which Roosevelt and Churchill released
during this meeting, famously set out the two leaders’ grand vision
for the postwar world. But one of its key areas of focus often goes
overlooked: the charter promoted a global economic recovery de-
signed to unleash a slow, steady convergence between wealthy and
poor nations. The goal was to rebuild and industrialize countries,
paving the way for a planet free from “fear and want.”
This past June, U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minis-
ter Boris Johnson met on the United Kingdom’s Cornish coast to sign
the “New Atlantic Charter.” It was one of many communiqués and
commitments delivered by national leaders since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the world’s gravest crisis since World War II. But
in order to prevent a future crisis, the global community needs to go
well beyond what these statements, including those the G-7 leaders
recently released, have suggested is possible.
As it did in the throes of the 1940s, the world today needs an en-
tirely new paradigm for global development. The failures of the cur-
RAJIV J. SHAH is President of the Rockefeller Foundation. From 2010 to 2015, he served
as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Rajiv J. Shah
rent system have been thrown into stark relief by COVID-19, which has
left the globe divided between countries with the ability to endure the
pandemic and those that remain at its mercy. Unless the United States
and other countries take courageous new steps to promote human
security for all, this divergence will leave much of the planet mired in
fear and want. Insecurity will eventually spread to every nation, leav-
ing the globe increasingly vulnerable to climate change, future pan-
demics, and democratic backsliding.
The world can avoid such a fate. Today’s leaders have an opportunity
to agree to a COVID charter that commits countries to take the steps
necessary to vaccinate the entire world and prevent the consequences of
climate change. Leaders in wealthier countries are already taking such
steps at home, but to prevent the next crisis, their governments and
those in lower-income countries will need to do the same in the devel-
oping world. To meet this moment, the United States and the rest of
the world must commit to and implement a new global charter to en-
sure that humanity is equipped to tackle the daunting challenges ahead.
A WARTIME COMMITMENT
In the months that followed Roosevelt and Churchill’s meeting aboard
the USS Augusta, American and British economic policymakers began
planning for a postwar order that could ensure their militaries would
never need to fight World War III. In July 1944, as fighting still raged
in Normandy following the D-Day landings, U.S. and British officials
welcomed representatives from 42 other countries to Bretton Woods,
New Hampshire, to create a multilateral system meant to restart
growth, reopen trade, and react to crises.
One result was the Bretton Woods institutions, which were de-
signed to industrialize and interconnect economies to avoid the diver-
gence that had proved so costly before the war. The World Bank would
lend resources to sovereign nations to rebuild and then establish the
foundations for broader growth, and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) would put out economic fires before they grew and spread.
The United States played a leading role in helping propel global
growth. Through the Marshall Plan, American officials invested more
than $13 billion, equivalent to more than $150 billion today, to rebuild
devastated industries and infrastructure in 16 countries across Eu-
rope. And then, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the
U.S. Agency for International Development. Although some of its
The COVID Charter
The power brokers: Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in 1941

early optimism dimmed amid Cold War failures in Vietnam, USAID
had real successes. For example, the agency’s partnership with South
Korea helped build the agricultural and industrial juggernaut that
powered that country’s economic miracle, which was even more as-
tounding given the desolation just over the border in North Korea.
Unsurprisingly, these initiatives reflected the era’s state-centric
mindset. Western leaders’ fear was that fascists, communists, or other
radicals could ride economic discontent to power and subsequently cre-
ate security threats for their neighbors and the wider world. To prevent
another global war and promote stability, officials sought to modernize
economies so each state could better provide for its citizenry.
To a significant degree, this strategy worked. The result was not
just a recovery from World War II’s devastation in Europe and Asia
PICTO RIAL PRESS / ALAMY
but also a golden age of economic growth. From 1961 to 1970, devel-
oped economies grew at a robust rate of 5.0 percent each year. Middle
classes blossomed, a baby boom ensued, and social safety nets were
strung up. The growth was fueled in part by gains in less advanced
economies, which were growing at an average of 5.5 percent annually
thanks to technology transfers, private investment, and aid.

Rajiv J. Shah
At the end of the twentieth century, convergence really gained

speed. From 1995 to 2015, a period the economist Steven Radelet has
called “the great surge,” developing countries’ real GDPs grew at an
average rate of 4.7 percent per year—considerably faster than those of
their advanced counterparts. Much of this boom was driven by China
and other East Asian states, but it also included tremendous gains in
Africa and South America. Over the same time period, more than one
billion people were lifted out of poverty.
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY HEADWINDS
Yet despite this progress, the global development agenda has strug-
gled to adapt to the needs of a changing world. Transnational crises
such as pandemics, global economic recessions, and climate change
have wreaked havoc on the lives of the world’s most vulnerable. The
world has grown more interconnected, which has boosted growth—
but it has also left many people exposed to these crises. Some coun-
tries’ GDPs have continued to soar, even as many of their citizens still
lack health care, education, food, and other essentials.
Due in part to global development, the world today has to worry far
less about rogue fascist or communist states bent on igniting World War
III. Instead, some of the most significant and urgent global risks stem
from vulnerabilities in an interconnected world. Poor governance in fail-
ing states can destabilize regions and create havens for terrorists, as the
world saw in Afghanistan. Global economic shocks, as during the finan-
cial crisis of 2008, can quickly create massive food security challenges in
many lower-income countries. And insufficient state health-care invest-
ments can allow contagious pathogens to destabilize regions and even
the world, as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and the Zika virus did in recent decades.
Development professionals have responded to these challenges by
focusing on “human security,” which shifted the focus of development
away from state-level growth and toward individual citizens. The
United Nations defines human security as people having “freedom
from fear and freedom from want, with an equal opportunity to enjoy
all their rights and fully develop their human potential.” Nowhere is
this clearer than in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which
laid out 17 specific goals to finally end poverty and improve health,
education, gender equity, and environmental sustainability by 2030.
These SDGs, which were approved by global leaders in 2015, reflected
not just development’s success but also its growing ambition and focus.
The COVID Charter
But the global development model was too limited, static, state-
centric, and underresourced to achieve this historic initiative. The
Bretton Woods institutions, which have long served as a pillar of
growth and stability, are ultimately funded by states to serve the inter-
ests of other states. If a low- or middle-income government is unable,
or unwilling, to respond to the challenges facing vulnerable people
and communities, their needs too often go unmet. Or if an advanced
economy objects to one state’s or one region’s development plans,
those initiatives are often delayed or left unfunded altogether. As a
result, in an era defined by faster-moving transnational challenges,
these institutions have remained dedicated to legacy missions and
have often lacked the necessary resources and flexibility to do more.
Some transnational problems also proved impossible for markets,
governments, or multinational institutions alone to address. Although
public-private partnerships have demonstrated some success in re-
sponding to those failures, particularly in public health, these accom-
plishments have yet to be replicated at scale. The U.S. President’s
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis, and Malaria, brought
together pharmaceutical companies,
public health experts, and national The world needs an entirely
officials to help the world turn the new paradigm for global
tide against an incredibly disruptive development.
virus. In addition, GAVI, the Vaccine
Alliance, rallied industry, govern-
ments, and scientists to immunize 822 million children in 77 coun-
tries over the last 20 years. Unfortunately, these partnerships—and
their successes—have been too few and far between. For example,
despite new technological advances, neither markets nor governments
have been able to provide reliable access to electricity around the
world. Eight hundred million people still lived in the dark in 2018.
The system has also been challenged by one of its successes. Chi-
na’s rise was made possible by a global economic system that pro-
moted convergence—but that country’s own model of global
development has not always been shaped by the lessons learned over
the last 80 years. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese insti-
tutions have funded massive and much-needed projects in Africa,
Central Asia, and eastern Europe. In many instances, these projects
have helped states build indispensable infrastructure. But in others,

Rajiv J. Shah
the initiatives, which have ignored best practices on debt sustainabil-

ity, anticorruption, and environmental stewardship, proved less ben-
eficial to human security than was possible.
The inability of the global development model to address the reali-
ties of the twenty-first century has become more evident with every
passing year. When the world sought to prevent pandemics after the
2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa or made agreements in Paris in 2015 to
combat climate change, it did not commit the resources or reforms nec-
essary to meet those goals. And as inequality grew in the United States
and other advanced countries, populists such as Donald Trump, Brexit’s
promoters, and others gained the power to undermine foreign aid and
multilateralism. The stage was set for disaster and divergence.
A DIVIDED WORLD
The world was already seriously vulnerable when COVID-19 hit. But
the failure to launch a robust development response to the pandemic
has only made it more so. Global growth shrank by 4.4 percent in
2020 and has been gutted by another $11 trillion this year. Progress on
the SDGs has also been set back. It is projected that the pandemic
pushed around 100 million people into extreme poverty last year—the
first rise in two decades. Such a significant increase in poverty is driv-
ing humanity to the brink: the UN World Food Program has estimated
that more than 270 million people are at risk of starvation, double the
pre-pandemic figure.
Although economic strength may not have determined how well a
country mitigated the health and economic effects of the pandemic in
its first year, as the economist Angus Deaton has argued, it appears
certain to dictate long-term performance. Advanced countries, includ-
ing the United States, have been able to provide their economies with
fiscal and monetary stimulus packages equal to about 24 percent of
their GDPs, according to the IMF. Lower-income countries could not
take such steps: emerging economies have enacted fiscal and monetary
stimulus measures equal to only six percent of their GDPs, on average,
and low-income countries have mustered less than two percent.
Foreign assistance has been insufficient to close this resource gap.
Although advanced countries committed more than $161.2 billion in
foreign aid in 2020, that figure represented just a 3.5 percent increase
over the previous year and only one percent of what those countries
spent on stimulus at home. Meanwhile, although the IMF has increased
The COVID Charter
its lending to low-income countries, loans delivered by the World

Bank and other multilateral institutions was far less robust in
2020, especially when compared with the significant response to
the 2008 financial crisis.
These economic divides promise to widen in the months and years
ahead, as advanced countries have also been able to afford to purchase
hundreds of millions of vaccine doses, while poorer countries have
been forced to wait or go without. Covax, the global initiative to sup-
plement national vaccine programs in the developing world, has been
seeking to achieve only a 27 percent vaccination rate in low- and middle-
income countries this year. That is a long way away from the 70
percent global immunization rate that experts consider necessary to
provide sufficient immunity to defeat the virus. As of mid-July, only 37
percent of the population in South America, 26 percent in Asia, and
three percent in Africa had received at least one vaccine dose.
As a result, human insecurity is on the rise as poverty, hunger, and
sickness wreak havoc on the lives of millions of people across the
globe. The question is not whether the developing world is going to
fall further behind more advanced economies but how far—and
whether it will be able to recover. Before the crisis, the IMF expected
110 emerging and developing economies to converge with the ad-
vanced economies between 2020 and 2022; now, it estimates that 58
of those countries will lose ground. Many experts—including Krista-
lina Georgieva, the managing director of the IMF, and Janet Yellen,
the U.S. treasury secretary—are now warning of “a great divergence.”
This is the result of a “business as usual” approach in the development
world, and it cannot be allowed to continue.
THE RISKS OF A GREAT DIVERGENCE

Citizens of wealthy countries should not labor under the illusion that
this is simply a sad story happening to people in faraway countries.
The great divergence poses a tremendous risk to every nation.
People around the world are growing not just poorer but also less
secure. One statistic is particularly harrowing: more than 500 mil-
lion additional people are projected to have fallen below the ex-
panded poverty line since 2020, meaning that they live on less than
$5.50 per day. In many parts of the world, these people represent the
wage labor in the workforce, which serves as the foundation of the eco-
nomic pyramid that many below aspire to join and on which many above

Rajiv J. Shah
depend for labor and consumer spending. With so many falling be-
low that threshold, the wage-labor community is no longer able to
serve as a driver of inclusive growth.
Without significant development interventions, increased poverty
and suffering will be a decades-long problem. Due to shrinking access
to health care, people are at a greater risk of getting seriously ill from
COVID-19 or another disease. The virus has also transformed the global
economy, leaving behind those whose jobs could not be done remotely
or who lacked the electricity or Internet connectivity required to go
online. Unsurprisingly, the job market will not quickly recover in the
developing world: the International Labor Organization has pro-
jected that the pandemic will keep 200 million people, disproportion-
ately women, unemployed next year.
This level of human insecurity will eventually increase global insta-
bility. When governments struggle to meet the needs of their citizens,
more people are likely to express discontent at home or migrate to
neighboring states. And history includes many examples of struggling
states fighting wars to capture limited resources, to stop spillover ef-
fects from other states, or simply to distract from troubles at home.
The great divergence will also undermine the global response to cli-
mate change. Even before the pandemic, the world was failing to take the
actions necessary to limit global warming as agreed to in Paris. The planet
has seen the acceleration of climate impacts, which have proved worse for
the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, limiting climate change will require
action from all states—and the world is too divided for easy consensus.
And for lower-income countries to do their part, combating climate
change must be tied to advances for their most vulnerable citizens.
As transnational crises become more frequent, the world’s have-
nots will be drawn into a vicious cycle. Take the story of Rafael Cór-
dova, a 50-year-old man who lives near Lima, Peru, and worked in the
human resources department of a municipal government before the
pandemic. According to The New York Times, this father of three was
able to provide for his family; he and his wife were expecting twins
when the pandemic struck. But in May 2020, Córdova became one of
the more than two million people in Peru to fall ill from COVID-19. He
lost his job, and after his wife tested positive for the virus and gave
birth prematurely, they lost one of the twins.
In short order, Córdova’s and his family’s prospects bottomed out.
With no job and a national economy in free fall, he could not pay the
The COVID Charter
rent, purchase the cell phone plan that was his older children’s only
link to their closed school, or even find the funds for a proper burial
for his daughter. Eventually, Córdova moved to a squatter’s camp on
a hill near Lima overlooking the Pacific coast, where he drew a square
in the dirt to define “his” land.
Córdova will not be alone. These personal tragedies will grow in
number the longer the great divergence persists. The twin threats of
COVID-19 and climate change will hurt the most vulnerable first and
worst. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, the cli-
mate crisis could displace 1.2 billion people by 2050. The world is al-
ready being battered by more contagious variants of COVID-19, and
low rates of vaccination in many developing countries will ensure that
these mutations continue to grow even more dangerous. The Delta
variant is already hammering unvaccinated countries and threatening
the recovery in advanced countries; it or another mutation could kill
millions and squander all the investment and effort that have been
dedicated to ending the pandemic.
THE RIGHT TIME FOR A COVID CHARTER

When Roosevelt and Churchill wrote the Atlantic Charter, they knew
they had to look beyond the immediate crisis to lay the groundwork
for a more peaceful future. Today’s leaders should show as much am-
bition and foresight. They must aim not just to end the pandemic but
also to make the post-pandemic world durable enough to prevent an-
other transnational crisis from appearing in its wake.
The world’s nations should launch a COVID charter, which should
make clear that the transnational crises affecting the most vulnerable
pose the greatest near-term risk to international stability. The charter
must place human security at the top of the twenty-first-century de-
velopment agenda. That is the only way to effectively respond to
COVID-19 and climate change, which can target vulnerable people
whether in Lima, Lusaka, or Lincoln, Nebraska.
As the pandemic still rages, it may appear impossible to forge such
ambitious cooperation among countries. Populism and nationalism
were growing in strength even before the world ever heard of
COVID-19, and their adherents will surely resist new global commit-
ments today. Competition among states—especially between China
and the United States—risks distracting international attention and
making the world miss this crucial moment for concerted action.

Rajiv J. Shah
But this is no time to give in to despair. Political developments

across the globe have opened a window of opportunity to take the sort
of bold actions required to end this great divergence. In Washington,
Biden has shown that he is seriously committed to and capable of
global leadership—his administration’s boost to vaccine donations
abroad and support for multilateral action have been essential to re-
cent progress on the pandemic response. China is also making an
ambitious play for global leadership, and its ability to help shape the
response to the pandemic could be a key indicator of whether it is
ready for that role. In Europe, officials are eager to make progress on
climate change to ward off catastrophe.
Most important, the pandemic has evolved. Advanced countries
may have vaccinated a good portion of their citizens against the virus,
but they can’t ignore the threat of variants abroad. Stock markets drop
at every report of a new mutation, and every day that passes increases
the risk that yet another more transmissible, deadlier strain of the
virus will appear. Analysis by the Rockefeller Foundation, where I am
president, has suggested that until a sufficient percentage of the pop-
ulations in emerging and developing countries have been vaccinated,
which may take another 18 months or longer, variants will be four to
six times as likely to develop in largely unvaccinated countries as in
highly vaccinated ones. Until the pandemic is over in the developing
world, any recovery in advanced countries will be fragile. The leaders
of those countries can thus promote development assistance as an in-
vestment in protecting their own citizens and their own domestic
economies from a resurgence of the pandemic.
To protect everyone from the dual threats of the pandemic and
climate change, the world must commit to a COVID charter for bold,
measurable actions that boost human security. This plan begins with
restarting convergence: the world must urgently close a resource gap
of trillions of dollars in developing and emerging economies.
A COVID charter must include at least five commitments. First, the
advanced economies must agree to devote at least one percent of their
GDPs to foreign aid, which would increase development assistance by
around $100 billion. These pledges would reverse the damaging po-
litical trend—most recently seen in the United Kingdom—of coun-
tries abrogating previous aid commitments. This new initiative should
champion environmental sustainability, fight corruption, and promote
real employment opportunities within local economies.
The COVID Charter
Second, this foreign aid commitment from developed countries

could be made as part of a framework agreement with developing
economies, whereby those economies pledge to strengthen their own
capacities. Leaders in low- and middle-income countries must com-
mit to taking responsibility for vaccinating their populations and re-
building their economies in an
inclusive way. They should also com-
mit to achieving a much greater level The United States can lead
of domestic resource mobilization.
Right now, low-income countries
the world in its recovery
raise government revenue equiva- from the present crisis.
lent, on average, to less than 14 per-
cent of GDP, whereas middle-income
countries are nearing 20 percent. The target in the charter could be at
least 25 percent, which, when combined with continued economic
growth, would produce trillions of dollars over several years in fi-
nancing to protect vulnerable populations.
Third, shareholders and institutional leaders must commit to re-
imagining the Bretton Woods architecture to respond to the twin crises.
During recent efforts to expand emergency aid in Afghanistan, Soma-
lia, South Sudan, and West Africa, the Bretton Woods institutions
struggled to innovate at the necessary scale and with the necessary ur-
gency. The same has been true over the last year. But with aggressive
leadership and creative reforms, these institutions can prove central to
ending the great divergence. The IMF under the leadership of Geor-
gieva has been the most adaptive during the pandemic. It is currently
moving forward with a plan to issue $650 billion in Special Drawing
Rights, which can augment member countries’ official reserves. If share-
holders agree to what is known as “recycling,” these SDRs could provide
$100 billion to support vaccinations and promote a green recovery—
and as long as the great divergence persists, the IMF could use this same
method again to inject greater liquidity into developing economies.
The resources of the World Bank and other multilateral develop-
ment banks should also be more aggressively deployed. At a time of
historically low interest rates, these banks could all raise and lend an
additional $1 trillion by modernizing their capital adequacy require-
ments to enable greater leverage. Furthermore, by embracing innova-
tive financing solutions—for example, raising new resources from
public and private donors in the form of grant capital and guaran-

Rajiv J. Shah
tees—these institutions could offer far more attractive terms to bor-

rowers than they do with their typical commercial products. These
and other initiatives would enable the banks to more effectively mo-
bilize private resources toward their mission.
Fourth, private-sector and philanthropic leaders should commit to
working with governments to help vaccinate the globe and jump-start
a green recovery. In recent decades, public-private partnerships have
demonstrated a special ability to solve global problems and correct
market failures. To meet these crises and prevent others, the world
needs to expand these partnerships to fully unlock the latest in sci-
ence, technology, and innovation for the world's most vulnerable, who
have historically been the last to benefit from new advances.
GAVI has already been tremendously successful in immunizing the
world’s children, and its remit should be expanded to produce and
distribute the vaccines required to end the pandemic. The World
Health Organization and private and philanthropic players, mean-
while, should seek to prevent future pandemics by integrating epidemio-
logical, medical, and other data and establishing an early warning and
response system. Similar well-resourced public-private collaborations
will be needed to transform global food systems and enable climate-
friendly electrification across the world.
One of the great advances in global development over the last few
decades has been the increased rigor in measuring and reporting results.
And so fifth, all the signatories of the COVID charter should commit to
having their inputs and outcomes measured in ways that are consistent
with the principles agreed on at the 2011 High Level Forum on Aid
Effectiveness, held in Busan, South Korea, and to having their work
regularly monitored by the G-7, the G-20, and the UN Security Council.
By realizing a COVID charter, the world could leverage what would
amount to hundreds of billions of dollars—a relatively small commit-
ment given the scope of the challenge—into trillions of dollars of
impact for the world’s most vulnerable communities. Such an invest-
ment would represent a transformational recommitment to human
security and the SDGs, giving people and countries all over the world
the opportunity to survive and thrive in the years ahead.
FROM CRISIS TO OPPORTUNITY

The world was still in the midst of a crisis when Roosevelt and
Churchill sailed home from Newfoundland, but they departed with a
The COVID Charter
shared commitment to trying to make it better. Eighty years later, the

world’s leaders can once again promote convergence and cooperate to
reduce fear and want in the world. With the next G-20 summit set to
take place this fall in Rome, there is not a moment to lose in begin-
ning the work of launching this diplomatic initiative.
Today is a time of incredible risk, and taking the path of least resis-
tance could have existential consequences. But it is also—for the first
time in a long time—a moment of real opportunity. With the steps
that the Biden administration has already taken, it is now possible to
imagine an end to the pandemic and the great divergence. By taking
bold actions now, the United States can lead the world in its recovery
from the present crisis and also set the stage for a more durable, pros-
perous, and inclusive future.
Think about Córdova, living in a country battered by COVID-19 and
severely threatened by climate change. If these initiatives are enacted,
he could get a vaccine in time for the next variant that sweeps across
South America. He could afford a new cell phone plan, which would
allow him to get back to work and his children to get back to school.
And with projects to slow climate change, he may avoid future dis-
placement and economic shocks.
Even if the life of one person may seem small in the sweep of his-
tory, Córdova is a reminder of the benefits of improving human secu-
rity across the globe. A COVID charter would represent—like the
Atlantic Charter did—hope for him and billions of others amid one of
the worst crises in nearly 80 years. If realized, the charter’s commit-
ments would not just empower these people to survive COVID-19. It
would also usher in a new era of global cooperation in which the world
again promotes convergence and ensures each individual’s basic rights—
to be free from fear and want.∂

The Center Cannot Hold

Will a Divided World Survive
Common Threats?
Thomas Wright
B
efore the COVID-19 pandemic began, Washington was coalescing
around a new bipartisan consensus: great-power competition,
especially with China, ought to be the main organizing principle
of U.S. foreign policy. For some, the pandemic called that notion into
question by suggesting that transnational threats pose an even greater
danger to the American public than ascendant rival powers. Skeptics of
great-power competition, such as Senator Bernie Sanders, an indepen-
dent from Vermont, argued that the United States should seek to de-
escalate tensions with China so that the two countries can work together
to manage borderless risks such as pandemics and climate change.
But the debate over whether great-power competition or transna-
tional threats pose the greater danger to the United States is a false
one. Look back at strategic assessments from ten years ago on China
and Russia, on the one hand, and those on pandemics and climate
change, on the other, and it is clear that Washington is experiencing
near-worst-case scenarios on both. Great-power rivalry has not yet
sparked a hot war but appears to be on the brink of sparking a cold
one. Meanwhile, the worst pandemic in a century is not yet over, and
the climate crisis is only accelerating.
What COVID-19 has made powerfully clear is that this is an age of
transnational threats and great-power competition—one in which the
two phenomena exacerbate each other. Since the beginning of the
pandemic, the Chinese government has been obsessed with maintain-
ing its grip on power and has refused to cooperate with the interna-
tional community to fight the virus. For its part, the administration of
THOMAS WRIGHT is Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the
Brookings Institution and a co-author, with Colin Kahl, of Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics
and the End of the Old International Order.
U.S. President Donald Trump framed the international dimensions

of its pandemic response almost exclusively in terms of competition
with China, extinguishing any hope of a multilateral cooperation,
even with other democracies. At the height of the pandemic, the
World Health Organization (who) became an arena for U.S.-Chinese
rivalry, leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself.
Great-power rivalry and transnational threats will both shape U.S.
foreign and national security policies in the years to come. Washington
cannot downplay one in order to better deal with the other. Attempting
to ease tensions with China to make cooperation on global public health
possible won’t work, partly because Beijing cannot credibly commit to
being more transparent and cooperative in the future. By the same to-
ken, ramping up competition with China without a plan to rally the
world to deal with transnational threats (which can themselves fuel ri-
valry between great powers) would only guarantee future disasters.
The United States needs a strategy to address transnational threats
under the conditions of great-power competition. It must aim to co-
operate with rivals, especially China, to prepare for future pandemics
and to tackle climate change. But in case cooperation fails, it must
have a backup plan to rally allies and partners to provide a much
greater share of global public goods, even if that means shouldering
more of the costs. None of this will be easy, but all of it is necessary.
SECRECY AND SURVIVAL

Competition between the United States and China has made the pan-
demic worse, and the pandemic, in turn, has deepened U.S.-Chinese
rivalry and inhibited international cooperation more generally. But
the negative synergy between great-power rivalry and transnational
threats was evident even before COVID-19. In the decade after the SARS
epidemic of 2002–4, the United States and China had developed a
working relationship on global public health. On the eve of the cur-
rent pandemic, the United States had dozens of public health profes-
sionals stationed at the U.S. embassy in Beijing from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Hu-
man Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and
Drug Administration. Among them was a team of approximately 12
CDC officials working on infectious diseases and pandemic prepared-
ness. (The Trump administration had redeployed a number of CDC
officials working on AIDS funded through the President’s Emergency

Thomas Wright
Plan for AIDS Relief to countries such as Uganda, but the embassy
team working on pandemic preparedness remained in place.)
But as a number of U.S. embassy officials told the foreign policy ana-
lyst Colin Kahl and me for our book Aftershocks, this team’s cooperation
with the Chinese government became more challenging as U.S.-Chinese
rivalry intensified, largely because of China’s actions. In 2018 and 2019,
for instance, Chinese officials refused to fully share samples of a strain of
bird flu known as H7N9 with the
WHO’s “collaborating centers” for in-
The United States needs a fluenza, frustrating their U.S. counter-
strategy to address parts. At the time, public health
transnational threats under experts believed that this form of in-
fluenza, or some variant of it, could
the conditions of great- potentially be the source of the next
power competition. global pandemic.
Chinese public health officials also
grew more reluctant to engage with
their U.S. counterparts. In 2019, the U.S. embassy in Beijing hosted an
event to mark 40 years of U.S.-Chinese relations. U.S. officials had
planned to highlight public health cooperation—widely regarded as a
success story in a sometimes tumultuous bilateral relationship—and
several Chinese public health officials were slated to speak. But 24
hours before the event, amid rising trade tensions, all the Chinese of-
ficials canceled. It was a harbinger of things to come.
When COVID-19 hit, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) main-
tained near-absolute secrecy. All channels of communication between
Beijing and Washington went silent, as they did between Beijing and
other governments. Chinese leaders sought to conceal vital informa-
tion about the emerging epidemic in China from the rest of the world,
even attempting to prevent Chinese scientists from sharing the ge-
netic sequence of the virus with scientists in other countries. (A Chi-
nese scientist deliberately disobeyed the order and collaborated with
an Australian counterpart.) Beijing also pushed the WHO not to de-
clare the outbreak a “public health emergency of international con-
cern,” an official designation that would have required a coordinated
international response, and not to support or even remain neutral on
placing travel restrictions on China.
The Chinese government’s actions put the WHO in a difficult posi-
tion and constrained its choices. During the SARS epidemic, Gro
At attention: military medics in Wuhan, China, February 2020

Brundtland, the director general of the WHO, called out the Chinese
government for covering up the outbreak and refusing to cooperate
fully with the international community. The strategy helped per-
suade Beijing to shift course and eventually to engage with the WHO.
The United States had hoped the WHO would use the same playbook
with COVID-19 and publicly criticize—or at least refuse to praise—
Beijing for withholding cooperation.
But senior WHO officials believed that Chinese President Xi Jin-
ping was more dictatorial and less susceptible to outside pressure than
his predecessors. If they tried to call him out, he was likely to shut
them out completely. WHO officials also believed that working with
China offered the only hope of stopping the virus. If that required
publicly flattering Beijing, then so be it—a calculation that put the
WHO on a collision course with the United States.
It is impossible to say for certain why the Chinese government
behaved the way it did, but secrecy and control make sense in light
of what the vast majority of China experts believe to be Xi’s top
priority: regime survival. Xi did not want to facilitate an interna-
tional response to COVID-19 that could have attributed blame to
L I Y U N / X I N H UA
China or isolated it through travel restrictions, either of which

might have damaged the regime’s domestic legitimacy. Instead, Xi
leveraged the pandemic to his advantage: China’s suppression of the

Thomas Wright
virus became a matter of national pride, held up by Beijing in sharp

contrast to the experience of the United States.
Once it had controlled the virus at home, China became more as-
sertive in its foreign policy. It linked pandemic assistance and, later,
access to its vaccine to public praise for China and to favorable policy
choices, such as participation in the health component of its Belt and
Road Initiative. It also retaliated against Australia for seeking an in-
ternational investigation into the origins of COVID-19. As the world
reeled from the pandemic, China imposed a draconian national secu-
rity law on Hong Kong, provoked a deadly border spat with India, and
engaged in combative “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy around the world—
aggressively responding to criticism, including by peddling falsehoods
and disinformation. For China’s leaders, the pandemic revealed the
inexorable decline of the West, confirmed Beijing’s power and capa-
bilities, and created more latitude for the CCP to do as it wished.
TURNING POINT
Geopolitics also shaped the U.S. response to COVID-19. Contrary to
popular belief, some senior Trump administration officials grasped
the national security threat posed by the virus faster than their Eu-
ropean counterparts did. Top officials in the National Security
Council began focusing on the pandemic in early January, just days
after news of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, became public. They
were primed to pay attention in large part because of their suspi-
cions of the Chinese regime: Matthew Pottinger, the deputy na-
tional security adviser, had covered the SARS epidemic as a journalist
for The Wall Street Journal, and he viewed the news trickling in from
Wuhan in early 2020 through the lens of Beijing’s previous coverup.
But even though Pottinger and other NSC officials were wise to the
danger, they ultimately failed to persuade Trump to make the neces-
sary preparations to deal with the pandemic when it inevitably
reached the United States.
Throughout 2020, the Trump administration saw the international
dimensions of COVID-19 almost entirely in terms of the U.S. rivalry
with China. As the administration began to formulate its response,
those who favored a more comprehensive public health approach both
at home and abroad were excluded or marginalized at crucial mo-
ments. The result was that the Trump administration focused more
on holding China responsible for the outbreak and reducing U.S. reli-
ance on Beijing than on the minutiae of global public health policy or

the hard work of rallying the world to tackle the pandemic.
COVID-19 also galvanized the Trump administration to intensify
the contest with China. When it signed the Phase One trade agree-
ment with China in January 2020, the Trump administration was split
into two camps: one that wanted to contain China and one that wanted
to focus narrowly on economic differences with China and not pursue
a broader strategic competition. Trump spoke in the hawkish terms
preferred by the containment faction, but he sided with the camp fo-
cused on economic issues in concluding the trade agreement. By mid-
March, however, Trump had joined the containment faction, convinced
that the crisis—and the lockdowns it necessitated—now threatened
his personal political prospects.
Two Trump administration officials who favored continued en-
gagement with China told me that before COVID-19, Trump was some-
thing of a check on the containment faction. Once he saw the virus as
a threat to his reelection chances, however, he became willing to en-
dorse the containment faction’s preferred policies to counter China’s
assertiveness. According to another senior official associated with the
containment faction, the pandemic and China’s response to it helped
unify the administration behind a more comprehensive strategy to
push back against Beijing. Between March 2020 and the end of the
year, the senior official said, the United States put in place more con-
tainment measures than it had in the previous three years, including
restrictions on Chinese technology firms, sanctions on Chinese offi-
cials, looser regulations on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan, and rec-
ognition of the repression in Xinjiang as a genocide. In this sense, the
pandemic was a pivotal moment in the U.S.-Chinese rivalry.
Competition between the two countries overwhelmed everything
else, including U.S. cooperation with allies on the pandemic, leaving a
global leadership vacuum that no one could fill. The foreign ministers of
the G-7 countries were unable to agree on even a communiqué in March
2020, and the G-7 leaders’ summit in June was canceled and never re-
scheduled during Trump’s presidency. The EU tried to step up by increas-
ing funding for the WHO and for COVAX, the global initiative to share
vaccines, but it never came close to organizing a global response. China’s
assertive foreign policy, and its attempts to use pandemic assistance to
advance its interests, aggravated European leaders and convinced them
to harden their positions toward China throughout the course of 2020.

Thomas Wright
During this period, there was hardly any international cooperation

on vaccine development or distribution, no coordination on travel
restrictions or the distribution of medical supplies, and limited coop-
eration on achieving a cessation of hostilities in conflict zones. The
economic disruption caused by COVID-19 devastated low-income
countries, which received little in the way of international assistance.
Especially hard hit were countries, such as Bangladesh, that had made
significant development gains in the last two decades and were pro-
pelling themselves into the lower tier of middle-income economies.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation found that in just 25 weeks,
the pandemic reversed 25 years of progress on vaccination coverage, a
key public health indicator. And according to the UN, the pandemic
could force a total of 490 million people into poverty—defined as the
loss of access to clean water, adequate food, or shelter—pushing the
global poverty rate to around seven percent by 2030, compared with
the pre-pandemic target of three percent.
CLIMATE WEDGE
Pandemics are not the only transnational threat that promises to in-
tensify great-power rivalry and diminish the prospects for much-
needed cooperation. Climate change could do the same. The global
economic downturn caused by the pandemic occasioned a brief and
modest reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-
trapping gases, but those emissions have already begun to increase again.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
international body of experts that represents the scientific consensus
on the climate, the world is on track to warm by around three degrees
Celsius by the end of the century—a rate and magnitude of change
that scientists warn could be cataclysmic. Absent drastic, cooperative
action, the world will see more frequent droughts and wildfires; more
intense hurricanes, storms, and flooding; more transmission of dis-
eases from animals to humans; the inundation of many coastal areas
and low-lying nations due to sea-level rise, leading to the displace-
ment of hundreds of millions of people; and the devastation of ocean
and terrestrial ecosystems.
Rather than unite the world around a common purpose, climate
change is likely to deepen competition between major powers, espe-
cially as the transition away from fossil fuels creates economic win-
ners and losers. Countries that aggressively decarbonize could place
sanctions and other trade restrictions on countries that do not, lead-

ing to counterresponses and new trade wars. In a recent report for the
European Council on Foreign Relations, Janka Oertel, Jennifer Toll-
mann, and Byford Tsang argue that the impediments to cooperation
between Europe and China on climate change “are becoming higher”
and warn that “decision-makers must not underestimate the
highly competitive aspects of how China is changing its energy
production and consumption.”
The United States and Europe will both compete with China for
access to raw materials and in developing the technology needed to
make their economies carbon neutral: magnets, batteries, high-
performance ceramics, and light-emitting diodes, among other things.
In some of these areas, the United States and Europe are at risk of
dependence on China, so they will want to make themselves more
self-reliant as they develop clean technology.
Climate change could even drive a wedge through the transatlantic
alliance if the United States elects another president who seeks to un-
dermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions, as Trump did. And even if
the U.S. government remains broadly aligned with Europe on climate
policy, the Europeans could still become disaffected if Congress blocks
meaningful climate action, such as commitments to cut carbon emis-
sions or invest in clean technology. This, in turn, could diminish Eu-
rope’s willingness to help uphold the U.S.-led international order.
THE LIMITS OF COOPERATION

Some analysts, mainly on the right, care about the foreign aspects of
transnational threats only to the extent that they can blame China for
them, effectively wielding China’s malign influence on the WHO or its
centrality to the problem of climate change as a cudgel in the geopo-
litical rivalry. They do not even try to provide an affirmative agenda
for international cooperation on these threats—all but guaranteeing
that they will exact a heavy human toll and heighten geopolitical ten-
sions. The disease that causes the next pandemic could be just as con-
tagious as COVID-19 but much more lethal and impervious to vaccines.
Climate change is only getting worse.
Other analysts, mainly on the left, argue that the United States should
set aside its contest with China or at least attempt to ease tensions in
order to cooperate on shared challenges. It is unclear what exactly they
intend. If, on the one hand, they mean softening U.S. rhetoric without

Thomas Wright
conceding much of substance to China, they would do well to look to

Europe, where governments were much more inclined than the Trump
administration to cooperate with China, but China did not take them up
on the offer. To the contrary, China became much more assertive and
confrontational in its approach to Europe. If, on the other hand, they
mean unilaterally making major geo-
The need for cooperation on political concessions to China—on its
territorial acquisitions in the South
transnational threats must China Sea, for instance, or the status
change how the United of Taiwan—the United States would
States competes with China. not only pay an extremely high price
but also likely embolden Beijing fur-
ther without actually securing cooper-
ation on pandemics or climate change beyond what Beijing has already
offered. Deliberately undercutting U.S. interests on matters unrelated
to transnational threats is not a sound strategy.
There is no getting around strategic competition with Beijing: it is
deeply embedded in the international order, mainly because China
seeks to expand its sphere of influence in Asia at the expense of the
United States and its allies, which are in turn committed to thwarting
Beijing’s plans. The United States and China are also engaged in what
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, recently called “a com-
petition of models.” China is seeking to make the world safe for the
CCP and to demonstrate the effectiveness of its system. This entails
pushing back against what it sees as pressure from liberal democratic
countries that could thwart its objectives. For its part, the United States
worries about the negative externalities of Chinese authoritarianism,
such as censorship of international criticism of Beijing or the export of
its tools of repression to other countries. The United States also wor-
ries about what would happen to the military balance of power if China
secured an enduring advantage in key technologies. Even in diplo-
macy, friction will be endemic to the U.S.-Chinese relationship and
will affect the broader international order for the foreseeable future.
Outright confrontation can be avoided—but competition cannot.
This competition places real limits on cooperation. Take the arena
of global public health: many studies on how to improve pandemic
preparedness call on world leaders to dramatically strengthen the
WHO, including by giving it the same power to enforce international
health regulations as the International Atomic Energy Agency enjoys
with nuclear nonproliferation rules. This recommendation is not new.

Several reviews of the WHO’s performance during previous health
emergencies, including the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014–16,
have recommended sanctions in the event of noncompliance with in-
ternational health regulations by member states, but the member
states have not granted that power to the WHO.
The problem is getting every government to agree to a universally
applicable mechanism for sanctions or some other enforcement mech-
anism. China will not agree to any reform that would involve intru-
sive inspections of its scientific research facilities. And even if Beijing
were to agree to vague language that could be interpreted as allowing
these actions, the lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it will not
live up to its word when a crisis occurs.
WHEN COOPERATION FAILS

The need for cooperation on transnational threats must change how the
United States competes with China—not whether it competes. U.S.
officials should not give up on China entirely; instead, they should
make a good-faith effort to work with Beijing, both bilaterally and in
multilateral settings. Recognizing that there are strict limits on U.S.-
Chinese cooperation is not the same as saying that no cooperation is
possible. China has an interest in tackling pandemics and climate
change, and diplomacy may help incrementally. But the real challenge
is determining what to do when cooperation with China and other ri-
vals falls short of what is required. The United States needs a backup
plan to tackle shared challenges through coalitions of the willing.
When it comes to pandemic preparedness, this means fully sup-
porting the WHO (including by pressing for needed reforms) but also
forging a coalition of like-minded states: a global alliance for pan-
demic preparedness that would regularly convene at the head-of-state
level and work alongside nongovernmental organizations and the pri-
vate sector. Any country that accepts the conditions of membership
should be able to join. But those conditions should be strict and in-
clude a commitment to transparency beyond what is currently re-
quired by the international health regulations—for instance, granting
WHO inspectors the kind of authority enjoyed by their counterparts at
the International Atomic Energy Agency. Crucially, whenever the
WHO declared an international public health emergency, alliance
members would coordinate on travel and trade restrictions, as well as

Thomas Wright
on public messaging and financial penalties and sanctions. Those pen-

alties and sanctions would be aimed at those states that failed to pro-
vide sufficient access to or fully cooperate with the WHO. The alliance
would support, not supplant, the WHO.
For any such coalition to succeed, the United States and its allies
and partners would have to take on a far greater share of the burden
of providing global public goods. The G-7, for example, could have
committed to vaccinating the world against covid-19 at its June sum-
mit, instead of just promising to purchase and distribute 870 million
vaccine doses, approximately ten percent of the global need. A coali-
tion could also step up in a big way to help developing nations build
the capacity to prepare for future pandemics and invest in therapeu-
tics, diagnostics, and vaccines.
The situation is more complicated with respect to climate change.
The United States is a less reliable partner in this arena, and China’s
survivalist instincts could in theory make it more willing to mitigate
climate threats than to strengthen the WHO. Sustained, managed
competition with China could potentially help the United States
build bipartisan support for investments in clean technology that
would prevent Beijing from gaining an enduring advantage in this
area. But the United States and the European Union will also need to
build coalitions of the willing to deal with the international security
consequences of accelerated climate change, such as extreme weather
events that threaten large numbers of people, and to address the for-
eign policy dimensions of climate action, including managing the risk
that a shift away from fossil fuels could destabilize countries and re-
gions that are dependent on oil exports.
Two separate constellations of powers are steadily emerging, one
largely democratic and led by the United States and the other authoritar-
ian and led by China. These constellations are interdependent but riven
by distrust and rivalry. Cooperation across this divide should always be
the first choice in times of shared crisis, but as the COVID-19 pandemic
has demonstrated, the U.S.-led constellation must always have a backup
plan. It did not have one in 2020. It needs one for the next crisis.∂
REVIEWS & RESPONSES
A growing chorus argues that the
United States should not throw around
its military might every time a
potential new threat emerges.
– Tanisha Fazal
The Case for Complacency Masters and Commanders

J O S E P H T . M I L L E R / U . S . N AV Y / R E U T E R S
Tanisha M. Fazal 204 Kori Schake; Peter D. Feaver; Risa Brooks,

Jim Golby, and Heidi Urben 230
How Democratic Is the World’s
Largest Democracy? Recent Books 239
Sadanand Dhume 209
Strait of Emergency?
Rachel Esplin Odell and Eric Heginbotham;
Bonny Lin and David Sacks; Kharis
Templeman; Oriana Skylar Mastro 216
Because Americans face fewer threats

The Case for than they think they do, the United
States should shrink its military.
Complacency Mueller is a provocative and original
thinker. He was one of the first scholars
to argue that war was in decline, and he
Does Washington Worry Too has made the case that the threats
Much About Threats? posed by terrorism, cyberattacks, and
even nuclear war are overblown. His
Tanisha M. Fazal latest book synthesizes decades of work
and marshals reams of historical
evidence to chronicle a litany of mis-
takes abroad—from the Vietnam War
The Stupidity of War: American Foreign to the invasion of Iraq—that add up to
Policy and the Quest for Complacency an unflinching indictment of U.S.
BY JOHN MUELLER. Cambridge foreign policy since 1945.
University Press, 2021, 342 pp. The Stupidity of War reflects strands
of thought popularized in recent years
A
s U.S. President Joe Biden seeks by self-proclaimed “restrainers,” ana-
to resurrect American leadership lysts who object to the United States’
on the world stage, the perennial muscular post–Cold War foreign policy.
question of how the United States should A growing chorus of restrainers argue
respond to international crises looms that U.S. hegemony should not be
large. In his latest book, the political preserved for its own sake and that the
scientist John Mueller offers a refresh- United States should not throw around
ingly straightforward answer: Washing- its military might every time a potential
ton should aim not for transformation new threat emerges. Mueller reaches
but for “complacency,” which Mueller similar conclusions via a slightly differ-
characterizes as “minimally effortful ent route, claiming that since 1945, U.S.
national strategy in the security realm.” foreign policy has been characterized by
Mueller’s case rests on two claims. unnecessary interventions that “have
The first is that war is in decline; not mostly failed to achieve policy ends at
only do wars occur less frequently, but an acceptable cost.”
the idea of major wars has effectively Mueller frames his book as a critique
gone out of style. The second is that the of conventional wisdom and establish-
U.S. foreign policy establishment is ment thinking. But its specific targets
prone to panic and often blows poten- are not immediately clear. Who, exactly,
tial threats out of proportion, thereby thinks war is smart? As the United
justifying military interventions that States winds down its war in Afghani-
frequently prove counterproductive. stan and refrains from placing many
boots on the ground in other theaters,
TANISHA M. FAZAL is Professor of Political such as Syria and Yemen, few scholars or
Science at the University of Minnesota and the
author of Wars of Law: Unintended Conse- analysts are arguing for aggressive U.S.
quences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict. military deployments. At the moment,
The Case for Complacency
debates about U.S. grand strategy are tal mistake, he argues, is not so much
dominated by figures who harbor deep overextension as it is the overhyping of
anxiety about the durability of the liberal threats—and especially the threat of
international order and others who have war. So, for example, the United States
argued for limited humanitarian inter- should retrench not because China’s rise
ventions in the face of atrocities abroad. is inevitable but because the decline of
Neither of those positions is neces- great-power war will not reverse. The
sarily at odds with Mueller’s argument. world has become a largely safe and
For proponents of a rules-based order, a secure place, at least for Americans and
strong U.S. military is less important U.S. interests. Maintaining a large
than diplomacy, economic statecraft, military is simply unnecessary. Muel-
and multilateral institutions such as the ler’s advice boils down to this: Wash-
United Nations. Mueller’s preferred ington should just calm down.
foreign policy would be consistent with
those priorities, as long as they don’t WAR’S WANING DAYS?
involve the use of military force—al- Mueller stakes much of his argument
though he equivocates on the question on the claim that war is in decline—
of humanitarian intervention, arguing that is, that the total number of wars
that U.S. forces could be deployed and battlefield deaths has decreased
under the auspices of the un to “police since 1945. But although he is correct
destructive civil wars or to depose that this thinking has gained traction
regimes” but that such interventions are in policy circles, his conclusions are
becoming increasingly unlikely owing distorted by a narrow definition of
to lukewarm domestic support. war. He focuses on wars between rich,
So if proponents of a U.S.-led, northern countries (plus Japan). But
rules-based order and liberal interven- war, or something close to it, continues
tionists are not Mueller’s intended apace between India and Pakistan,
targets, then who is? One possibility is Russia and Ukraine, and Iran and
the Beltway thinkers who argue that Saudi Arabia. Even more misleading
U.S. military strength explains the “long is Mueller’s exclusive attention to
peace” of the last 75 years. (Mueller international conflicts. He neglects
references the historian and foreign civil wars in his analysis, even though
policy commentator Robert Kagan and civil wars have become the dominant
the current national security adviser, Jake type of war since 1945. The argument
Sullivan, in particular.) But if his aim about war’s decline came into vogue
were to persuade these opponents, around 2011, following the publication
insulting them with his title and mock- of books such as The Better Angels of Our
ing them with a “sardonic litany” of their Nature, by the psychologist and scholar
own arguments in the book’s appendix Steven Pinker. Ironically, according to
would be an unworthy approach. the Uppsala Conflict Data Program,
Mueller’s true audience seems to be the number of ongoing conflicts began
his fellow restrainers, and his contribu- to increase right around the same time.
tion to the debate is a particular logic of Despite that reversal, the “decline of
restraint. The United States’ fundamen- war” thesis remains influential.

Tanisha M. Fazal
Another problem with that thesis is with frequent foreign deployments.

that the data that Mueller and others Members of Congress are concerned
rely on are slightly distorted. For about base closures in their districts,
instance, the data sets they reference defense contractors want to secure sales
typically use battle death thresholds: for to the Pentagon, and the military
a conflict to count as a war, a minimum worries that its skills will erode if they
number of military personnel must have are not put to use. As the international
died. But over the same time period relations scholar Elizabeth Saunders
that war has supposedly declined, there and others have argued, elites shape
have been dramatic improvements in public opinion on foreign policy, rather
military medicine that have shifted than the other way around. Mueller
many casualties from the “fatal” to the rejects this assertion, which is puzzling
“nonfatal” column. This shift has made given that it would help explain why a
it harder for any event to qualify as a supposed widespread public belief in
war today, regardless of the nonfatal toll the obsolescence of war has not actually
it exerts. It also undermines Mueller’s fostered a policy of restraint.
claim that the United States has a Perhaps the biggest unanswered
long-standing aversion to casualties, as question in The Stupidity of War is
the general public is relatively indiffer- what is at stake for Mueller and his
ent to the human and financial costs of position. Theorists do not develop
nonfatal war casualties. grand strategies just for the sake of it.
Mueller connects his argument that Strategies are meant to serve ends, and
war is in decline to the notion that the Mueller’s ends are obscure. Does
idea of war has become obsolete in the Mueller aim to save American lives? To
minds of Americans. The public opin- prevent global atrocities, as his appar-
ion polls he cites do not explicitly ent amenability to humanitarian inter-
demonstrate such a change in public vention might suggest? Or to secure
thinking, but he gives “the growth of U.S. interests? If so, what are those
aversion to international war and of an interests? Mueller is frustratingly silent
appreciation of its stupidity” as yet on these important questions.
another reason why Washington should
adopt a foreign policy of restraint. But DEMOCRATIC SOUL-SEARCHING
if the American public really does Mueller does not quite say so, but
generally believe that war has gone out almost everyone—including restrain-
of style, and public opinion matters ers—would agree that the preservation
greatly for U.S. foreign policy, then of American democracy should be a
why has the postwar period been lodestar of any U.S. foreign policy. Put
characterized by U.S. interventions and in those terms, Mueller’s conclusion is
adventurism? One possible answer is correct: for the time being, at least, the
that Mueller is simply wrong: the United States should shrink its military
American public does not believe that and resist the temptation to put a finger
war is obsolete. Another is that the in every foreign policy pie. Washington
defense industry is served by the should do so not because war is on the
maintenance of a large U.S. military decline or because alleged external
threats are overblown, although Mueller
often makes a convincing case for the
Listen In.
latter. Instead, temporary restraint
makes sense because the current state of
Dive Deeper.
U.S. domestic politics demands that the
country turn its attention inward if it is
Look Ahead.
to do itself or anyone else any good.
Among the supposedly overblown
threats Mueller identifies are the
boogeymen of China, Iran, and Russia.
These states’ regimes, Mueller assures Understand the
readers, will eventually collapse, just as global issues shaping
the Soviet Union did. The United your world.
States, by contrast, remains stalwart.
Even its incompetent response to the
COVID-19 pandemic could not dent
American power, Mueller argues: “The
country is so strong, it can’t even be
Delve into the
destroyed by itself.”
foreign policy
In the aftermath of the January 6
challenges facing
attack on the U.S. Capitol, that claim the United States.
seems less convincing than it might
have been just a year ago. Ongoing
attempts to restrict voting, deep struc-
tural inequalities, extreme polarization,
and the lack of a collective understand- Stay ahead of the
ing of facts have created a dangerous headlines with this
cocktail. As the political scientist 30-minute preview
Rachel Myrick recently argued in of world news.
Foreign Affairs, domestic polarization
also reduces U.S. credibility abroad.
When domestic political institutions Listen on:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
are struggling, it is hard to identify
what foreign policy priorities should
guide grand strategy.
U.S. foreign policy has helped enable CFR’s podcasts have you covered.
some of these worrying domestic trends. Explore them at cfr.org/podcasts.
The military has become the default tool
of U.S. foreign policy, asked to accom-
plish goals it was never designed to
meet. The fetishization of the military
should give all citizens pause, especially
when it seeps into domestic affairs. Con-
sider, for example, the scenes of police

Tanisha M. Fazal
officers donning riot gear and deploying significantly affected by global warm-
tear gas—sometimes purchased as ing—seems much more likely today
surplus from the Pentagon—to confront than it did 20 years ago. But a strong
protesters on the streets of dozens of military is hardly sufficient to tackle
American cities in the wake of George such challenges, and the value of
Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Min- military strength becomes questionable
neapolis police officer in May 2020. if it comes at the expense of civilian
The United States’ resources are institutions. Allies around the world
finite, and redirecting time and money will look askance at a United States
toward the preservation of U.S. democ- whose commitment to democracy at
racy is the smart move. The United home appears uncertain. Focusing on
States spends many times as much on the restoration and protection of Ameri-
defense as it does on education or the can democracy will be much more
environment. But for reasons including helpful for U.S. standing in the world
constitutional principles and the possibil- than would building an ever-stronger
ity of extremism in the ranks, it should military alone. What—and whom—is
be clear that the military cannot protect grand strategy serving otherwise?∂
American democracy from threats
emanating from within the country.
This does not necessarily mean that
the United States should “substantially
disarm,” as Mueller suggests. If the
United States can right its domestic
ship, the military may have critical roles
to play in bolstering international
institutions, responding to atrocities, and
confronting climate change. A strong
U.S. military can further these goals by
supplying troops and other support to
peacekeeping efforts and by responding
to the security threats that will inevita-
bly emerge from climate crises. And
although its track record on counterin-
surgency leaves something to be desired,
the U.S. military has had success in
disaster relief and humanitarian aid, mis-
sions that can inspire confidence in the
United States among foreign publics.
As Mueller notes, military restraint
comes with risk; after all, not all inter-
national threats are overblown. For
example, owing to climate change, the
prospect of conflict in the Arctic re-
gion—and perhaps in other places
V-Dem now classifies India as an “elec-

How Democratic toral autocracy,” a notch above “closed
autocracies,” such as China and Saudi
Is the World’s Arabia, and two notches below “liberal
democracies,” such as Japan and the
Largest United States. India ranks seventh on a
V-Dem list of ten countries that have lost
Democracy? the most democratic ground over the
past decade. By this measure, it has
Narendra Modi’s New India regressed less than Hungary and Turkey
but more than Bolivia and Thailand.
In India, where more than 600
Sadanand Dhume million people—about two-thirds of
those eligible—voted in the 2019 general
election, many people view allegations
Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the of democratic decline as a Western
Rise of Ethnic Democracy attempt to diminish the country. “You
BY CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT. use the dichotomy of democracy and
Princeton University Press, 2021, 656 pp. autocracy,” said Indian Foreign Minister
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at a media
T
he brutal second wave of conclave in March. “You want the
COVID-19 that battered India over truthful answer? It’s hypocrisy.”
the spring pushed into the Such pugilistic responses play well in
background another global concern about a land awash with nationalist sentiment.
the country: Just how democratic is the Independent India has a hoary history
world’s largest democracy? of blaming the “foreign hand” for
Since Prime Minister Narendra anything that goes wrong, a tradition
Modi’s rise to power in 2014, India’s that the Modi government has expertly
rankings on global indexes that measure revived. But the foreign minister’s
democratic health have plummeted. Over deflection does not answer the central
the past six years, India fell 26 places— question: Why has India, long regarded
from 27 to 53—on the Democracy Index, as an outlier in the postcolonial world
published by the Economist Intelligence for preserving democracy amid poverty,
Unit. In March, Freedom House down- suddenly lost its sheen?
graded India from “free” to “partly free,”
a status it shares with countries such as ETHNIC DEMOCRACY
Ecuador, Mozambique, and Serbia. The The French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot’s
same month, Sweden’s V-Dem (Varieties new book on Modi and the rise of Hindu
of Democracy) Institute went even nationalism is a good place to seek an
further, announcing that India had ceased answer. Jaffrelot argues that under Modi,
to be an electoral democracy altogether. India has morphed into an “ethnic
democracy” that equates the majority
SADANAND DHUME is a Senior Fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute and a columnist Hindu community (roughly four-fifths
for The Wall Street Journal. of the population) with the nation and

Sadanand Dhume
relegates Christians and Muslims to elections, RSS operatives have entered the
second-class citizenship, excluding them government at multiple levels, eroding
from the national imagination and the ability of the permanent civil service
exposing them to the wrath of vigilante to perform its functions impartially.
groups with ties to the ruling Bharatiya That creeping ideological movement
Janata Party (BJP). has worked its way into the educational
This ethnicization project has a system, including in the teaching of
number of aspects. First, at both the history, as state authorities have encour-
federal and the state level, BJP govern- aged the rewriting of textbooks. Hindu
ments have passed laws to protect nationalists view India’s past through the
Hinduism and its symbols. For instance, prism of conflict with medieval Islamic
several BJP-ruled states have enhanced rulers, rather than as a complex mosaic
punishments for killing cows, consid- that included elements of both conflict
ered sacred by pious Hindus, and and cooperation.
curbed religious freedom to stem Finally, Jaffrelot argues that the joint
conversions from the majority faith to venture between Hindu nationalist
Christianity or Islam. They have passed groups and the government has “restruc-
these laws without altering India’s tured the public sphere to some extent.”
formally secular constitution. In simple terms, this means that govern-
At the same time, the Modi government and law enforcement agencies
ment has assaulted bastions of leftist and shield Hindu nationalist vigilante groups
secularist thought by appointing Hindu from prosecution, granting them license
nationalist sympathizers to administer to attack those they deem “antinational.”
prestigious universities, such as New On university campuses, right-wing
Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, and youth groups, including the Akhil
by cracking down on troublesome Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the stu-
foreign nongovernmental organizations. dent wing of the RSS, attack students
Last year, Amnesty International shut- who chant slogans praising Kashmiri
tered its office in India, citing “a con- separatists or refuse to sing the national-
certed and vicious smear campaign of ist hymn “Vande Mataram.”
spurious allegations, raids by various
investigative agencies, malicious media DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING
leaks, and intimidation.” The RSS may not directly control the
The Modi government has also most violent vigilante groups, which
legitimized the Rashtriya Swayamsevak sport names such as the Bhartiya Gau
Sangh, the nearly century-old Hindu Raksha Dal (Indian Cow Protection
nationalist volunteer group with para- Group) and the Hindu Yuva Vahini
military features that provides the BJP (Hindu Youth Force), but they operate
with its top leadership, its distinctive with impunity in states such as Haryana
worldview, and its most committed and Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP holds
cadres. Since 2014, the state broadcaster power. Since Modi’s election, mobs have
Doordarshan has telecast to the entire lynched at least 37 Muslims accused—of-
country the annual address of the RSS ten without evidence—of killing cows or
chief. Aided by BJP victories in state transporting cattle for slaughter. The vast
How Democratic Is the World’s Largest Democracy?
Backslider: Narendra Modi in New York City, September 2014
majority of such incidents took place in opposition politicians have a way of

BJP-ruled states. Anyone who has dipped miraculously disappearing if they choose
a toe in Indian Twitter has likely wit- to join the BJP.) The government has
nessed the online version of this vigilan- reduced the once proudly independent
tism: attacks on anyone deemed critical Supreme Court to either rubber-stamping
of Modi or even skeptical of any aspect or sidestepping controversial issues—
of the BJP’s ascendant cultural project. such as the government’s sudden
The head of the BJP’s Information cancellation in 2019 of the autonomy of
Technology Cell boasted in an interview the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and
of commanding an army of over 1.2 Kashmir. At times, the Supreme Court
million volunteers dedicated to continu- has refused to enforce habeas corpus, a
ally spreading the party’s message. cornerstone of the Anglo-Saxon law that
Like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan India supposedly follows.
and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Modi has The government also keeps much of
L UCAS JAC KS O N / R E U T E R S
hollowed out institutions that might the media, once among the liveliest in
have checked his power. Jaffrelot shows Asia, on a tight leash. It intimidates the
how the government uses federal law press through tax raids, temporary bans
enforcement bodies such as the National on TV channels, and pressure on media
Investigation Agency and the Central magnates to sack recalcitrant journalists
Bureau of Investigation to harass politi- or risk harm to their business interests.
cal opponents. (The legal troubles of And it lures the media with its massive

Sadanand Dhume
advertising budget, which it uses to three-fourths of all income declared by

influence political coverage. A new breed national political parties, over five times
of pro-government propaganda channels as much as its closest rival, the Indian
work around the clock to smear opposi- National Congress did.
tion leaders and hail Modi’s virtues.
Since 2016, India has fallen nine spots on HINDU NATIONALISM VS.
Reporters Without Borders’ World Press INDIAN NATIONALISM
Freedom Index, where it now ranks 142 The democratic backsliding may be
out of 180 countries. recent, but the ideological contest Modi
No matter the travails of Indian civil has sharpened stretches back nearly a
society, institutions, and media, elections century. The standard-bearer of tradi-
have long been the brightest spot in any tional Indian nationalism, Mohandas
assessment of Indian democracy. These Gandhi, known to his followers as
gargantuan exercises of democratic Mahatma, led India’s struggle for inde-
choice have boasted high voter turnout pendence. Gandhi was a publicly pious
and been guided by a historically impar- Hindu, but he attempted to rally Indians
tial election commission. But Jaffrelot of all faiths against British colonial rule.
argues that India has now succumbed to “If the Hindus believe that India should
“electoral authoritarianism.” It still be peopled only by Hindus, they are
conducts multiparty elections, but they living in a dreamland,” he wrote in Hind
lack “democratic substance.” The BJP has Swaraj (Indian Home Rule) in 1909.
tilted the playing field against the Gandhi’s foremost disciple and India’s
opposition by appointing alleged parti- first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru,
sans to the Election Commission and fostered a polity that broadly met the
punishing dissenters within it. The ruling essential criteria of secularism: everyone
party also enjoys a massive funding was free to practice his or her religion,
advantage over its rivals, thanks in part and the state regarded all religions as
to the introduction of a new form of equal in the public sphere. However,
campaign finance: electoral bonds, which unlike France, for instance, India made
donors deposit into the registered bank no attempt to separate faith and state or
accounts of political parties. Unlike other to secularize society. Indian secularism
forms of campaign finance, such as cash rests not on shunning religion but on
donations, these bonds can be traced by striving to treat all religions equally.
state-owned banks overseen by the Jaffrelot contrasts Gandhi’s approach
government. This makes those who to religious pluralism with Hindutva
contribute large amounts to the opposi- (Hindu nationalism), a form of ethnic
tion vulnerable to government retribu- nationalism similar to other “xenophobic
tion. According to one estimate, India’s ‘sons of the soil’ movements throughout
2019 election cost $8.6 billion, more than the world.” He sees Hindu nationalism as
the estimated $6.6 billion spent on last rooted in a lack of self-esteem induced by
year’s U.S. presidential election. And the the nineteenth-century colonial stereo-
Association for Democratic Reforms, an type of Hindus as “puny.” And demo-
Indian watchdog group, reported that in graphic changes in the late nineteenth
2017–18, the BJP accounted for nearly century and early twentieth century
raised fears among early Hindu national- the autonomy enjoyed by the country’s
ists that Hindus were a “dying race.” only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and
The most important Hindu national- Kashmir; and formulating a uniform civil
ist ideologue, Vinayak Savarkar, was an code to put an end to the application of
atheist who rose to prominence in the sharia in matters such as marriage,
first half of the twentieth century. He divorce, and inheritance when the
listed four criteria for national belonging: participants are Muslim. Jaffrelot calls
race, territory, language, and culture. For the period between 1998 and 2014—from
Savarkarites, only those who view India the election of Vajpayee to the advent of
as both their fatherland and their holy Modi—one of “forced moderation,”
land are true patriots, a belief that compelled by the party’s need to forge
automatically casts suspicion on Indian alliances with nearly two dozen regional
Christians and Muslims, whose sacred and caste-based parties, many of which
sites lie outside the subcontinent. Gan- depended on Muslim voters.
dhi famously made nonviolence a center-
piece of his political philosophy. By MODI MANIA
contrast, Hindu nationalists such as In 2014, Modi trounced the left-of-center
Savarkar condemned this stance as a National Congress and led the BJP to
form of weakness. India’s first single-party majority in 30
For more than four decades, Hindu years. His rise has turned conventional
nationalism remained on the margins of political wisdom on its head. Modi has
national life. But starting in the late shown that the BJP can consolidate
1980s, the BJP emerged as a major force enough votes among the Hindu major-
in politics. The party championed a ity—cutting across caste differences—to
movement to build a temple to the offset the party’s weakness among
Hindu deity Ram in the northern Indian Christians and Muslims and end its
town of Ayodhya, on the site of a dependence at the federal level on
sixteenth-century mosque that Hindu alliances with other parties. Jaffrelot
nationalists claim Muslim invaders contends that Modi has also disproved
erected at the precise spot where Ram the “moderation thesis” proposed by
was allegedly born. In 1992, a Hindu some political scientists, which holds that
nationalist mob razed the mosque, the compulsions of electoral politics and
sparking Hindu-Muslim riots in many governance tend to transform “radical
parts of the country but also boosting parties” into “more moderate political
the BJP’s electoral prospects, particularly actors.” Modi first rose to national
in the populous Hindi-speaking heart- prominence after bloody Hindu-Muslim
land. Still, many pundits regarded the riots occurred on his watch as chief
party as too far outside the national minister of Gujarat in 2002—riots that
mainstream to claim power. killed more than 1,000 people, a large
In 1998, the BJP formed a coalition majority of them Muslims.
government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, What is the secret of Modi’s political
who ruled for six years in part by moth- success? For starters, he has benefited
balling the party’s signature cultural from a decades-long effort by the RSS and
issues—building the Ram temple; ending the BJP to expand the party’s support

Sadanand Dhume
beyond its traditional upper-caste base. ment for dung, firewood, and charcoal—
Modi belongs to one of the Other to 83 million households.
Backward Classes, a broad category of At the same time, Modi cultivates
numerically dominant but historically what Jaffrelot calls an air of “worldly
disadvantaged castes in the Indian state’s asceticism.” By presenting himself as
complex taxonomy of social groups. His something akin to a mystic, Jaffrelot
plebian background—he famously sold points out, “Modi tries to match a very
tea at a railway platform in his native prestigious repertoire of Indian politics,”
Gujarat—contrasts favorably with the one whose foremost practitioner was
patrician Nehru-Gandhi family, which Gandhi. Modi’s biography and brand of
once dominated Indian politics. As populism have turbocharged Hindu
Jaffrelot, quoting the populism scholar nationalism’s electoral appeal.
Pierre Ostiguy, puts it, a swath of For many in India’s 200-million-
underprivileged Indians, many of them strong Muslim minority, the conse-
young men, view Modi as “both like me quences of the country morphing from a
. . . and an ego ideal,” that is, the person secular democracy to an ethnic democ-
they aspire to be. Like them, Modi lacks racy have been profound. Several BJP-
a fancy family pedigree, prestigious ruled states have passed laws to curb
degrees, and fluency in English. Yet he “love jihad,” an imaginary phenomenon
rubs shoulders with world leaders and of Muslim men wooing Hindu women as
wields power over those who regard a form of social warfare. India’s largest
themselves as his social superiors. state, Uttar Pradesh, is run by Yogi
Modi communicates directly with his Adityanath, a Hindu monk who founded
followers through a radio program called an anti-Muslim militia and whose
Mann Ki Baat, or “Heartfelt Thoughts,” bloodcurdling rhetoric against Muslims
an attempt to create what Jaffrelot calls once placed him beyond the pale of high
an “intimate, trust-based relationship office. Adityanath has called Muslims
between the leader and his people.” He “two-legged animals that [have] to be
has also launched a slew of populist stopped.” In spite of—or perhaps because
government initiatives to signal his of—these divisive appeals, Adityanath
concern for the poor. These include the has won a devoted following in Uttar
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Pradesh, where now “the functions of
Mission), the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan head of government, spiritual leader, and
Yojana (Prime Minister’s People’s militia chief are all wrapped up in one
Wealth Scheme), and the Pradhan person,” as Jaffrelot puts it.
Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (Prime Minister’s In his second term, Modi summarily
Brightness Scheme). They share com- scrapped the autonomy of Jammu and
mon features: an eye-popping scale and Kashmir and passed a citizenship law
a focus on dignity. The Swacch Bharat that pointedly excludes Muslims from
Abhiyan has built 66 million household three neighboring countries from the
toilets. The Jan Dhan Yojana has opened benefits of fast-track naturalization.
425.5 million bank accounts for the poor. Muslims have long been underrepre-
The Ujjwala Yojana has supplied subsi- sented in the ranks of the army, the
dized cooking gas cylinders—a replace- police, and the civil service, and the BJP’s
rise has witnessed the extension of this India. In reality, Hindu nationalism’s
marginalization to politics. Between 1980 footprint is more limited than he sug-
and 2019, Muslim representation in the gests. A Christian or a Muslim in Uttar
directly elected lower house of Parlia- Pradesh may live in fear of Hindu
ment fell by nearly half, to 26 members, nationalist vigilantes. But it’s hard to
or 4.6 percent of the body, while the argue that this captures the experience of
Muslim share of India’s population rose religious minorities in the large swaths of
by nearly three percentage points, to 14.4 eastern and southern India ruled by
percent. The BJP does not have a single non-BJP governments. In May, the BJP
Christian or Muslim among its 303 suffered stinging defeats in state elec-
directly elected members of Parliament. tions in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West
Jaffrelot argues that “Muslims today may Bengal, suggesting a geographic limit to
well be India’s new Untouchables.” Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism.
Jaffrelot is not optimistic about India’s
THE SEEDS OF AUTHORITARIANISM future, to put it mildly. He believes the
Jaffrelot’s book is a powerful indictment country is already transitioning from a
of the Modi government and the direc- “de facto Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu
tion the BJP has taken on Modi’s watch. nation) to an “authoritarian Hindu Raj”
But like Indian democracy, it has its share (Hindu nation-state). Modi has grasped
of flaws, including misspelled names of that in India, “charisma is above account-
several prominent people. At times, ability.” His brand of nationalist popu-
Jaffrelot veers into conspiratorial terri- lism has not only made India an ethnic
tory. One can legitimately argue that the democracy but also prepared the ground
Supreme Court has become largely tooth- for authoritarianism.
less during Modi’s rule, but it’s a different One way to think of Jaffrelot’s prog-
matter to claim without evidence, as nosis is as a plausible worst-case scenario.
Jaffrelot does, that this may be because There is no doubt that over the past
the government is blackmailing judges. seven years, India has traveled down a
Jaffrelot’s contention that the BJP’s rise markedly illiberal path. But Modi still
reflects “an Indian-style conservative faces massive challenges that make the
revolution” by old elites is not as straight- declaration of a hard-line Hindu nation-
forward as he suggests. The BJP may have alist victory premature, including a
checked the power of caste-based parties sputtering economy, the ravages of the
in the Hindi-speaking heartland, but it pandemic, uncooperative state govern-
did this by diversifying the caste back- ments, border tensions with China, and a
ground of its own leadership. The old U.S. administration likely to be more
political adage that the BJP is merely the attentive to human rights than its prede-
party of Brahmins (priests) and Banias cessor was. Liberal democracy in India
(traders) no longer holds. Moreover, the may be on the ropes. But it’s still too
BJP has largely supplanted India’s old soon to say if it’s down for the count.∂
English-speaking elite. In that sense, it is
a party of parvenus rather than privilege.
Jaffrelot seems to take the Hindi-
speaking heartland as a proxy for all of

proaches available to Washington. In

Strait of reality, the risks are less imminent and
more manageable than she suggests.
Emergency? The United States can maintain stabil-
ity in the Taiwan Strait by bolstering
Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities and
Debating Beijing’s Threat adopting a lighter and more distrib-
to Taiwan uted—and thus less vulnerable—force
posture in the Asia-Pacific. At the same
time, Washington should strengthen its
“one China” policy, reinforce strategic
Don’t Fall for the ambiguity, and refrain from making
unconditional commitments to Taiwan.
Invasion Panic Mastro rightly observes that if China
Rachel Esplin Odell and were to take military action against
Eric Heginbotham Taiwan, it would have several options,
ranging from an invasion to a blockade
to the occupation of small offshore
O
riana Skylar Mastro’s article islands or strikes on selected economic
“The Taiwan Temptation” or political targets. Although some of
(July/August 2021) is one of these options are more realistic than
many recent articles that warns of the others, all would carry immense risk.
growing risk of Chinese aggression in Contrary to what Mastro suggests,
the Taiwan Strait. Such articles have Beijing is unlikely to attempt any of
become so common that they have them unless it feels backed into a corner.
created something of an invasion panic China’s most decisive option would
in Washington—one that is damaging to be a cross-strait invasion. But its chances
both the United States’ and Taiwan’s of succeeding today—and for the next
interests. Anxiety about impending Chi- decade at least—are poor. Moreover,
nese aggression was part of what drove failure would produce a wrecked fleet
Washington in recent years to weaken and an army of prisoners of war in
its long-standing “one China” policy by Taiwan, an outcome that even Beijing
lifting some restrictions on official would be unable to spin as a victory. If,
interactions between it and Taiwan. It as most China analysts believe, regime
also undergirds recent calls for Wash- security is the top priority for Chinese
ington to abandon its policy of “strategic leaders, an invasion would risk every-
ambiguity” about whether it would thing on dim prospects for glory.
defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. To be sure, recent Chinese military
Although Mastro does not explicitly modernization efforts have yielded
endorse these policy changes, she does potent new capabilities, and the Peo-
suggest that the United States has no ple’s Liberation Army could visit havoc
good options for preventing a Chinese on Taiwan and U.S. forces deployed in
assault on Taiwan, implying a false the region at the outset of a conflict.
equivalence among the various ap- But the PLA still lacks the naval and air
assets necessary to pull off a successful airports, U.S. bombers or submarines

cross-strait attack. Just as important, it could put those facilities out of commis-
suffers from weaknesses in training, in sion, assuming Taiwan’s forces did not
the willingness or ability of junior sabotage them first. To be sure, China
officers to take initiative, and in the could strike U.S. bases in Japan and
ability to coordinate ground, sea, and threaten the U.S. fleet operating east of
air forces in large, complex operations. Taiwan. But unless Taiwan were to
To put China’s naval capabilities in collapse without a fight—a scenario on
perspective, consider that the United which leaders in Beijing are unlikely to
States captured Okinawa in 1945 from a gamble their own survival—China
Japanese garrison that was roughly the could not sustain a fleet off Taiwan’s
size of Taiwan’s current active army with beaches long enough to prevail.
a fleet weighing 2.4 million tons and Instead of an all-out invasion, China
supported by 22 carriers, 18 battleships, could opt for an air or sea blockade,
and 29 cruisers. China’s amphibious fleet seeking to starve Taiwan of trade until it
totals just 0.4 million tons today and capitulated to Beijing’s demands. But
would be supported by a much smaller the potential upside would be smaller
fleet of combat ships that, unlike the and less certain, and the potential
battleships and cruisers of World War downside almost as calamitous. A
II, are not equipped with large guns blockade would require China to operate
capable of supporting troops ashore. aircraft and ships for extended periods
China could supplement its naval of time to the east of Taiwan, once again
transport vessels with civilian ships, but creating targets for U.S. bombers,
such ships unload slowly, as the British aircraft, and submarines. As Mastro
rediscovered in the Falklands in 1982, notes, China could respond by striking
and these would share with the military U.S. bases in Japan, but doing so would
fleet a limited number of landing craft ignite a broader war, with all the atten-
for getting supplies from ship to shore. dant risks China would have sought to
Chinese paratroopers or heliborne forces avoid by stopping short of an invasion.
could also attempt to cross the strait, but Mastro acknowledges that “China is
they face even greater limitations and unlikely to attack Taiwan unless it is
would be highly vulnerable to Taiwan’s confident that it can achieve a quick
surface-to-air missiles. victory.” But blockades, by their
Even if China could triple the size of nature, take months and sometimes
its amphibious transport fleet, its ships years to yield results. Even a few
would remain vulnerable to counterat- months would give the United States
tacks by the United States and Taiwan. sufficient time to mobilize its immense
To seize control of the island, China military might to break the blockade.
would need to keep its fleet off Taiwan’s And a blockade could be met not just
coast for weeks, creating easy targets for with an attack on Chinese forces but
antiship cruise missiles launched from also with a counterblockade of China.
Taiwan or from U.S. bombers, fighter As a result, this option is also unlikely
aircraft, and submarines. And even if to deliver Taiwan into Chinese hands
the PLA managed to capture ports or and, like an invasion, would succeed

Mastro and Her Critics
only if Taiwan essentially collapsed should foster peace and stability

without a fight. through a more balanced set of military
Less risky than an invasion or a full and political measures. On the military
blockade would be more limited coer- front, they should continue to deter
cive actions. China could seize a small Chinese aggression by implementing
Taiwan-controlled island immediately their own respective denial strategies,
off its mainland coast, for instance, or neither of which would require a major
strike economic or political targets in military buildup or the integration of
Taiwan. Taiwan’s Kinmen Island is just U.S. and Taiwanese forces. To that end,
five miles off the coast of the mainland, the United States should adopt a lighter
well within artillery range. Occupying military footprint in the western
the island is within China’s current Pacific, one that is better able to with-
military capability and would signal stand a Chinese attack and wear down
resolve but would not embroil Beijing Chinese naval and air forces should
in a larger conflict. If China seized they attack Taiwan. It should invest in a
Kinmen quickly and then ceased mili- distributed air and naval presence
tary operations, the onus would be on rather than in ground forces, more
Taiwan—and the world—to respond or long-range antiship missiles and fewer
accept the fait accompli. weapons designed to strike deep into
But Beijing is unlikely to undertake China, and light aircraft carriers to
even limited military action merely supplement a reduced force of large-
because it can, as Mastro suggests it deck carriers. Such adjustments would
might. China has had the ability to take highlight the enormous risks to China
Taiwan’s closest offshore islands for of offensive military action and provide
decades, but it has refrained from doing the United States with a more usable
so. Should it decide to seize one of these set of tools, ones that would not risk
islands in the future, the assault would be escalation in the event of a crisis.
not “part of a phased invasion,” as Mastro Taiwan should also improve its own
argues, but a statement of frustration with defenses. Under President Tsai Ing-
a perceived shift in the U.S. or Taiwanese wen, Taipei has adopted a more rational
status quo. Beijing would likewise have to defense strategy that emphasizes
think long and hard before striking targets resilience and sustainability. Washing-
in Taiwan. Historically, coercive bombing ton should incentivize further move-
campaigns have achieved limited success, ment in this direction by selling Taipei
and such attacks would expose China to defensive weapons capable of surviving
considerable economic and political risk. a Chinese assault, including antiship
Beijing cares about its international cruise missiles, smart mines, drones,
reputation, and although it may never and air defense systems, rather than the
forswear the use of force to achieve vulnerable aircraft and warships Taipei
unification, it is not eager to attack has preferred in the past. It should also
Taiwan without a clear pretext and an condition such sales on Taiwan’s will-
endgame that serves its political purposes. ingness to enhance the readiness and
Instead of overreacting to Beijing’s training of its troops, especially its
growing power, Washington and Taipei reserve forces.
Washington needs the right political by playing a long game of balanced

strategy to accompany these military deterrence and reassurance, the United
efforts. As the pioneering game theorist States can discourage Chinese adven-
Thomas Schelling observed, reassurance turism even as it leaves the door open
is an essential corollary to deterrence, to positive change.
because it presents potential adversaries
with a real alternative to aggression. RACHEL ESPLIN ODELL is a Research Fellow in
the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute
Washington should therefore refrain for Responsible Statecraft.
from further blurring the line between
ERIC HEGINBOTHAM is Principal Research
cultural and economic engagement with Scientist at the Center for International Studies
Taiwan and official political recognition, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
a distinction that lies at the heart of the
agreements that accompanied the
normalization of U.S.-Chinese diplo-
matic relations. It should also make clear Force Is Still a Last Resort
that it remains committed to the “one Bonny Lin and David Sacks
China” policy by explicitly reaffirming
O
that it does not favor a unilateral riana Skylar Mastro argues
assertion of Taiwanese independence that under President Xi Jin-
and that it supports the peaceful resolu- ping, China has discarded its
tion of cross-strait differences. decades-old strategy of pursuing
At the same time, the United “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan
States should pursue bilateral coop- and is now moving toward a military
eration with China on issues such as takeover of the island. But no such
climate change and pandemic man- seismic policy shift has occurred in
agement. It should also open an Beijing. Preparation for a conflict over
official nuclear dialogue with China Taiwan has always driven China’s
and invest in improving military and military modernization efforts. Using
civilian crisis communication chan- force to achieve unification, however,
nels, including negotiating procedures remains an option of last resort. In-
for coast guard vessel encounters. In stead, China is focused on chipping
private, U.S. President Joe Biden away at the will of the Taiwanese
should emphasize to Chinese Presi- people. Eventually, Beijing thinks, they
dent Xi Jinping that the main obstacle will conclude that their only viable
to unification is not the U.S. military future is to join the mainland.
or the relationship between the For decades, China’s approach to
United States and Taiwan but China’s Taiwan has involved a combination of
own failure to develop a viable peace- carrots designed to demonstrate the
ful unification strategy that appeals to appeal of unification and sticks aimed at
the people of Taiwan. dissuading the island from moving
Because Beijing refuses to engage toward independence. Beijing offers
the moderate Tsai administration, preferential treatment to citizens of Tai-
these measures are unlikely to improve wan who do business on the mainland,
cross-strait relations anytime soon. But for instance, while also conducting

military exercises in the vicinity of the not to sign free-trade agreements with
island to remind Taiwan’s citizens not to Taipei. With these and other coercive
flirt with independence. measures, China has sought to under-
Chinese leaders have embraced this score the costs of resisting unification.
approach because they do not see Taiwan China’s growing power and its
as destined for independence and do not success in isolating Taiwan have con-
believe that the window for unification vinced Chinese leaders that the trend
has closed. Successive Chinese leaders lines are moving in the right direction.
have advanced their policy agendas and Mastro cites as evidence that Beijing is
burnished their legacies without deliver- growing impatient an April interview in
ing unification. Xi will be able to do the which Le Yucheng, China’s vice foreign
same, which perhaps explains why he has minister, refused to rule out the possi-
yet to set an explicit timeline for unifica- bility of military action against Taiwan.
tion with the island. Xi is also aware that But in the same interview, Le took a
even though Taiwanese identity contin- longer view, stressing that Beijing sees
ues to harden, most on the island still unification as a “historical process and
support the status quo; only a small the tide of history.”
percentage of Taiwanese people advocate Beijing still sees an invasion of Taiwan
immediate independence. as a last resort, one that would be incred-
Chinese leaders believe that the ibly difficult, risky, and costly for the
people of Taiwan will eventually con- People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Although
clude that their future prosperity is Mastro concedes that a Chinese amphibi-
inextricably tied to closer relations with ous assault on Taiwan “is far from guaran-
the mainland. Despite the island’s teed to succeed,” she argues that Chinese
recent efforts to reduce its economic perceptions of China’s capabilities matter
dependence on China, 45 percent of more than its actual capabilities and that
Taiwan’s exports went to the mainland Chinese leaders are increasingly confident
and Hong Kong in 2020, a record high. in China’s ability to win a fight over
Beijing is betting that Taipei will not Taiwan. It is true that China possesses a
risk Taiwan’s economic livelihood for more advanced military than it did five or
the sake of independence. ten years ago, but China also intentionally
Under Xi, China has adopted a more exaggerates its capabilities and confidence
assertive foreign policy, including as part of its campaign of psychological
vis-à-vis Taiwan. It has flown increas- warfare against Taiwan and the United
ingly large formations of aircraft States. Analysts should not accept at face
through Taiwan’s airspace, expanded value China’s claim that it could easily
maritime patrols in and around the win a fight against Taiwan.
Taiwan Strait, and stepped up military As evidence of China’s ability to take
exercises aimed at the island. It has the island, Mastro points to U.S. war
peeled away Taipei’s diplomatic allies games in which China prevailed over
and used its influence in international the United States. But such war games
organizations to exclude Taiwan. And it are generally designed to challenge U.S.
has sought to marginalize the island warfighting capabilities, not to predict
economically, pressing other countries the outcome of conflicts. They also
Intelligence Squared,, the nation’s premiere forum
for debate, presents another timely event in
partnership with Foreign Affairs..
DEBATE:
IS THE UNITED NATIONS OBSOLETE?
As the world's attention descends on the United Nations
General Assembly in September, Intelligence Squared U.S.
casts a critical lens on the 76-year-old organization. Do
the UN's controversies outweigh its accomplishments?
Has the body outlived its usefulness? Those who say “no”
point to its contributions to peace and stability, its
devotion to human rights, its action on climate change,
and its delivery of humanitarian aid as evidence of its
value. But those who say “yes” question the body’s
efficacy, criticize its promotion of globalism at the expense
of local economies, claim corruption and collusion, and
cite examples of exploitation of the vulnerable populations
the UN is charged with helping. To explore these issues,
Intelligence Squared hosts an important and especially
timely debate: Is the United Nations Obsolete?
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

AT 11:00AM ET
RSVP TO ATTEND AT IQ2US.ORG
In partnership with
purposely tilt the fight in favor of China, not to mention defending its
China—for instance, by assuming that claims in the many territorial disputes
the PLA, which has not experienced it has with neighbors. Invading Taiwan
serious combat in over four decades, has would be perhaps the riskiest decision
nonetheless mastered the incredibly Beijing has made since 1950, when it
difficult tactical, logistical, and com- intervened in the Korean War on
mand aspects of what would be one of behalf of North Korea. In making that
the largest and most complicated choice, Chinese leaders would certainly
military operations since World War II. weigh factors beyond cross-strait
By imagining a much more capable dynamics and the PLA’s capabilities;
China, these war games help identify they would also have to consider
steps that the United States and Taiwan whether China could politically and
could take to ensure that even a large- economically sustain a protracted
scale and determined Chinese invasion conflict and whether attacking Taiwan
of Taiwan would fail. Their goal is not would undermine Beijing’s broader
to model a realistic scenario. global ambitions.
In other words, it is far from clear Mastro argues that once China
that China could defeat Taiwan’s possesses the military capabilities
military, subdue its population, and necessary to invade Taiwan, “Xi could
occupy and control its territory. Nor is find it politically untenable not to do so”
it clear that the PLA could hold off any because of the heightened nationalism in
U.S. forces that came to Taiwan’s aid, China. But Xi has consolidated political
or that Beijing would be willing to and military power to an extent not seen
undertake a campaign that could spark since Mao Zedong, and he has revised
a larger and far more costly war with China’s constitution to allow himself to
the United States. A Chinese invasion stay in power indefinitely. Xi’s control
would invite significant international over the PLA and his emphasis on
political, economic, and diplomatic personal loyalty mean that his hand will
backlash that could undermine China’s not be forced on such a consequential
political, social, and economic develop- decision. Moreover, he has a range of
ment goals. It would also spur the coercive options at his disposal. Rather
formation of powerful anti-China than invading Taiwan, for instance, he
coalitions, bringing to fruition Beijing’s could respond to rising nationalist
long-standing fear of “strategic encir- pressure by escalating the PLA’s harass-
clement” by powers aligned against it. ment of the island while censoring
Mastro implies that China would be additional nationalist criticism.
able to devote all its military and Instead of launching a risky assault
security resources to an attack on on Taiwan, China could try to achieve
Taiwan. In reality, however, Chinese its objectives in a piecemeal way that
leaders are likely to worry that the PLA would make it difficult for Taiwan or
does not have the capacity to seize and the United States to respond. For
hold Taiwan while still maintaining instance, China may attempt to seize or
tight control over Hong Kong, Tibet, blockade an island under Taiwanese
Xinjiang, and the rest of mainland control, such as Itu Aba (also known as
Taiping), Kinmen, Matsu, or Pratas. This is a demanding agenda, but one

Alternatively, China could launch a that is necessary to preserve cross-strait
cyberattack against Taiwan’s critical stability. Although Mastro exaggerates
infrastructure, shutting down the the threat of a Chinese invasion, peace
island’s Internet or power supply. And in the Indo-Pacific nonetheless hinges in
these are just a few of the political, no small part on Washington’s ability to
economic, and military options short of deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
an invasion that Chinese leaders could
use against Taiwan. BONNY LIN is Senior Fellow for Asian Security
and Director of the China Power Project at the
Although Mastro overstates China’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.
eagerness to invade Taiwan, she is right
DAVID SACKS is a Research Fellow at the Coun-
that the United States needs to redouble cil on Foreign Relations.
its efforts to ensure that Xi is not
tempted to do so. Washington, Taipei,
and like-minded allies are capable of
fielding the military capabilities needed Xi Doesn’t Need Taiwan
to prevent China from forcibly seizing Kharis Templeman
control of Taiwan. But the United States
O
will need to invest in military capabili- riana Skylar Mastro warns that
ties that are either long range or difficult Chinese President Xi Jinping
for PLA missiles to target—and signal its could soon order an attack on
willingness to use them should China Taiwan. She asserts that Xi has staked
use force against Taiwan. Washington his legitimacy on progress toward
should also continue to press Taiwan to unification and that recent develop-
increase its defense spending and invest ments in Taiwan, especially the reelec-
in asymmetric capabilities—in particular, tion in 2020 of President Tsai Ing-wen,
sea mines and antiship missiles. whose party is skeptical of China, have
To prevent China’s coercion of “reinforced Beijing’s fears that the
Taiwan from sparking a crisis or a people of Taiwan will never willingly
conflict, the United States will need to come back to the motherland.” Amid
work with Taiwan to improve its overall rising Chinese nationalist sentiment,
defense capabilities, so that it does not she argues, Xi may soon feel compelled
feel backed into a corner and forced to to forcibly impose Chinese Communist
respond to Chinese provocations by Party rule on Taiwan.
escalating the dispute. Washington This argument exaggerates the
should use senior-level dialogues and importance of Taiwanese public opinion
war games to help Taiwan’s leadership to Beijing’s calculus, as well as the
think through the consequences of significance and urgency of the Taiwan
various responses to Chinese military issue for Xi. As Chinese strategists
aggression. It should also help Taiwan understand very well, Taiwan’s security
secure its critical infrastructure, harden rests today, as it has for the last 70
its cyberdefenses, and improve its years, on an implicit U.S. commitment
maritime intelligence, surveillance, and to defend the island, not on the will of
reconnaissance capabilities. the Taiwanese people or their leaders.

Although the majority of Taiwanese Beijing’s way: as optional and worth

would resist a Chinese invasion if they bargaining away for the right price.
had U.S. backing, most are also fatalis- What is to stop Americans from elect-
tic about their ability to hold out alone ing another? Taiwan’s future is thus
against Beijing—and would probably likely to be decided by a Sino-American
accede to unification without a fight if contest not of capabilities but of wills,
abandoned. Trends in the United and the Chinese Communist Party has
States, not in Taiwan, will ultimately reason to believe that it is slowly but
determine Taiwan’s future. surely gaining the upper hand in this
Mastro also overstates what is long-term struggle—and thereby
known about Xi’s commitment to improving its prospects of taking
achieving unification in the near term. Taiwan without a fight.
Xi has tied his legitimacy to achieving China’s growing advantage stems
China’s “national rejuvenation,” which not from the changing balance of power
requires a favorable international between it and the United States—
economic environment—one that a war most Chinese forecasts of American
over Taiwan would jeopardize. Al- decline are overstated, if not flat-out
though the military balance of power in wrong—but from shifting perceptions
the western Pacific has been shifting in of both sides’ will to fight. The Chinese
China’s favor, the United States still Communist Party has already scored an
retains both the ability and the will to important victory by framing the terms
impose extremely high economic and of the debate. For the last 70 years, Bei-
political costs on China should it attack jing has relentlessly asserted that
Taiwan. Even if Xi thinks he could Taiwan is the last piece of “Chinese
succeed—which is by no means a territory” it needs to achieve “national
given—attempting an invasion of the unification” and a “core interest” that it
island now simply does not make sense must use force against, if necessary, to
unless the United States signals that it place under its control. For such a
will not get involved. transparently self-serving claim, it has
Nor is there much evidence that been remarkably persuasive: most
Beijing views Taiwan as an urgent issue American observers now accept the
to resolve. Most Chinese analysts threat of invasion as credible and the
believe that long-term trends in the goal of unification—if not the means—
U.S.-Chinese relationship favor Beijing, as legitimate.
as the scholars Rush Doshi and Julian By comparison, the case that Taiwan
Gewirtz have both argued persuasively. is essential to the United States is weak,
With President Joe Biden in office, Xi as much as friends of Taiwan try to
has to assume that the United States argue otherwise. As the former diplo-
would respond forcefully to an attack mat Robert Blackwill and the historian
on Taiwan today. But wait another 20 Philip Zelikow have noted, Taiwan is a
years, and the picture could look quite vital U.S. interest only insofar as it
different. The American public has enables the projection of U.S. power
already elected one president who saw and the security of U.S. allies in the
Taiwan and U.S. alliances in Asia region. Future U.S. presidents could be
tempted to drop the implicit security but her argument ultimately bolsters
guarantee for the island, either to avoid those who would concede Taiwan to
a devastating war or in exchange for China without a fight.
other concessions from China. The
critical question is thus not whether KHARIS TEMPLEMAN is a Research Fellow
at the Hoover Institution and part of the
Beijing is willing to invade but how Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the
long Washington will continue to accept Indo-Pacific Region.
the risk of war with China.
Many U.S. analysts already believe
that risk to be unacceptably high. Ted Mastro Replies
Galen Carpenter, Charles Glaser, and
R
John Mearsheimer, among others, have achel Esplin Odell and Eric
argued that to preserve peace with Heginbotham, Bonny Lin and
China, the United States should dis- David Sacks, and Kharis Tem-
avow any commitment to defend pleman all argue that China is unlikely
Taiwan. It is ironic, then, that in to attempt armed unification with
attempting to sound the alarm about Taiwan. Although I appreciate their
the urgent threat facing Taiwan, Mastro perspectives, they do not present any
has reinforced Beijing’s preferred new evidence that would make me
narrative: that China will soon be able reconsider my assessment that the risk
to launch a successful invasion and that of Chinese aggression across the Taiwan
defending Taiwan will only grow harder Strait is real and growing. To the
and more costly for the United States. contrary, they repeat many of the
Her assumption that Beijing will spare increasingly dangerous misperceptions
no expense and bear any burden to that I sought to dispel in my original
conquer Taiwan is shared both by those article—namely, that China does not
who call for urgently strengthening have the military capabilities to pull off
U.S. military capabilities in the western an amphibious invasion, that the
Pacific and by those who would aban- economic costs of an invasion would be
don Taiwan to avoid war. sufficient to deter Chinese President Xi
But that assumption is a dubious Jinping, and that China can afford to
one. Xi has many other priorities, and wait indefinitely to achieve its most
moving against Taiwan would set back important national goal of unification.
most of them. The United States should My critics assume that insofar as there
not uncritically accept China’s narrative are risks, they can be dealt with through
about its rise in the world, its need to relatively limited adjustments in U.S.
avenge “the century of humiliation,” policy and military posture—a position
and the centrality of Taiwan to this with which I still strongly disagree.
“sacred mission.” In reality, China has Let’s take these arguments in order.
survived and prospered for 70 years My critics say that I have exaggerated
without exercising political control over China’s military capabilities and under-
Taiwan, and there is no reason why stated the difficulties of an invasion.
Beijing must seek to conquer it today. But their assessments rely on outdated
Mastro may have the best of intentions, or largely irrelevant comparisons.

Odell and Heginbotham, for instance, able cost. Moreover, my assessment of

note that the United States needed Chinese military capabilities is not
more naval tonnage to capture Okinawa based on Chinese discourse or the
from Japan in 1945 than China has results of war games alone. Reams of
today. But this example is inapposite. unbiased and rigorous analysis—from
Japan’s military was more than six the U.S. Department of Defense’s
million strong in 1945 and had been annual report to Congress on China’s
fighting for over a decade; Taiwan’s military modernization to Congres
military consists of 88,000 personnel sional Research Service reports on
and two million reservists, of whom Chinese naval modernization to hundreds
only 300,000 are required to complete of studies by think tanks and defense-
even a five-week refresher training affiliated organizations, such as the
course. Tonnage, moreover, is not a RAND Corporation—suggest that the
useful metric. Modern navies have PLA has made unparalleled advances in
moved to lighter, more flexible fleets. the past two decades and could take on
Odell and Heginbotham point out that the United States in certain scenarios.
civilian ships were of only limited use Indeed, Heginbotham himself argued in
in the Falklands War, but the United 2017 that “the balance of power between
Kingdom used just 62 of them in that the United States and China may be
campaign. The People’s Armed Forces approaching a series of tipping points,
Maritime Militia has many thousands first in contingencies close to the
of ships and is closer to a naval force Chinese coast (e.g., Taiwan).”
than a civilian one. If China were to I do not mean to suggest that a
mobilize all its naval vessels, including Chinese invasion would be a cakewalk.
its new large amphibious transport Taiwan could get some shots in, but it
ships and civilian ships, it could hypo- does not have the ability to defend
thetically carry hundreds of thousands itself. Luckily, the United States would,
of troops across the 80-mile-wide I believe, come to Taiwan’s aid and
Taiwan Strait in a short period of time. could still prevail in many scenarios.
Even if the United States had enough Taiwan is far from a lost cause. But ten
warning to optimally position its years ago, the United States would have
submarines, it does not have enough prevailed in any scenario. Because there
munitions to target such a large force. are now some scenarios in which U.S.
For their part, Lin and Sacks argue strategists think the United States could
that to believe China can take Taiwan lose, it is not unfathomable to think
by force is to fall for a Chinese misin- that Chinese strategists have come to a
formation campaign. They warn that similar conclusion.
“analysts should not accept at face value My critics also argue that economic
China’s claim that it could easily win a considerations will deter Beijing.
fight against Taiwan.” But no one, not Should China attempt to use force to
even the cockiest of People’s Liberation assert control over Taiwan, the interna-
Army analysts, argues that a full-scale tional response would be severe enough
attack on Taiwan would be easy, only to imperil Xi’s ambitious development
that the PLA could prevail at an accept- goals. But as I argued in my original
article, Chinese analysts have good
reason to think the international re-
sponse would be weak enough to
tolerate. China could even reap eco-
nomic benefits from controlling Taiwan,
whose manufacturers accounted for
more than 60 percent of global revenue
from semiconductors last year. The
United States is heavily reliant on
Taiwanese semiconductors. Should
China take Taiwan, it could conceivably
deprive the United States of this
technology and gain an economic and
military advantage.
But economic costs or benefits, while Get Foreign Affairs
part of Beijing’s calculus, are unlikely to
be the determining factor. Xi’s top delivered straight
priority is protecting China’s sover- to your inbox.
eignty and territorial integrity—as
Beijing defines it. China’s Belt and Road
Initiative, its militarization of the South
China Sea, and its sanctions against
countries that offend it, such as Austra-
lia or South Korea, all demonstrate that
Chinese leaders are willing to subordi-
nate economic considerations to consid-
erations of power and prestige. In a
speech marking the 100th anniversary of
the Chinese Communist Party in July,
Xi warned against foreign attempts to
bully or oppress China, declaring that
“anyone who dares try to do that will
have their heads bashed bloody against
the great wall of steel forged by over 1.4
billion Chinese people.” Those words
should be taken seriously.
Finally, my critics argue that China
has no need to attempt to forcibly unify
with Taiwan. Lin and Sacks think
peaceful unification is working; Tem- foreignaffairs.com/newsletter
pleman believes China can wait indefi-
nitely to resolve the issue. I disagree
because I think unification is a top
priority for the Chinese Communist

Party and Taiwan will not give up its conflagration, Chinese strategists fear a
autonomy without a fight. different pathway to war. They worry
A Chinese invasion is by no means that the United States, unable to accept
imminent or inevitable, but Beijing is its inevitable decline, will make a
now seriously considering initiating a dangerous last-ditch effort to hold on to
conflict to gain political control over its unrivaled great-power status. By this
Taiwan, whereas in the past the only logic, a declining United States is more
scenario in which it would have used dangerous than a stable, ascendant one.
force was to prevent Taipei from Lin and Sacks make a different
declaring independence. I agree with argument for why Beijing does not need
Templeman that China is unlikely to to attempt armed unification. They
invade in the next four years (although believe that Chinese leaders remain
I think this is largely because China committed to their long-standing
could benefit from more time to pre- approach of limited coercion coupled
pare, not because it fears U.S. President with economic incentives showcasing the
Joe Biden’s resolve), but his argument benefits of unification because that
that China can wait indefinitely is strategy is working. As evidence of
logically and empirically flawed. As I Beijing’s progress, Lin and Sacks point
argued in my original article, Xi has to polling that shows the majority of
made numerous statements that suggest people in Taiwan support the status quo,
he wants to achieve unification during not independence. But it is an enormous
his reign. It would be unwise to dismiss leap from not supporting independence
these as mere rhetoric, since he has to desiring or conceding to unification.
repeatedly voiced his intention to assert As Lin and Sacks themselves acknowl-
control over other territorial claims edge, China has employed this strategy
before doing exactly that—in the South of limited coercion and economic
China Sea, by building military infra- inducements for decades, but Taiwan is
structure and conducting naval drills, no closer to being a part of mainland
and in Hong Kong, by imposing a harsh China. In a September 2020 poll con-
national security law last year. ducted by National Chengchi University,
Templeman argues that if China only six percent of Taiwanese citizens
believes the United States is in decline, preferred eventual or immediate unifica-
then it has every reason to wait on tion. So although Lin and Sacks are
Taiwan. But in the eyes of Chinese correct that Beijing will likely continue
strategists, American decline actually with its carrot-and-stick approach, it will
hastens the need for action. Power still need to put boots on the ground to
transition theory, which holds that war gain full political control of Taiwan.
becomes more likely as the gap between My critics also raise concerns about
a rising power and an established great some of the policy implications of my
power diminishes, is also studied in argument. Odell and Heginbotham warn
Beijing. And although U.S. strategists against focusing too much on the cred-
fret that a rising China, dissatisfied ibility of the U.S. military threat when it
with the U.S.-led international order, comes to deterrence, rightly highlighting
will become aggressive and start a the equal importance of reassurance.
They warn that changes in U.S. policy Cyber Command, the U.S. Space
toward Taiwan could convince Beijing Force, and the Department of Defense’s
that the United States now supports Joint Artificial Intelligence Center were
Taiwanese independence—a mispercep- all established partly to counter Chinese
tion that could lead to war. But my advantages in those organizations’
argument is for a change in posture, not respective domains. If Lin and Sacks
in policy: the United States should are correct that China exaggerates its
develop the force posture and opera- capabilities to try to convince the
tional plans to deny China its objective United States to give up, Beijing has
in Taiwan and then credibly reveal these achieved the opposite.
new capabilities. It should not make In the end, all my critics highlight
dangerous policy changes that would risk an important truth: the situation across
provoking a Chinese military response. the Taiwan Strait has been relatively
Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that stable for 70 years because of the
even if a war breaks out over Taiwan and United States. Washington has man-
the United States wins, Washington aged to convince Beijing that armed
should not demand Taiwan’s indepen- unification would fail and that China
dence as one of the terms of peace. would pay a hefty price for trying. But
Templeman raises a separate con- China is not the same country it was 70
cern: that highlighting the potential years ago. Its rapid military moderniza-
costs of defending Taiwan could bolster tion, spectacular economic ascent, and
the case of those advocating that growing global influence have changed
Washington abandon Taipei. If this Beijing’s calculus on many issues. It has
were a serious worry, I would be the taken a more assertive approach to
first to shift my work to more private international institutions; built one of
channels. But those calling for the the world’s largest, most capable
United States to reconsider its commit- militaries; and extended its economic
ment to defend Taiwan are still in the influence deep and far throughout the
minority, and the Biden administration world. It would be wishful thinking to
has been clear that it would come to assume that China has not also changed
Taiwan’s aid in the event of an invasion. its thinking on Taiwan.
Moreover, the reaction of the U.S. Indeed, although my critics argue
Department of Defense to the threat that China is unlikely to invade, they
posed by China’s growing military still recommend that Taiwan improve its
power has been not to back down but to defenses and that the United States
ramp up efforts to counter it. From new enhance its military posture in the
doctrines that enhance joint capabilities region—not exactly a vote of confidence
between the U.S. Air Force and the in Beijing’s restraint. I had hoped to
U.S. Navy to base-resilience initiatives convince skeptics that China is now
to efforts to improve U.S. early warning seriously considering armed unification,
systems in the region, the Pentagon is but at least our debate has yielded a
firing on all cylinders to ensure it can consensus that more must be done in
deter and, if necessary, defeat China in Taipei and Washington to enhance
a wide range of conflict scenarios. U.S. deterrence across the Taiwan Strait.∂

republic, however, their allegations are

Masters and not substantiated.
For one thing, the authors airbrush
Commanders out of the picture the Pentagon’s
civilian leadership. Although they
describe President Barack Obama as
Are Civil-Military Relations being boxed in by generals during the
in Crisis? debate over Afghanistan, the positions
taken by the military were supported by
the Defense Department’s top civilians.
Robert Gates, Obama’s secretary of
The Process Is Working defense, and Michèle Flournoy, the
Kori Schake undersecretary of defense for policy,
were deeply involved in developing
Washington’s counterinsurgency strat-
R
isa Brooks, Jim Golby, and Heidi egy in Afghanistan and staunchly
Urben (“Crisis of Command,” supported it both publicly and in
May/June 2021) level serious interagency debates. In this, they were
charges against the U.S. military’s at odds with some of Obama’s advisers,
leadership, contending that its influence such as Tom Donilon, his national
has grown to the point where “presi- security adviser, and Joe Biden, his vice
dents worry about military opposition president. In other words, the disagree-
to their policies and must reckon with ment was the product of a Defense
an institution that selectively imple- Department–White House schism, not
ments executive guidance.” “Unelected a civil-military one.
military leaders,” they argue, “limit or Brooks, Golby, and Urben also claim
engineer civilians’ options so that that “military leaders often preempt the
generals can run wars as they see fit.” advice and analysis of civilian staff by
And “even if elected officials still get sending their proposals straight to the
the final say, they may have little secretary of defense, bypassing the
practical control if generals dictate all byzantine clearance process that non-
the options or slow their implementa- uniformed staffers must navigate.” The
tion—as they often do now.” The secretary of defense, however, already
authors’ grim assessment of the prob- has the tools to prevent that process
lems leads them to an equally grim from affecting policy. He could, for
conclusion: “Without robust civilian example, simply refuse to review
oversight of the military, the United military input without civilian advice.
States will not remain a democracy or a Although the secretary should avoid
global power for long.” making decisions without seeking the
If the military were acting the way civilian counsel of his own staff, that
Brooks, Golby, and Urben describe, failure falls on the secretary, not the
then it would indeed be egregiously vio- military. The best way to address the
lating cherished norms of U.S. civil- civil-military imbalance is to strengthen
military relations. Fortunately for the the civilians, not weaken the military.
Masters and Commanders
Separately, most of the examples the tary has followed the administration’s
authors use to demonstrate failing orders to begin withdrawing all U.S.
civilian control—including the role of troops from the country.
Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Brooks, Golby, and Urben also
Chiefs of Staff, in creating the “don’t downplay other sources of civilian
ask, don’t tell” policy and senior military oversight beyond the president and the
officials’ pushback against President executive branch. Congress, too, has that
Donald Trump’s orders to withdraw same authority. What observers some-
troops from Afghanistan and Syria—are times term “insubordination” is often the
really the policymaking process working legislative branch forcing the military to
as designed. The interagency system disclose information that the executive
rightly gives the military expansive would rather avoid being held account-
influence. Although the civilian-military able for. When Obama and Trump
relationship is an unequal one by design, complained that the generals were
with civilians alone possessing the boxing them in on Afghanistan by
authority to decide policies, the military roping in sympathetic legislators to make
has the right and the responsibility to their case, it wasn’t a story of the military
contribute its expertise as policies are refusing to implement the president’s
shaped. This is particularly true as the orders; it was a story of the president not
armed services grow increasingly wanting to pay a political price for a
separate from the general public. In decision that the Pentagon’s military and
1980, nearly 20 percent of Americans civilian leaders considered important.
had served in the military. By 2018, that Members of Congress will always
number had dropped to about seven use their powers of oversight to make
percent. As specialists, military leaders the military’s views public. In February
have important contributions to make in 2003, for instance, congressional leaders
areas of policy in which many civilians forced Eric Shinseki, the army chief of
lack expertise, such as what makes for staff, to concede that Washington would
success in war and how to foster cohe- need several hundred thousand troops
sion within units. to stabilize post-invasion Iraq—far
Military influence in the policymak- more than Secretary of Defense Donald
ing process, moreover, is predicated on Rumsfeld had approved. “Congress too
a strong belief that the armed forces rarely demands that the military bow to
will salute and carry out their orders civilian authority, instead weighing in
once civilian leaders make a decision. selectively and for partisan reasons,”
There is little evidence that the military Brooks, Golby, and Urben write. But it
is currently shirking this role. Although is unreasonable to expect legislators to
the authors make the serious charge act otherwise. Politicians will use
that “Obama’s generals signaled that military support for their purposes as
they would accept nothing less than an long as it proves politically expedient.
aggressive counterinsurgency in Af- Finally, the authors are curiously
ghanistan,” those generals did accept silent on one of the most significant
less under both Obama and Trump. episodes in U.S. civil-military relations:
And under President Biden, the mili- the incident that took place in Lafayette

Brooks, Golby, and Urben and Their Critics
Square during the Black Lives Matter the armed forces to civilian direction
protests of 2020. On June 1, Mark during policy formation and execution—
Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs would eliminate any meaningful check
of Staff, appeared alongside Trump for on the judgment of civilian officials. The
a photo op in military fatigues, immedi- latitude enjoyed by the U.S. military
ately after police used tear gas and doesn’t prevent elected leaders from
rubber bullets to clear peaceful protest- determining and achieving their policy
ers from a public space. The incident preferences. It simply requires those
seemed to be of a piece with the Trump leaders to pay the political price of
administration’s attempt to pit the public scrutiny. That accountability
military against protesters, with heli- should be welcomed, not shunned.
copters harassing marchers in Washing-
ton, D.C., and National Guard soldiers KORI SCHAKE is Director of Foreign and
Defense Policy Studies at the American
occupying the centers of major Ameri- Enterprise Institute. She served on the National
can cities. Not surprisingly, in a Febru- Security Council and in the U.S. State Depart-
ary poll, the Ronald Reagan Presiden- ment in the George W. Bush administration.
tial Foundation and Institute found that

public support for the military fell by 14
percentage points from 2018 to 2021. A Stormy but
Less noticeable to the public but Durable Marriage
crucially important for civil-military
relations, however, was Milley’s power-
Peter D. Feaver
ful apology—which effectively delin-
T
eated the boundaries between civilian he question of whether civilian
and military authority. “I should not control over the U.S. military is
have been there,” he said flatly. “My in crisis is an especially hoary
presence in that moment and in that debate in security studies. The political
environment created a perception of the scientist Samuel Huntington’s classic
military involved in domestic politics.” book on the topic, The Soldier and the
In the end, as Milley’s behavior made State, now nearly 65 years old, spoke of
clear, the only practical constraint on a post–World War II “crisis of Ameri-
the politicization of the U.S. military is can civil-military relations.” After the
its own professionalism. Although there Vietnam War, leaders in Washington
is some worrying degradation in this debated whether to blame the debacle
area, it is unreasonable to expect the on too much or too little civilian con-
strident politicization of American trol. Analysts made different yet related
society not to affect the military that is arguments in the aftermath of the
drawn from it. It is a tribute to the United States’ swift victory in the first
strength of the U.S. military’s profes- Gulf War, when the military’s status
sionalism that partisan politicization in and influence stood in stark contrast to
the military remains as limited as it is. the supposed dysfunction of the civilian
The type of civil-military relation- branches of government. It is in this
ship that Brooks, Golby, and Urben rich tradition that Risa Brooks, Jim
advocate—complete subordination of Golby, and Heidi Urben have made
their case that the current relationship In hindsight, there are several strong
between military officials and civilian points in the U.S. system that helped
leaders is “broken.” keep civilian control intact during the
It is tempting to ask how anything Trump years. A team of senior military
could be in a permanent state of crisis, leaders, particularly the chairman of the
especially when that crisis has never Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service
culminated in a military coup. Brooks, chiefs, were committed to upholding
Golby, and Urben answer that the civilian authority. They kept their
decline in civilian control of the military, collective eye fixed squarely on their
which they trace back to 1986, when the oath to the Constitution and eschewed
Goldwater-Nichols Act created an the Trumpian personality cult that a
empowered joint staff and chairman, has polarized political environment at-
reached its apex in the present moment. tempted to press on them. A cadre of
Civilian control, they argue, is even respected senior military retirees spoke
more precarious today, and only dra- up to defend norms and help the
matic steps can restore it to health. profession police its ranks. Finally, over
U.S. civil-military relations, how- the last decade, the professional mili-
ever, are better understood as a stormy tary educational system has renewed its
but durable marriage, one in which the commitment to teaching and reteaching
spouses endlessly bicker and vie for the basics of civil-military relations.
advantage but never destroy each other In fact, across three decades of
or the union that binds them together. post–Cold War history, examples
In theory, divorce is possible, but in abound of the system working prop-
practice, all the parties are too commit- erly—even when military leaders
ted to the common good to reach a disagreed with civilian directives. The
genuine breaking point. Rather than institution that resisted President Bill
being in a state of crisis, these relations Clinton’s efforts to change how gay
are in constant friction—sometimes men and women served in uniform
severe, sometimes less so. eventually implemented Barack
Viewed this way, the United States is Obama’s repeal of the “don’t ask,
indeed approaching a temporary high don’t tell” policy. The military then
point in civil-military friction. This adhered to Donald Trump’s reversal of
cycle’s apogee was January 6, 2021, when some of the same orders, and it is
the military had to ponder something it currently implementing Joe Biden’s
had never before seriously considered: reversal of the reversal. The military
the possibility that violent insurrection- also worked with civilian leaders to
ists taking over the U.S. Capitol would manage Obama’s deep budget cuts, as
thwart the peaceful transfer of power. well as the even more disruptive
Although the system struggled to find limits imposed by the 2013 sequestra-
its footing for a few fateful minutes as tion. Military leaders welcomed the
Defense Department leaders wrestled fiscal relief of the Trump years, but
with how to respond to appeals for help they are now preparing for a very
from the Capitol, the relationship never different environment under Biden.
even came close to collapsing. None of this, however, is new. In the

decades after World War II, civilians Americans should also be clear that
and military officers wrestled with civilian control is not synonymous with
similar thorny issues. good policy. Although Brooks, Golby,
That said, leaders on both sides of and Urben avoid this conflation, there is
the civil-military relationship must a temptation among some scholars to
continually shore up the foundations of broaden the definition of healthy
their partnership. Here, Brooks, Golby, civil-military relations to include
and Urben’s recommendations can serve optimal geopolitical outcomes. This is
as an especially reliable guide. Their an understandable error. The purpose of
list—including strengthening civilian the military is the security of the state,
officials in the Office of the Secretary of and if a system keeps producing policies
Defense, publicly denouncing retired that make the state less secure, can that
officers who violate professional norms, system really be considered healthy?
and updating regulations and best Perhaps not, but Americans should
practices regarding service members’ use not ask more of civilian control than it
of social media—will be vital for getting can deliver. Civilian control means that
civil-military relations back on track. the elected agents of the voting public
This is only a start, however. Trump’s get to make the decisions, including
tenure revealed just how much the U.S. which decisions they wish to make
system depends on respect for norms themselves and which they wish to
and taboos. The United States’ form of delegate to others. It does not mean that
representative democracy gives extraor- those leaders will make wise decisions or
dinary power to elected leaders, uneven merely lucky ones. It is a mistake
elected political appointees, and career to claim, as is often done, that civil-
civilian officials. The United States has military relations are on the rocks
survived as a functioning republic not because the United States intervened in
because these actors lack the power to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. Each major
destroy its constitutional order but decision in those wars involved fractious
because they generally choose not to test debate, but all were ultimately made by
the outer limits of their authority. civilians. That includes the original
Nevertheless, when the people elect a decisions to invade Afghanistan and
president whose stock in trade involves Iraq, the choices around the post-invasion
flouting norms and mocking taboos, planning, the decision to surge troops
civil-military relations come under in Iraq in 2007, the judgment to couple
extraordinary strain. The best thing a temporary surge in Afghanistan in
Americans can do in the near term to 2009 with an arbitrary timetable for
restore the health of civil-military withdrawal, the resolution to intervene
relations is to inventory those norms and in Libya in 2011, the decision to leave
renew the commitment to upholding Iraq altogether in 2011, and Biden’s
them. Specialists and generalists alike, recent choice to withdraw all U.S.
both in government and elsewhere, need troops from Afghanistan.
to review how the U.S. system of civilian The Trump administration’s decision
control works and what it needs to to delay the withdrawal from Afghani-
function more effectively. stan seems closest to a case of military
preferences prevailing over the presi- ascertain whether the unprofessionalism

dent’s. Yet even then, civilian control on display among retired officers has
prevailed. If Trump had been truly seeped into the active force.
determined to withdraw from Afghani- But the weakest component, the one
stan, he could have done so, as he most in need of strengthening, is
showed in his misguided abandonment civilian. Every element of the civilian
of Washington’s Kurdish allies in Syria pillar could be improved. Key steps
in 2018. Only in the final days of the include educating political appointees at
Trump administration—with the the top of the interagency process,
president promoting bogus claims of providing professional development to
electoral fraud while secretly directing a career civil servants, and increasing
tiny cabal of loyalists to hastily impose awareness within the legislative branch
poison-pill defense policies—did the of the processes by which civilians at all
system of civilian control truly begin to levels exercise oversight of military
break down. But even then, Trump’s policy. Perhaps most important of all,
refusal to work through the formal chain leaders must give due attention to
of command allowed military leaders to citizens’ understanding of basic civics
slow roll his decisions. Although that and the foundations necessary for
response may have technically violated healthy civil-military relations. Yes, the
civilian control, it paradoxically shored military should be reminded of its
up civilian authority in the long run. obligations and ultimate subordination.
Finally, leaders should direct more But in the long run, it is the civilian
energy toward fixing the civilian side of side of the relationship that will dictate
the civil-military equation. Historically, the republic’s health.
analysts have focused primarily on the
military’s voluntary subordination to PETER D. FEAVER is Professor of Political
Science and Public Policy at Duke University.
elected officials. Leaders should, of In 1993–94 and 2005–7, he served on the U.S.
course, continue to watch for any signs National Security Council Staff.
of trouble. The open letter published in
May 2021 by a group of retired military
leaders calling themselves “Flag Offi- Brooks, Golby,
cers 4 America,” which questioned the
legitimacy of the 2020 presidential and Urben Reply
election, is an appalling example of the
B
erosion of military ethics. Retired oth Kori Schake and Peter Feaver
senior officers should call out such provide helpful context for
incidents and top active-duty leaders understanding the contentious
must remind the rank and file that debate about U.S. civil-military relations.
defending the Constitution means not We agree that, for now, there is no acute
spreading falsehoods about legitimate crisis. We are also sympathetic to Feaver’s
constitutional processes. Senior military claim that civil-military relations are
officers should also take the tempera- often naturally fractious. Debate can be
ture of their subordinates, particularly constructive, and too much agreement is
in the middle and junior ranks, to not conducive to healthy military policy.

Even so, we remain convinced that military behaves in a nonpartisan fashion,

there has been a quiet yet steady break- just about any action it takes can be
down in civilian control of the armed interpreted as partisan. Although we
forces over the past 30 years. These agree with Feaver that civil-military
problems are more serious and far- relations would benefit from a renewed
reaching than Schake and Feaver describe. focus on civic education, that will prob-
The erosion has been incremental and ably not be enough to address the prob-
cumulative—a steady process of degrada- lem. For the public to stop viewing the
tion rather than a single breaking point. military as a partisan actor, politicians
It has largely flown under the radar, aided will need to stop treating it as one.
by a lack of public awareness, the mili- There are other opportunities to
tary’s extraordinarily high approval improve civilian control that policymak-
ratings, and partisan polarization that ers can and should pursue. Here, we
discourages meaningful reform. could not agree more with Feaver’s
As both Schake and Feaver note to points. Political appointees would
varying degrees, civilians have played a indeed benefit from additional educa-
role in damaging the military’s nonparti- tion on civil-military issues, and the
san ethic. The exploitation of military civilian civil service should have more
service and symbols by politicians, for opportunities for professional develop-
instance, continues unabated. In the ment. As Schake notes, one way to
months since our article was published, strengthen civilian control is “to
there have in fact been new affronts to strengthen the civilians.” But this does
the military’s neutrality, with some not require weakening the military, as
politicians seeking to draw the military she suggests we advocate. Instead, we
into the country’s culture wars. In July, argue for institutional parity: organiza-
Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from tions such as the Office of the Secretary
Arkansas, suggested that senior officers’ of Defense should be as strong and
perspectives on U.S. racial politics effective as the Joint Staff and the
should be a litmus test for their promo- combatant commands, which have
tion to flag rank, saying that he “may grown in size and influence in recent
start probing nominees” about their decades. Although civilian staffers in the
views. As long as American politics Pentagon do not have independent
remain polarized, politicians on both authority to issue orders, effective
sides of the aisle are unlikely to stop civilian control today is impossible
using the military for partisan gain. without their oversight.
Polarization and negative partisanship, There are also some hopeful signs that
moreover, are not confined to elected Congress is playing a more active role in
representatives. These traits are also its oversight responsibilities, as Schake
evident among the American public. highlights. In June, lawmakers voted to
Survey research by one of us (Jim Golby) repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations
and Feaver has shown a troubling trend: for Use of Military Force, the long-in-
that voters increasingly want the military place resolutions that allowed, respec-
to take their side in partisan debates. tively, the first and second U.S. wars
Such divisions mean that even when the against Iraq. Lawmakers have also
advanced legislation that would remove of the military turning a blind eye to 30
decisions about whether to prosecute years of partisan endorsements by retired
sexual assault from the military chain of officers. Although no active-duty leaders
command. Bipartisan support for both signed the document, such distinctions
measures is particularly encouraging, as it may ultimately matter little: research
demonstrates that there are areas of shows that the public doesn’t often draw a
common ground where Congress can distinction between active and retired
reassert civilian control. members of the military.
Reasserting civilian control also Yes, there have been no acts of overt
includes a role for the military—despite insubordination regarding a president’s
Schake’s claims that there is nothing decisions. By that measure, civilian
amiss there. Surveys reveal that a good control is indeed intact. But there have
portion of officers consistently believe been efforts to shape those decisions
that they should have a right to autonomy through questionable means, despite
over operational and tactical matters. Schake’s contention otherwise. Take the
When policymakers impose timelines or 2009 surge of U.S. troops in Afghani-
troop limits that clash with officers’ stan. Schake is correct that civilian
preferences, some officers view those defense leaders sided with the military
directives with cynicism. These attitudes chiefs in favoring a fully resourced
need to change. Senior officers owe counterinsurgency, as did Secretary of
civilian leaders candid advice about the State Hillary Clinton. But noting that
military consequences of political deci- some civilian officials agreed with the
sions, but they cannot—and should military or that President Barack Obama
not—dictate outcomes. made the final decision misses our point.
Schake also finds no problems with the Even if some civilian officials agreed with
Pentagon’s current policymaking process, the military’s recommendation, federal
which often gives military leaders a law demands that the military’s advice
bureaucratic advantage over their civilian include more than a recommendation.
counterparts. She notes that the secretary The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
of defense has the prerogative to request Staff—typically with support from the
advice from his civilian staff. But that the Joint Chiefs and the combatant com-
system does not automatically work that manders—is required to prepare “mili-
way is exactly our point. Unless it be- tary analysis, options, and plans” consis-
comes common practice for civilian staff tent with the president’s guidance. Public
to scrutinize policy decisions, the military accounts of the deliberations over the
may too often get its way. 2009 troop surge indicate that military
There has also been a well- leaders slow rolled important aspects of
documented deterioration in military Obama’s requests for discrete policy
officers’ belief in the importance of options, including a coherent counterter-
nonpartisanship. Although most officers rorism proposal. Officers effectively kept
adhere to the rules and avoid partisan some alternatives off the table by ensur-
debate, problems remain. The letter by ing they were not developed promptly or
retired flag officers that Feaver cites is a fully. That is not a decision-making
particularly egregious example—the result process operating as designed.

The fact also remains that military political consequences. . . . But I also
leaders did their best to increase the think that the episode illustrated just
political costs Obama would pay for how accustomed the military had
rejecting their advice, even though they become to getting whatever it wanted.
may not have seen it that way at the
time. According to the reporter Bob Although Schake may believe that the
Woodward, General David Petraeus, military should serve as a “meaningful
head of U.S. Central Command at the check on the judgment of civilian offi-
time, called a sympathetic Washington cials,” we do not share that view. The
Post journalist the day after the paper institutional checks in the U.S. system of
published an opinion piece skeptical of government should come from Congress,
the surge and suggested that the re- the courts, and the executive branch, not
porter write a rebuttal. General Stanley the uniformed military—no matter how
McChrystal, the commander of U.S. seasoned, how professional, or how
and international forces in Afghanistan, informed they might be.
bluntly told an audience at a British In the end, the eternal question about
think tank that he would not accept a civil-military relations—Is it a crisis, or
solely counterterrorism-focused mission isn’t it a crisis?—distracts from real
in Afghanistan. And a report drafted by debate, forcing people into defending
McChrystal that called for a large troop one of two extremes at the expense of
commitment was leaked—a move that addressing a far more complex reality.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Civilian control varies in degree—not in
attributed to McChrystal’s office. As absolutes. Focusing only on coups or
Feaver himself wrote at the time in overt military insubordination is
Foreign Policy, “The leak makes it harder unproductive. It makes it harder for
for President Obama to reject a the public to see that there is a prob-
McChrystal request for additional lem and push for reform through its
troops because the assessment so clearly elected representatives.
argues for them.” Like Schake and Feaver, we were
Here, Obama’s reflection on the encouraged that the military weathered
matter in his memoir is worth repeating: the political turmoil of the era of Presi-
dent Donald Trump and withstood the
Looking back, I’m inclined to believe
test posed by the January 6 attack on the
Gates when he said there was no
coordinated plan by [Mike] Mullen
Capitol that he instigated. But the
[then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of erosion of important civil-military norms
Staff], Petraeus, or McChrystal to long predated Trump, nor has it suddenly
force my hand. I know that all three disappeared since he left the White
men were motivated by a sincere House. The United States can do better,
conviction in the rightness of their and Americans should demand as
position, and that they considered it to much—from society, from their elected
be part of their code as military leaders, and from the military.∂
officers to provide their honest
assessment in public testimony or
press statements without regard to
As more states modernize, will they

Recent Books begin to look more like China? Fuku-
yama thinks not. There is nothing
inevitable about either the success or
Political and Legal the failure of liberal democracy. But
well-functioning democracies remain
G. John Ikenberry unique—and unsurpassed—in giving
people dignity and opportunities.
After the End of History: Conversations Disruption: Why Things Change

With Francis Fukuyama BY DAVID POT TER. Oxford
BY MATHILDE FASTING . University Press, 2021, 336 pp.
Georgetown University Press, 2021,
232 pp. Political life in ancient times and more
recent eras has been shaped and trans-
T
his extended conversation formed by a series of grand disruptions:
between Fasting and the famed the collapse of the Roman Empire, the
political scientist Francis emergence of Christianity and Islam, the
Fukuyama takes readers on an engaging upheavals of the American and French
intellectual journey in which Fukuyama Revolutions, and the rise and fall of
reflects on the global crises and trans- fascism and communism. With an eye on
formations that have unfolded in the today’s global convulsions, Potter seeks
three decades since his famous essay on to illuminate the patterns formed by
“the end of history.” What has surprised these disruptions. He notes that they all
Fukuyama most about liberal democ- began with failures, dysfunctions, and
racy since the triumphal days after the mistakes made by defenders of the “old
end of the Cold War is the system’s order” at the time. He argues that
fragility. He has concluded that scholars although the instability of large-scale
were wrong to believe that democracy political orders emerges from long-term
in advanced industrial societies could economic and technological shifts, ideas
consolidate and resist backsliding. In and ideology matter just as much. The
fact, they can fall victim to what he calls replacement of one world-shaping
“decay”: the slow erosion of liberal political order with another has always
institutions by populist and authoritar- required strategy, leadership, and ideo-
ian leaders who wrap themselves in the logical struggles driven by the search for
legitimacy of democracy but chip away legitimacy. It is less the downtrodden
at the rule of law, minority rights, and and dispossessed who reshape political
independent media. The information life than activists and charismatic leaders
revolution was initially greeted as a who latch on to potent new ideas and
friend of democracy, but its more build new coalitions. Potter’s message to
ominous implications are now apparent, the defenders of the current era’s liberal
as China uses it for surveillance and order is to redouble their efforts to make
political control and Russia uses it as a the modern liberal state a professional
tool to destabilize Western institutions. servant of the people.

Recent Books
Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From In this important study, Calder chroni-
Within on Modern Democracy cles the rise and growing impact of
BY TOM NICHOLS. Oxford University large, globally connected cities that
Press, 2021, 272 pp. increasingly operate as independent
political entities, shaping international
If liberal democracy is failing, who is to policy agendas and carrying out core
blame? To illiberal populists, it is the functions of political and economic life.
elites who are the villains: globalists, Calder surveys these global cities,
bureaucrats, journalists, intellectuals, identifying the distinctive mix of
politicians. In this spirited polemic, political and functional characteristics
Nichols argues the reverse: it is ordinary that gives each one global reach and that
citizens who are failing the test of forms what Calder calls a “penumbra of
democracy. Populists fan the flames of power.” These cities also foster grass-
fear and dissatisfaction, but it is the roots movements for social justice and
voters who put them in power. Nichols environmentalism. Mayors who have
notes that in the twentieth century, run them, such as New York City’s
liberal democracies survived multiple Michael Bloomberg and London’s Boris
global conflicts, defeated fascism and Johnson, have treated them as laborato-
totalitarianism, and weathered multiple ries for innovation in areas such as
depressions and recessions—and yet transportation and public health. Calder
today, they seem unable to overcome less shows that as nation-states grow more
complex challenges, even within an fragmented and struggle to carry out the
overall context of relative peace and basic tasks of government, global cities
prosperity. Large segments of the have found ways to set the international
publics in the United States and Euro- agenda and project influence by tackling
pean countries have lost faith in demo- the everyday problems of modern living.
cratic institutions, and growing numbers Nation-states will not disappear—but
tell pollsters that they do not think it is cities seem to be reasserting themselves,
“essential” to live in a democracy. Nich- much as they did in the premodern era.
ols argues that in an era of jaundiced
self-absorption, citizens in Western Dark Skies: Space Expansionism,
societies have lost their appreciation of Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of
democratic values and the virtues of civic Humanity
engagement. Still, Nichols acknowledges BY DANIEL DEUDNEY. Oxford
that any renewal of liberal democracy University Press, 2020, 464 pp.
will rely on ordinary people, albeit ones
who possess the civic knowledge and This remarkable, mesmerizing book
virtues needed to make the system work. describes and then dismantles the naive
assumptions of “space expansionists,”
Global Political Cities: Actors and Arenas those techno-utopians who declare that
of Influence in International Affairs humanity’s destiny lies in colonizing the
BY KENT E. CALDER. Brookings solar system and, in the process, leaving
Institution Press, 2021, 286 pp. earthbound problems behind. Deudney
challenges such hubris, arguing that far
Recent Books
P
from delivering security, abundance, and retty much everyone dismisses
freedom, space expansionism will tax policy as dull and dry—ex-
exacerbate violence, inequality, and cept the attorneys, accountants,
oppression, as great powers compete to and civil servants dedicated to collect-
dominate the ultimate “high ground,” ing taxes or avoiding (or evading) them.
commercial interests monopolize wealth, Keen and Slemrod, two leading public
and tyranny flourishes both on earth and finance specialists, demonstrate that, in
in the cold reaches of space. The nuclear fact, taxes are anything but dull. Rely-
arms race has been the biggest impetus ing on historical vignettes, they show
behind human space activities. Why that taxation can have unintended
should the future be any different? The consequences; they describe, in one
author quotes the philosopher Raymond instance, how the English window tax
Aron: “Short of a revolution in the heart of 1696 led to dark, dank, and even
of man and the nature of states, by what windowless homes. Their book is also a
miracle could interplanetary space be reminder of the importance of getting
preserved from military use?” Deudney history right. They explain, for exam-
predicts that untrammeled human ple, that the Boston Tea Party was
expansion into space will ultimately actually a revolt against lower taxes—
result in “astrocide”—the destruction of not higher ones—which threatened the
earth from above—and the extinction of livelihood of American tea smugglers.
humanity. To avoid this fate, the world Keen and Slemrod use these stories as a
needs a multilateral agreement to frame for thinking about the challenges
strictly govern and limit expansion into of taxation today. They ask, for exam-
space. Such an accord, like the famous ple, what genetic markers that reliably
“Earthrise” photograph taken by the predicted a person’s lifetime income
Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, would would mean for defining tax liabilities.
focus attention back where it belongs. In step with policymakers in the Biden
Humanity’s destiny lies not in the stars, administration, the authors point to the
Deudney warns, but on “Oasis Earth.” need for fundamental changes in how
STEWART M. PATRICK governments tax corporate profits in a
world of footloose balance sheets. It is
hard to imagine a more timely—and
Economic, Social, and entertaining—history of the fisc.
Environmental
How Antitrust Failed Workers
BY ERIC A. POSNER. Oxford
Barry Eichengreen University Press, 2021, 224 pp.
Antitrust enforcement in the United

Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax States, starting with the Sherman
Follies and Wisdom Through the Ages Antitrust Act of 1890, has long focused
BY MICHAEL KEEN AND JOEL on product-market competition and its
SLEMROD. Princeton University Press, antithesis, the monopoly provision of
2021, 536 pp. goods and services. In contrast, courts

Recent Books
and regulators have largely neglected be a drag on the economy; by correcting

monopsony, where there exists one or a market failures, they would boost the
small handful of purchasers of goods rate of economic growth. Although
and services, including labor services. Nordhaus emphasizes the indispensabil-
Whether through noncompete clauses ity of public policy intervention,
or simple market power, employers coordinated at the international level, in
dominating local labor markets can the quest for a greener world, he also
depress wages and weaken worker sees roles for private ethics and corpo-
protections. The author blames neglect rate social responsibility.
of this issue on legal theorists’ nearly
exclusive attention to consumer welfare Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret
and economists’ assumption that labor Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global
markets are generally competitive. He Economy
might have added a role for history and BY JEF F REY E. GARTEN. Harper,
path dependence: antitrust efforts focus 2021, 448 pp.
on monopoly today because they’ve
focused on it for over a century. Posner Garten provides a richly detailed,
concludes by showing that this imbal- character-driven account of the week-
ance can be righted within the existing end in 1971 when U.S. President
legal framework if those responsible for Richard Nixon and his advisers sus-
antitrust policy wake up to the problem. pended the convertibility of the U.S.
dollar into a fixed quantity of gold and
The Spirit of Green: The Economics of pulled the plug on the Bretton Woods
Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded international monetary system. It is not
World an overstatement to assert, as the author
BY WILLIAM D. NORDHAUS. does, that this weekend at Camp David
Princeton University Press, 2021, was a historic turning point for the
368 pp. global economy. Drawing on archival
sources and participant interviews,
Nordhaus builds on a lifetime of work Garten recounts the unfolding drama,
incorporating the concept of externali- which inaugurated an era of greater
ties into national income accounts and exchange-rate flexibility and thereby
into conceptions of economic growth. opened the door to freer international
He reminds the reader that although capital mobility. At the same time, the
private markets are needed to ensure demise of the Bretton Woods system
the ample supply of most goods and changed some aspects of the global
services, only governments can ad- monetary and financial order less
equately provide collective goods such radically than anticipated at the time.
as pollution control and public health. In particular, the dollar, which under
He advocates using market mechanisms the Bretton Woods system enjoyed the
such as carbon taxes to offset externali- “exorbitant privilege” of being the sun
ties, applying this insight to multiple around which other currencies orbited,
areas beyond carbon emissions and remains the dominant international and
climate change. Such taxes would not reserve currency even today.
Recent Books
Military, Scientific, and The American War in Afghanistan:

A History
Technological BY CARTER MALKASIAN. Oxford
University Press, 2021, 576 pp.
Lawrence D. Freedman
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History
of the War
The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the BY CRAIG WHITLOCK. Simon &
American Art of War Schuster, 2021, 368 pp.
BY STEPHEN ROBINSON. Exisle,
2021, 360 pp. Malkasian provides a full and authorita-
tive account of U.S. involvement in
C
olonel John Boyd was one of Afghanistan from President Jimmy
the most influential American Carter’s decision to back the mujahi-
strategic theorists of the last deen after the Soviet Union invaded in
century. From his experience as a December 1979 to President Joe Biden’s
fighter pilot during the Korean War, he decision earlier this year to pull U.S.
developed the so-called OODA loop— troops out. Malkasian combines meticu-
observe, orient, decide, act—as an lous scholarship with a practitioner’s
approach to warfighting. In the 1970s eye. It helps that he knows the country
and 1980s, he convinced senior U.S. well, speaks Pashto, can navigate his
policymakers of the need to abandon way through the complex tribal struc-
strategies based on attrition and em- tures that shape local politics, and has a
brace those based on sophisticated good grasp of the Taliban’s attitudes and
maneuvers instead. He drew heavily on operations. The story he tells is a
accounts of how the German army had painful one. Successive U.S. adminis-
gained impressive victories during the trations were unwilling to deal diplo-
World War II and on the work of the matically with the Taliban because the
British military historian Basil Liddell militant group was either too weak or
Hart, who had urged an “indirect too strong, and Washington failed to
approach” to warfare to avoid deadly put the effort and resources into build-
frontal assaults. But as Robinson ing up the new Afghan government and
reveals, the more that scholars learn army after 2001. The Bush administra-
about German operations and about tion’s focus in the early days of the
Hart’s determination to fit all military post-9/11 invasion was on catching
history into his own simplistic frame- terrorists, which led to operations that
work, the flimsier Boyd’s thesis appears. killed civilians, resulting in a loss of
Robinson carries out a meticulous support from the local population. In
demolition job that will be of interest to the end, despite their harsh ideology
students of the Wehrmacht and to the and brutal misogyny, the Taliban were
U.S. Army and Marine Corps, demon- able to sell themselves as authentically
strating how grand theories with an Afghan and resisting foreign occupa-
emotional appeal can go a long way on tion, whereas the government forces
the back of dubious history. lacked conviction.

Recent Books
Whitlock covers the same ground Stalin played a cruel, manipulative, and
using materials he obtained through uncompromising game. His cynical deal
Freedom of Information Act requests, with Hitler in August 1939 allowed the
including interviews conducted by the Soviet Union to take Poland and the
Office of the Special Inspector General Baltic states and pushed European
for Afghanistan Reconstruction, U.S. democracies into a draining war with
Army oral histories, and former Secre- Germany. When it was the Soviet
tary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Union that was struggling to push the
memos. The disparate sources make for Germans back, Stalin demanded that
a disjointed narrative, and although the United Kingdom and the United
there are many quotes from U.S. States contort their own war plans to
officials, there is a marked absence of provide him with material assistance
Afghan voices. Whitlock’s approach has and establish a second front. McMeekin
the advantage, however, of showing argues, less persuasively, that Stalin was
participants expressing themselves in acting as an orthodox Leninist with a
revealing, colorful language, as they talk long-term goal from the start. Mc-
about the futility of spending billions of Meekin also develops an unconvincing
dollars trying to turn Afghanistan into a and at times preposterous counterfac-
modern country, complain about the tual war. He argues, for example, that
incompetence in the Afghan security to thwart Stalin’s plans, the United
forces and corruption in the govern- Kingdom could have sided with Finland
ment, and note how U.S. attempts to in the “Winter War” of 1939–40 and
deal with the Afghan drug trade failed made its own peace with Germany after
to take into account the importance of the fall of France. McMeekin’s research
the poppies to the local economy. The is prodigious, and his writing is vigor-
most depressing aspect of the book is ous, but in the end, he pushes his
the gap it reveals between insiders’ argument past the breaking point.
official optimism and their private
pessimism. In public, progress was The Changing of the Guard: The British
always being made and corners being Army Since 9/11
turned. Behind closed doors, there were BY SIMON AKAM. Scribe, 2021,
far more doubts. 704 pp.
Stalin’s War: A New History of World The British army’s experience of the
War II Iraq war began with dissatisfaction with
BY SEAN M C MEEKIN. Basic Books, a role that it did not feel was commen-
2021, 864 pp. surate with its contribution and ended
with humiliation. The army got bogged
Instead of writing yet another history down fighting a Shiite militia in Basra
of World War II centered on Adolf Hit- with which they eventually had to cut a
ler, McMeekin takes a more original deal. British forces were spared further
approach, focusing on Joseph Stalin. embarrassment only when they were
McMeekin pulls no punches in remind- able to help defeat the militia by
ing readers that throughout the war, participating in a 2008 battle referred
Recent Books
to as Operation Charge of the Knights, United States was not what most
which was initiated by the Iraqi govern- Americans have been taught. The real
ment and backed by the Americans. story, Taylor writes in this deeply
Well before that, British senior com- researched and beautifully written book,
manders had tried to retrieve the army’s is not of a singular revolution that
reputation by taking a major role in followed a sure path toward nationhood
Afghanistan, but that did not go much and then swept across the continent
better. Drawing on some 260 interviews with confidence and moral purpose but
(including one with me), Akam, a rather a tale of fragility and intense
journalist who himself spent a year dispute. The key actors were disparate
serving in the British army, recounts states, deeply suspicious of one another,
the story of these difficult years with to which Americans owed their primary
candor, great detail, and occasional allegiance. Their coming together was
indignation, bemoaning the harm done so contentious and uncertain that most
to the institution by class tensions, Americans at the time had reason to
alcohol, and unaccountable officers who think of what they were doing as
made poor tactical choices in pursuit of framing only a union, not a nation.
often incoherent strategies. Akam Taylor grippingly describes the yawning
makes no claim to be balanced, and this gap that opened up between the found-
is a dense and at times undisciplined ing documents’ soaring principles and
book. But much of what he writes rings the reality of white Americans’ behav-
true, and all told, it makes for a valuable ior. The massive wrongs the majority
and salutary read. perpetrated in their oppression of
Native Americans and Black slaves were
nearly equaled by the terrible treatment
The United States they inflicted on free Black people.
Jessica T. Mathews The Words That Made Us: America’s

Constitutional Conversation, 1760–1840
BY AKHIL REED AMAR. Basic Books,
2021, 832 pp.
American Republics: A Continental
History of the United States, 1783–1850 With the rare ability to combine history
BY ALAN TAYLOR. Norton, 2021, and law, Amar takes a fresh, heterodox
544 pp. look at how “America became America.”
Amar, a distinguished professor of law
T
his volume follows two earlier and political science, sees the Declara-
works, American Colonies and tion of Independence, the U.S. Consti-
American Revolutions, to form a tution, and the Bill of Rights as having
trilogy by one of the preeminent simply “followed from the logic” of a
historians of the period. The plural sophisticated “constitutional conversa-
terms in the second and third titles tion” carried out over three decades in
underline the books’ central theme: that letters, newspapers, pamphlets, and
the early history of what became the courtrooms by the mass of Americans

Recent Books
(or at least white, male, and literate its traditional focus on the state as the
ones). That rolling dialogue, he argues, only important player to include other
deserves more credit for the Declara- influential voices and actors, including,
tion of Independence than does Thomas among others, nonprofit interest
Jefferson (merely “a good scribe”) and groups, organized religion, and the
made a bigger contribution to the business sector. This volume doesn’t
Constitution than did James Madison. address all those areas, but it is a
Scholars have erred in attaching impor- valuable contribution to the task of
tance to Madison’s essay “Federalist broadly rethinking the goals and tactics
No. 10” (in The Federalist Papers), Amar of U.S. foreign policy. The analyses it
claims; at the time of its publication, presents are solidly rooted in history
“almost no one paid any attention” to it. and provide thought-provoking insights
The only founder who really mattered, into issues and actors that grand strate-
in Amar’s view, was the relatively silent gists rarely consider.
George Washington: the Constitution
was “designed by and for” him alone to Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy
such a degree that his two elections as BY ANNE SEBBA . St. Martin’s Press,
president amounted to re-ratifications 2021, 320 pp.
of it. Amar seamlessly combines his two
disciplines, crafting a swiftly paced, Ethel Rosenberg was the only American
highly iconoclastic narrative and mak- woman ever executed for a crime other
ing important legal arcana accessible to than murder and, with her husband,
all readers. Julius, was one of only two Americans
ever to face capital punishment for
Rethinking American Grand Strategy conspiring to commit espionage in
EDITED BY ELIZABETH peacetime. In her tragic story, told here
BORGWARDT, CHRISTOPHER by an accomplished biographer, she
M C KNIGHT NICHOLS, AND often appears as a human Rorschach
ANDREW PRESTON. Oxford test onto which others projected their
University Press, 2021, 512 pp. own passions, largely ignoring her
individual identity and massively
“Grand strategy” is a term that is as confusing the question of her guilt or
difficult to define as it is widely used by innocence. Her life and death by
scholars and practitioners. This vol- electrocution, in 1953, were shaped to
ume’s editors and contributors believe no small degree by misogyny, anti-
that the concept needs to be recon- Semitism, and, above all, a nationwide,
ceived by extending it in two dimen- exaggerated fear of the Soviet Union.
sions. It should be broadened beyond its Her mother ignored her both as a child
roots in military affairs and convention- and as an adult and had eyes only for
ally defined security to include a variety Ethel’s brother David Greenglass, who,
of additional issues, such as immigra- ironically, himself spied for the Soviets
tion, public health, demographics, but was not executed. Not until many
international assistance, and climate years later was it finally revealed that
change. It also needs to reach beyond Greenglass had perjured himself, lying
Recent Books
in grand jury testimony about Ethel’s front in the partisan war,” thereby
involvement in espionage. The govern- causing hundreds of thousands of
ment’s case against her was recognized needless deaths. Packer traces recent
to be extremely weak, but neither U.S. history through a piercingly
President Harry Truman nor President insightful exploration of what he
Dwight Eisenhower dared to appear discerns as four overlapping national
soft on communism by admitting as narratives. They are not those captured
much and dropping the case. Ulti- by statistics but those that describe
mately, it seems that although she was a Americans’ “deepest needs and desires
Communist, Ethel was not a spy. . . . [and] convey a moral identity.” He
calls them “Free America” (libertarian),
Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and “Smart America” (meritocratic), “Real
Renewal America” (the populists’ mythical
BY GEORG E PACKER. Farrar, Straus provincial village), and “Just America”
and Giroux, 2021, 240 pp. (more accurately, Unjust America). All
have emerged from a half century of
A more searing, accurate dissection of rising inequality, which has produced a
Donald Trump and his associates will country that, in Packer’s view, is no
likely never be written. Trump, Packer longer governable.
writes, is “an all-American flimflam
man and demagogue, . . . spawned in a
gold-plated sewer.” He was able to Western Europe
articulate so effectively the resentment
that is the essence of his supporters’ Andrew Moravcsik
condition because its taste “was in his
mouth, too.” Of Jared Kushner, Trump’s
son-in-law and a senior official in
Trump’s White House “with expertise The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey
in nothing,” Packer notes that “he of Angela Merkel
interfered in the work of more compe- BY KATI MARTON . Simon & Schuster,
tent officials, compromised security 2021, 368 pp.
protocols, dabbled in conflicts of
I
interest, flirted with violations of n a few months, Angela Merkel will
federal law and then promised nation- step down after a decade and a half
wide [COVID-19] testing through his as the chancellor of Germany. Polls
business connections, which never show she remains the world’s most
materialized.” Packer’s main interest, respected political leader, perhaps
however, is not Trump and his circle because she cuts against the stereotype
but the country that elected him, since of modern politicians as egotists pander-
“a failure the size of Trump took the ing to public opinion. She is unglamor-
whole of America.” The book focuses on ous and reserved, instinctively moderate,
the events of 2020 because “nothing slow to make decisions, and prone to
Trump did was more destructive than communicate in cerebral, fact-based
turning the pandemic into a central monologues. This is the best English-

Recent Books
language biography of her rise from a in the preface, some may view such
tough and traditional family, through her scenarios as scaremongering by defense
career as a physical chemist in commu- planners and military contractors—an
nist East Germany, to her current assessment with which I have consider-
renown—but it is far from definitive. As able sympathy. Others may wonder why
with most traditional journalistic ac- the authors do not stop to ask how this
counts, Marton’s book focuses a great plan would be funded—and whether the
deal on what Merkel said and did at backlash against such an immense
various critical meetings, attributing her outlay would actually undermine
success to her intelligence and tenacity Western security. Yet everyone con-
and her failures to her idealistic moral cerned about transatlantic relations
courage. The reader learns far less about should read this book, because the
the electoral, partisan, diplomatic, and authors are neither obscure extremists
technical constraints under which nor writers of alternative history.
Merkel acted. The picture is further Instead, they are pillars of the transat-
limited by the author’s curious decision lantic foreign policy establishment: two
to focus almost exclusively on German distinguished retired U.S. generals, one
relations with the United States and who now heads the centrist Brookings
Russia, thereby excluding economic Institution, and a British academic
diplomacy, climate change, China, the prominent in NATO circles. This is how
European Union, and the developing many, perhaps most, Western military
world—not to mention German domes- planners think—particularly those in
tic politics, about which the book says the United States.
hardly anything.
Embattled Europe: A Progressive
Future War and the Defense of Europe Alternative
BY JOHN R. ALLEN, F REDERICK BY KONRAD H. JARAUSCH .
BEN HODG ES, AND JULIAN Princeton University Press, 2021,
LINDLEY-F RENCH . Oxford 344 pp.
This provocative book argues that
The authors begin with a 20-page Europe is the global beacon of progres-
hypothetical scenario in which Russia sive politics today. Among global
attacks and defeats Europe, despite powers, Europe alone espouses a model
U.S. military support. The rest of the of the future that is politically legiti-
book recommends a policy to head off mate, socially just, and technologically
such a calamity: the Western allies, led sustainable, Jarausch claims. Only Euro-
by the Europeans, need to “sharpen pean countries have established fair
NATO’s spear tip” by spending more— political systems that limit campaign
much more, clearly, although exactly spending, guarantee the proportional
how much remains a mystery—on electoral representation of diverse
high-tech military development and the views, and maintain effective govern-
procurement of weapons compatible ment bureaucracies. Only European
with U.S. systems. As the authors note countries guarantee minimal subsis-
Recent Books
tence and medical care to all. Other landlords, or simply make money.
countries cater to the wealthiest one Diaspora communities and small powers
percent of their people; European got involved, and powerful local groups
countries remain the best places for grabbed land, resources, and power. Both
those of modest means. Only European sides committed atrocities and massa-
governments divert resources from cres. Many Greeks fought heroically, but
military spending to more cost-effective in the end, they prevailed only because
nonmilitary tools, such as aid, trade, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom
and multilateral institutions. And intervened to crush the imperial Egyp-
European countries consistently uphold tian and Ottoman forces. Over the next
the world’s strongest regulatory protec- 200 years, in much the same way, many
tions in areas such as the environment, nation-states would replace principali-
digital privacy, finance, business compe- ties, kingdoms, empires, and colonies
tition, and consumer safety. The author, that had existed for centuries.
a celebrated historian of Europe,
acknowledges that the Old Continent The Comparative Politics of Immigration:
faces challenges, but this book remains Policy Choices in Germany, Canada,
a useful corrective to the pervasive and Switzerland, and the United States
misleading Europe-bashing that often BY ANTJE ELLERMANN. Cambridge
occupies the global press. University Press, 2021, 444 pp.
The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Immigration is the most volatile foreign
Making of Modern Europe policy issue in the world today. Since
BY MARK MAZOWER. Penguin Press, the end of World War II, developed
2021, 608 pp. countries have allowed over 100 million
foreign nationals to resettle within their
This year marks the bicentennial of the borders. Governments had to carefully
beginning of the Greek Revolution of manage the tensions between economic
1821, through which Greece gained its incentives and special interest groups
independence from the Ottoman Em- that favored increased immigration, on
pire. This lively introduction persua- the one hand, and restrictionist public
sively argues that the rebellion was not opinion, on the other. This book points
just a local squabble but an epochal shift out that the concrete policies countries
in modern history. The American pursued often differed considerably,
Revolution aside, it was the first of many depending on which political body—the
conflicts in which a small nation asserted executive branch, the legislature, or a
its right to self-determination and local authority—made the key decisions.
self-government against an ancient Bodies more vulnerable to public
empire. The dynamics of such conflicts opinion adopted restrictive policies,
have since become familiar. Although whereas those less so chose more open
some Greeks sought to vindicate a vision policies. As an analysis of how devel-
of nationhood, most fought to defend oped countries have gotten where they
their right to practice Christianity, are today, this argument seems persua-
avenge oppression, depose foreign sive. But it might miss the contempo-

Recent Books
rary forest for the historical trees. Today, company, this book’s interpretation
as the author concedes in the conclusion, remains frustratingly opaque. At times,
advocates of immigration find them- the author seems to be a Hegelian,
selves beleaguered everywhere. Public explaining each settlement as the result
opposition to immigration has grown so of a corresponding (if often ill-defined)
virulent that even highly insulated “spirit” of the age. Yet sometimes, she
political institutions cannot protect takes a view more grounded in pragma-
politicians from the backlash against it. tism, arguing that narrow functional
As a result, nearly every developed interests and responses to immediate
country has adopted more restrictive events dictated policy. And elsewhere,
policies toward immigrants (including she rejects the search for historical
those seeking to unify their families), lessons entirely.
asylum seekers, and refugees.
Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment Western Hemisphere

to the European Union
BY STELLA GHERVAS. Harvard Richard Feinberg
Ghervas traces European efforts to

create peace settlements, starting with The Trump Paradox: Migration, Trade,
the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and and Racial Politics in US-Mexico
moving through the Congress of Integration
Vienna in the nineteenth century, the EDITED BY RAÚL HINOJOSA-
League of Nations and the negotiations OJEDA AND EDWARD TELLES.
to temper the Cold War in the twenti- University of California Press, 2021,
eth century, and discussions within 374 pp.
today’s enlarged European Union. Any
T
historical narrative of this scale can seek his timely collaboration among
to answer only big questions—in this Mexican and U.S. scholars is
case: What brought about peace and consistently critical of what
allowed settlements to endure? Hun- they term “the Trump paradox”: the
dreds of books, many of them classics, fact that anti-Mexican vitriol persuaded
have addressed that puzzle. Some stress many Americans to vote for Donald
the rise and fall of totalitarian alterna- Trump in 2016 even though those
tives to liberal democracy; others, the voters had relatively little exposure to
changing nature of economic interde- immigration or the consequences of
pendence, the diffusion of political and trade with Mexico. By 2016, flows of
social welfare rights, the spread of migrants from Mexico had already
national self-determination, the rising markedly diminished, a result of sharply
destructiveness of military technology, declining fertility rates in Mexico, the
the role of hegemonic powers, or the 2008–9 recession in the United States,
design of international legal institu- and tougher border enforcement and
tions. In such august and crowded deportation policies. The authors assail
Recent Books
Trump’s divisive racial politics and and abortion deeply offended the
argue instead for public policies that rapidly growing segment of Brazilians
strengthen societies on both sides of the who identify as evangelical Christians.
border, focusing especially on a region Ambitious cattle and soy farmers
referred to as Lasanti (Los Angeles, bristled against regulations protecting
San Diego, and Tijuana). They call for the Amazon rainforest and its indig-
expanded allotments of temporary enous peoples. Meanwhile, the mass
work-based visas, transnational portable media fueled disenchantment by
health-care insurance, and programs to highlighting government corruption
increase college graduation rates among scandals and frightening levels of
Latinos in California. Other chapters violent crime. As president, Bolsonaro
debunk popular myths, such as the idea has maintained his aggressive, highly
that the North American Free Trade personalist style. Lapper finds that
Agreement was to blame for large-scale although Bolsonaro has polarized
unemployment in both Mexican agri- Brazilian society ahead of his reelection
culture and U.S. manufacturing. Look- bid in 2022, the country’s institutions—
ing forward, the contributors argue the National Congress, the courts,
persuasively that strong national mainstream media, and nongovernmen-
industrial and infrastructure policies, tal organizations—have remained
rather than trade accords, will speed resilient and have blocked much of the
future regional prosperity. president’s reactionary social and
economic agenda.
Beef, Bible, and Bullets: Brazil in the Age
of Bolsonaro Two Lifetimes as One: Ele and Me and the
BY RICHARD LAPPER. Manchester Foreign Service
University Press, 2021, 304 pp. BY IRVING G. TRAGEN. New
Academia, 2020, 976 pp.
Lapper, a seasoned journalist, gracefully
tackles a perplexing conundrum: How Throughout the second half of the
could a reputedly lighthearted, tolerant twentieth century, Tragen served in a
country such as Brazil, governed for series of midlevel U.S. diplomatic posts
two decades by highly intelligent around Latin America, working on
progressive democrats, suddenly elect a labor rights, economic development,
bombastic, antiestablishment authori- and counternarcotics. His memoir,
tarian? No single causal factor explains instead of peering into senior-level poli-
the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to the presi- cymaking, offers a richly detailed,
dency. A former military officer and highly personal account of the uneasy
congressional backbencher, Bolsonaro intersection of U.S. grand strategy and
tapped into several overflowing wells of stubborn realities on the ground.
societal discontent. A prolonged eco- Tragen’s matter-of-fact descriptions of
nomic downturn had dashed the high multiple U.S. missteps are all the more
hopes of the emerging Brazilian middle demoralizing given his cheerful person-
class. Identity politics advocating liberal ality and reluctance to question the
positions on issues such as gay rights basic precepts of U.S. policies. During

Recent Books
the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the era. The region’s export-led growth
Washington demanded immediate did not, by itself, preclude successful
results in Latin America without development—and here is perhaps
addressing the deeply rooted causes of Mazzuca’s most provocative insight.
underdevelopment, which called for the Development in Latin America slowed
patient construction of capable institu- when dynamic commercial hubs in
tions. In Central America, Tragen Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico annexed
witnessed the gut-wrenching conse- backward provinces that were governed
quences of U.S. backing for brutal by patronage machines that chronically
anticommunist dictatorships. The war sapped national treasuries. Smaller
on drugs produced another frustrating countries, such as Chile and Uruguay,
mismatch between goals and resources. escaped this fatal dysfunction but were
The incessant turnovers of leadership held back by the recurrent crises in
and staff in Washington and in host their larger neighbors. In a creative
countries repeatedly undermined counterfactual, Mazzuca imagines a
earnest efforts at long-term planning. more viable midsize nation centered on
Nevertheless, Tragen and his wife, Ele, Buenos Aires, Uruguay, southern
built many bridges of friendship with Brazil, and the surrounding resource-
their Latin American counterparts. rich pampas—a prosperous South
American Australia.
Latecomer State Formation: Political
Geography and Capacity Failure in Latin Handbook of Caribbean Economies
America EDITED BY ROBERT E. LOONEY .
BY SEBASTIÁN MAZZUCA. Yale Routledge, 2020, 504 pp.
In this erudite and informative volume,
In this extraordinarily ambitious tome, some of the Caribbean’s leading special-
Mazzuca attributes the political and ists provide a panoramic view of the
economic shortcomings of contempo- region’s political economy. Their sophis-
rary Latin America to the complex ticated analyses examine the obstacles
interactions of geography and history. and external influences with which
He contrasts Latin American struggles Caribbean economies must contend.
with the European experience of state The contributors underscore the re-
formation. In Europe, vulnerable gion’s deep crisis: the rocky transition
midsize states had to learn how to fund from plantation economies based on
armies and provide other public goods sugar to economies based mostly on
in order to survive. The new countries tourism. The EU’s decision to end
of nineteenth-century Latin America preferential treatment of the Caribbean
did not face the same level of external shook the region, but so have climate
threats as their European counterparts. change, natural disasters such as earth-
Instead of building internal state quakes and hurricanes, and the man-
capacities, they focused on interna- made calamities of drug trafficking and
tional trade, an economic model made organized crime. Haiti’s economy has
possible by the free-trade capitalism of been especially hard hit, Puerto Rico
Recent Books
went bankrupt, and Cuba still hasn’t maker to his keen sense of popular
recovered from the breakup of the moods and his talent as a public
Soviet Union. Guyana, with its new speaker. The book’s narrative ends
offshore oil discoveries, and the Do- before the Bolshevik takeover in late
minican Republic, with its creditable 1917 and Kerensky’s subsequent escape
economic performance, shine brightly from Russia. But the “cult” of Kerensky,
in an otherwise depressing regional Kolonitskii argues, provided a useful
tableau. The islands’ attempt to find model for those who later created—and
their niche in the world economy forcefully inculcated—the cults of
remains a work in progress. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and
JORGE HEINE Joseph Stalin.
Beyond the Protest Square: Digital Media

Eastern Europe and Former and Augmented Dissent
Soviet Republics BY TETYANA LOKOT . Rowman &
Littlefield, 2021, 160 pp.
Maria Lipman Based on her research on the 2013–14
Euromaidan protests in Ukraine and
the mass rallies against corruption that
Comrade Kerensky took place in 2017 in Russia, Lokot
BY BORIS KOLONITSKII. Polity, writes about the opportunities and
2020, 450 pp. limitations of digital technologies for
protest movements and emphasizes the
F
or a few months following the close entanglement of offline and online
fall of the Russian monarchy in spaces. The book draws on state-of-the-
1917, Alexander Kerensky, the art literature on the social role of digital
minister of justice and then the military technology and is academic in style but
minister of the provisional government, still a lively read, thanks to the numer-
was extolled as “the Leader of the ous quotes from interviews that Lokot
People,” “the Minister of People’s conducted with protesters. Digital
Truth,” “the Champion of Freedom,” communications were central in coordi-
and “the Hero of the Revolution.” His nating logistics at the protests in Kyiv,
public speeches attracted huge audi- such as providing information on the
ences that greeted him with standing availability of basic necessities, from
ovations. Women threw flowers at him; toilets to WiFi to firewood. Live-
soldiers and officers gave him their streaming, tweeting, and blogging
medals and jubilantly lifted him in the turned witnessing the protests into a
air. Kolonitskii examines Kerensky’s form of participation. Countless videos
brief but cultish popularity through his recording the activities in the protest
speeches and contemporary accounts. camp (cooking, singing, delivering
Kerensky was a savvy politician and lectures) created a public history of
indefatigable coalition builder, but the uprising. Unlike in Ukraine, where
Kolonitskii credits his skill as a news- the Internet is generally free, in Russia,

Recent Books
the government has developed sophisti- healthy, separated men from women
cated technological means aimed at (making no exceptions for married
controlling the digital public sphere. It couples), and required them to do hard
continues to adopt and enforce draco- manual labor for two years before start-
nian regulations against activism, ing on their own in their new country.
drawing no distinction between online
and offline activities. Political Ideologies in Contemporary Russia
BY ELENA CHEBANKOVA. McGill-
White Russians, Red Peril: A Cold War Queen’s University Press, 2020, 376 pp.
History of Migration to Australia
BY SHEILA FITZPATRICK. Chebankova characterizes her work as a
Routledge, 2021, 384 pp. “theoretical study of Russia’s ideological
foundations,” and the scope of the
Fitzpatrick, one of the most prominent academic literature she cites is quite
historians of the Soviet Union, traces the impressive. Unfortunately, the book’s
travails of the waves of Russian and description of the current scene in
Soviet refugees who arrived in her native Russia has numerous inaccuracies, such
Australia in the late 1940s and 1950s. as outdated affiliations of political and
Her enthralling historical narrative is other figures and the mischaracterization
interspersed with dozens of individual of their current public standing. A more
stories of people uprooted by wars and serious shortcoming is that Chebankova’s
revolutions. One wave consisted of account of the Russian ideological and
prisoners of war and others the Nazis discursive environment is divorced from
had deported from the territories they the social context: her analysis of the
occupied in Poland and the Soviet Union production of ideas does not differenti-
to use as forced laborers in Germany. As ate dominant figures from marginal
the Cold War set in, Western organiza- ones. Quotes from professional philoso-
tions were eager to help those who phers and political thinkers appear side
sought to escape repatriation to the by side with statements made by com-
Soviet Union and increasingly regarded munications professionals, journalists,
them as victims of communism rather political commentators, filmmakers, and
than of Nazism. This meant looking the even pop culture figures. The author also
other way at false statements or forged disregards the political dynamics of the
identities, which often concealed histo- present day: for instance, although
ries of collaboration with the Germans. liberal ideas were fairly prominent in
The other wave of immigrants were the public discourse in the 1990s, in the
White Russians who had settled in 2010s, the Kremlin adopted a conserva-
China after their defeat by the Reds in tive discourse and radically marginal-
the Russian Civil War and who were ized its liberal opponents, smearing
forced to flee again in the late 1940s after their reputations, jailing them, and
the communist takeover of China. forcing them out of Russia. The most
Australian authorities showed little striking example is the political activist
kindness to Russian immigrants. They Alexei Navalny, whom Chebankova
selected those who were young and identifies as belonging to a category she
Recent Books
dubs “pluralist liberals.” The fact that late socialist society in which a broad
Navalny (now imprisoned) was harassed range of “others” lived side by side with
for years goes unmentioned. people deemed “normal.”
Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in

Soviet Hippieland Middle East
BY JULIANE FÜRST. Oxford
University Press, 2021, 496 pp. Lisa Anderson
In the late 1960s, a countercultural
hippie movement began to emerge in
the Soviet Union. Early Soviet hippies The Republic of False Truths
were inspired by the aesthetics of their BY ALAA AL ASWANY. TRANS-
Western counterparts, as well as their LATED BY S. R. F ELLOWES. Knopf,
message of peace, love, and rock-and- 2021, 416 pp.
roll. Within a few years, a network of
T
hippies had evolved across the country. he Egyptian novelist Aswany,
The communist state consistently author of the famed novel The
eradicated independent social organiza- Yacoubian Building, has taken for
tion, and the hippies were no exception: his canvas this time not just a single
the police and operatives of the Komso- apartment block in Cairo but the entire
mol, a communist youth organization, Egyptian uprising of 2011. Aswany
persecuted them. The authorities often weaves a surprisingly nuanced and
confined hippies to psychiatric hospitals. affecting portrait of the ill-fated revolu-
Fürst’s exhaustive history is based on tion through a collection of stock
135 interviews with surviving hippies, as characters: the pious, cruel, and self-
well as memoirs and personal archives. important general; his rebellious
It is filled with colorful characters; daughter; her poor but virtuous medical-
documents their travels, gatherings, and student boyfriend; the driver of a
spiritual quests; and boasts an amazing disillusioned businessman, who is in
collection of photos. The book also turn the patron of a young revolution-
includes tragic stories of drug abuse and ary; the smarmy imam who has a
dying young. Soviet hippies may have religious justification for every vice;
shared the antimaterialistic creed of and a thwarted actor, a Copt who has a
Western hippies and rejected Soviet love affair with his Muslim maid. A
norms and values, but they were just as pervasive if invisible burden of fear—of
engaged as their “normal” Soviet con- God, of poverty, of social disapproval,
temporaries in procuring the coveted of torture—weighs heavily on the story.
and expensive Western items that were These fears, provoked and manipulated
missing in the Soviet economy (in their by those whom Aswany sees as the
case, primarily blue jeans and music revolt’s powerful opponents—the
records). Fürst emphasizes that despite military establishment, corrupt business
the hippies’ stubborn otherness, they owners, and virtually all of the coun-
were part of an increasingly complex try’s religious authorities—eventually

Recent Books
overwhelmed the daring and audacious, Turkey: A Past Against History

if naive, efforts of the revolutionaries to BY CHRISTINE M. PHILLIOU.
usher in a polity founded on freedom University of California Press, 2021,
and social justice. Small wonder the 294 pp.
book has been banned in Egypt and
much of the rest of the Arab world. Refik Halid Karay was a journalist who
figured among the dissidents in virtually
Policing Iraq: Legitimacy, Democracy, and every era of the tumultuous history of
Empire in a Developing State Ottoman and republican Turkey between
BY JESSE WOZNIAK. University of the turn of the twentieth century and his
California Press, 2021, 254 pp. death in 1965. In this biography, Philliou
offers a subtle and revealing history of
An American sociologist interested in the meaning of opposition. Karay, born
police and police reform, Wozniak took to a family of midlevel Ottoman bureau-
himself to Iraq to study the construction crats, seems to have been both constitu-
of a new police force in the aftermath of tionally contrarian and faithful to his
the U.S. invasion in 2003 and the subse- upbringing and class: the ideal candidate
quent collapse of the internal security for what nineteenth-century Europeans
and police forces. His picture is partial— had come to know as “the loyal opposi-
he conducted fieldwork only in Sulay- tion.” But for much of the first half of
maniyah, the capital of the autonomous the twentieth century, there was no room
Kurdistan Regional Government—but it for such a figure in Ottoman or Turkish
is damning. Given the militarization of politics. In both the despotic empire and
policing around the world since the end the authoritarian republic, opposition
of the Cold War, the Bush administra- was treason. Often writing under the
tion’s decision to assign responsibility for wonderful pen name “the Porcupine,”
rebuilding civilian policing to the U.S. Karay was sent into internal exile in
Department of Defense and its Iraqi Anatolia by the imperial authorities and
military counterparts may not be surpris- banished to Beirut and Aleppo by the
ing, but it was a recipe for failure. Citi- republican government. He always made
zens were viewed as enemies to be his way back into the outer reaches of
thwarted rather than protected. Recruits the inner circle, however, and by the
were trained not to be police officers but time multiparty politics appeared in the
to merely look like them: good at march- 1950s, Karay, “elder statesman of the
ing in formation, incompetent at actual dissidents,” had begun to carve out a
police work. Ultimately, Wozniak con- novel, albeit precarious, space for the
cludes that what initially seemed like a notion of the loyal opposition.
bug was in fact a feature of the training
programs. The “rejection of both best
practices and scientific knowledge” of
policing suggests that “the United States
never had a fully formed democratic state
in mind in the reconstruction of Iraq.”
Recent Books
After Repression: How Polarization Derails the quality of those schools is for the
Democratic Transition political elites who are their graduates.
BY ELIZABETH R. NUG ENT.
Princeton University Press, 2020, Informal Politics in the Middle East
256 pp. EDITED BY SUZI MIRGANI. Hurst,
2021, 336 pp.
Hiding behind this monograph’s generic
title and sometimes masked by its This collection of only loosely con-
scholarly rhetoric is a fascinating and nected essays covers subjects as varied
provocative argument about why the as the diwans of Kuwait (the reception
Egyptian and Tunisian transitions took rooms in which gossip is exchanged and
such different paths after the uprisings power is brokered), tribal politics in
of 2010–11. Nugent argues persuasively Yemen, social activism in Egypt,
that the different patterns of repression voluntary agricultural associations in an
of the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia Algerian oasis, political campaigning in
shaped the capacity and inclination of Turkey, sectarianism in Qatar, women’s
the various parts of the opposition move- advocacy in Iran, and the politics of
ments to work together. The Egyptian urban slums (ashwaiyyat) in Cairo. The
dictator Hosni Mubarak’s selectively contributors do not agree on what
brutal targeting of the Muslim Brother- constitutes informality, only that the
hood, his government’s relative leniency venues in which people in the region
toward left-wing and other secularist gather to express informed opinions,
political parties and movements, and the promote public improvements, and
political segregation of the courts and devise collective solutions are enor-
the prison system divided the opposition mously varied. The Middle East and
and made it difficult for ideological North Africa constitute a region that is
adversaries to cooperate after Mubarak’s typically thought to be stripped of
fall. By contrast, the Tunisian dictator everyday politics by brutal governments
Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s indiscriminate and crippling violence. Taken together,
repression of opposition across the however, the contributions to this
ideological spectrum provided opportu- volume convey an impressive resolve on
nities, long before the uprising, for the part of ordinary people to work
diverse political movements to collabo- inside, outside, against, or beside official
rate, which produced the unusual levels channels to address common problems.
of trust and teamwork exhibited by the This is less “informal” politics than a
political leadership that took over after quotidian, community-based willing-
Ben Ali’s departure. Particularly poignant ness—and sometimes insistence—to
are the accounts of former political work together to enhance public life.
prisoners in Tunisia who recall with
respect and affection having shared
cells—and long conversations—with
ideological rivals. Across the Middle
East, prison is one of the most important
universities; Nugent shows how critical

Recent Books
around the world. As evidence, he quotes

Asia and Pacific extensively from the often obscure
writings and speeches of Chinese leaders
Andrew J. Nathan and thinkers, then infers their concrete
meaning from China’s increasingly
assertive recent actions. He rejects as
unrealistic both proposals for accommo-
The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy dation and strategies to subvert the
to Displace American Order regime. Instead, he suggests policies the
BY RUSH DOSHI. Oxford University United States could adopt to at once
Press, 2021, 432 pp. “blunt” China’s influence through more
active multilateral diplomacy and “re-
Stronger: Adapting America’s China build” the U.S.-centered international
Strategy in an Age of Competitive order by strengthening its alliances and
Interdependence encouraging domestic revival.
BY RYAN HASS. Yale University Press, Hass, who served on the National
2021, 240 pp. Security Council under President
Barack Obama, offers an equally
T
he best U.S. policy toward thoughtful and informative analysis, but
China would be based on an one that differs in significant ways from
accurate assessment of Beijing’s that of Doshi. He does not think China
strategic ambitions. These valuable seeks to export its governance model,
books present the debate about that create a Sinocentric political or military
policy in clear terms and pose critical bloc, or eliminate U.S. influence in
questions for Washington. It is indisput- international institutions. Beijing’s
able that China views the United States primary interests are to protect the
as the main threat to its security, but that regime from overthrow, secure control
does not answer the question of how far over its claimed national territories
Beijing intends to extend its own power. (including Taiwan), and maintain the
Does China merely seek more influence international economic access necessary
in existing international institutions? to sustain prosperity at home. In pursuit
Does it want to dominate its region? of these goals, China wants to weaken or
Does it seek to displace the United eliminate the U.S. alliance system in
States entirely as the dominant global Asia, stifle critical voices abroad, and
power? Doshi, who assumed the position gain an equal say in global institutions.
of China director on the U.S. National China recognizes, however, that the
Security Council after writing this book, United States still has power and that
makes a strong argument for the worst- other major countries and regions, such
case scenario, in which China’s long-term as India, Japan, and Europe, will not
aims are to break up the U.S. alliance accept Chinese domination. Hass
system, establish a global network of therefore recommends some of the same
military bases, monopolize cutting-edge policies as Doshi, such as strengthening
technologies, dominate trade with most U.S. alliances and engaging multilateral
countries, and foster authoritarian elites institutions, but also counsels the
Recent Books
United States to welcome a stronger struggle for democracy in the 1980s

Chinese role in international rule-making, fought for a full range of labor protec-
accept the need of many countries to tions for guest workers. But in all three
balance between China and the United places, even naturalized immigrants
States, and seek coordination in areas of continue to face discrimination.
common interest, such as climate change Chung’s informative study offers a fresh
and global public health. view on political movements and racial
attitudes in Asian democracies.
Immigrant Incorporation in East Asian
Democracies Coup, King, Crisis: A Critical Interregnum
BY ERIN AERAN CHUNG. Cambridge in Thailand
University Press, 2020, 270 pp. EDITED BY PAVIN
CHACHAVALPONGPUN. Yale
Shrinking birthrates and growing life Southeast Asia Studies, 2020, 379 pp.
expectancy have created a crisis of aging
in East Asian societies, but a commit- The death in 2016 of the revered king
ment to ethnocultural purity prevents Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned
the obvious fix: immigration. Most for 70 years, intensified a long-running
immigrants, if they can stay in the crisis of legitimacy in Thai politics. In
countries at all, must retain their 2014, the military, fearing that the king’s
foreign citizenship, sometimes for son, Vajiralongkorn, would not be a
generations; only foreign brides are popular successor, had carried out a
normally allowed to naturalize. In coup—the country’s 12th since its
recent decades, however, immigrants transition to a constitutional monarchy in
have achieved some new rights in the 1932—and intensified its use of the lese
three East Asian democracies studied in majesty law to repress critics of the
this book—Japan, South Korea, and monarchy. The new king turned out to be
Taiwan. In each case, civil society actors even more selfish, impulsive, and violent
drove the process in different ways. than feared. In this informative volume,
Progress has been slowest in Taiwan, 14 leading specialists on Thailand probe
where the pro-immigrant movement the stalemate between the conservative
was overshadowed by stronger move- power structure of the monarchy, the
ments concerned with protecting jobs, military, and Buddhist leaders, on the one
increasing respect for aboriginal com- hand, and opposition forces among urban
munities, and asserting Taiwan’s sepa- youth, the lower-middle class, and rural
rate identity from China. In Japan, local residents of the north and the northeast,
governments and volunteer groups on the other. The palace and the military
provided services for foreigners similar cling to each other ever more tightly and
to those available to citizens. The rule ever less competently, a political
strongest support for immigrants alliance in obvious decline but incapable
emerged in South Korea, where the of either retreat or reform.
progressive labor, religious, and human
rights movements that grew out of the

Recent Books
The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan resistance. In 1958, the party moved
Frontier decisively to destroy the local power
BY BENNO WEINER. Cornell structure and create pastoral collectives.
University Press, 2020, 312 pp. The Tibetans and the Hui Muslims in
the region rebelled but were repressed
Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History with great violence, which was followed
Under Mao Retold; Essays and Primary by a severe famine. Parallel events
Documents occurred across the Tibetan Plateau,
EDITED BY ROBERT BARNET T, creating a legacy that shapes Han-
BENNO WEINER, AND F RANÇOISE Tibetan relations today.
ROBIN. Brill, 2020, 712 pp. Conflicting Memories interweaves
translated excerpts from 15 sources from
Forbidden Memory: Tibet During the the post-Mao era—speeches, memoirs,
Cultural Revolution film scripts, oral histories, fiction,
BY TSERING WOESER. TRANS- narratives of spiritual journeys, and
LATED BY SUSAN T. CHEN. EDITED others—with 13 interpretive essays by
BY ROBERT BARNET T. Potomac impressively qualified Western and
Books, 2020, 448 pp. exiled Tibetan scholars. Several docu-
ments present the official Chinese view
Beijing’s difficulty incorporating Tibet- that the imposition of Han rule in the
ans into the Chinese nation goes back 1950s and 1960s was essentially benevo-
to the earliest days of communist rule. lent and successful, even if some mis-
These three books offer precious takes were made. But most of the
insights into a hidden history, hinting at sources, chiefly those published unoffi-
the range of stories that will be told if cially or outside China, offer the victims’
the region’s archives are ever opened. perspectives on forced labor, imprison-
During a brief period of access, Weiner ment, torturous “struggle sessions”
was able to conduct research in the (during which people were forced to
government and party archives of the publicly confess to various misdeeds),
Zeku Tibetan Autonomous County, in and the destruction of monasteries and
Qinghai Province, poring over docu- religious relics. All the contributions by
ments dating from 1953 to 1960. Once Tibetans express an intense commitment
the new communist government had to their distinctive culture and religion.
pacified resistance, it merged two organi- Woeser’s book takes up the story with
zational systems: Tibetan tribal chieftains the arrival of the Cultural Revolution in
and religious leaders manned the govern- 1966. Her father was a military propa-
ment, and Han cadres from outside the ganda officer who used his personal
region staffed the more powerful Chinese camera to document the public humilia-
Community Party organization. Beijing tion and torture of leading monks and
was unsatisfied with the results of that aristocrats, the destruction of historic
system. The party sought to persuade the sites, triumphal rallies and marches, and
local communities to identify with a posed images of smiling Tibetan youths
larger, multiethnic Chinese nation but holding portraits of Mao. Years after her
faced various forms of passive and active father’s death, she decided to publish the
Recent Books
photos abroad. Her close reading of each girls had gained, as it increased their
picture tells readers as much as she could value as hostages in the eyes of Boko
find out about who is portrayed, what Haram leaders. The narrative ends in
happened to them, and the memories 2017, when the negotiations resulted in
triggered in survivors when she showed the release of 82 of the girls. At least
them the images. 100 of them are still missing today.
Gendered Institutions and Women’s

Africa Political Representation in Africa
EDITED BY DIANA HOJLUND
Nicolas van de Walle MADSEN. Zed Books, 2020, 272 pp.
Over the course of the last three dec-

ades, many African countries have
Bring Back Our Girls: The Untold Story of instituted quotas to increase the repre-
the Global Search for Nigeria’s Missing sentation of women in their legislatures
Schoolgirls and in leadership positions in political
BY JOE PARKINSON AND DREW parties. By most quantitative measures,
HINSHAW. HarperCollins, 2021, 432 pp. such quotas have succeeded. But have
they substantially altered public policies
P
arkinson and Hinshaw have in a manner that benefits the welfare
written a powerful account of the and rights of women? This collection of
jihadi terrorist group Boko generally excellent essays offers con-
Haram’s 2014 abduction of 276 students vincing evidence from half a dozen
from the Government Girls Secondary African countries that the answer is
School in the northeastern Nigerian mostly no. The case studies collected
town of Chibok, which generated an here suggest that the reform of formal
international social media campaign for institutions to increase women’s repre-
their release under the hashtag sentation has often been undermined by
#BringBackOurGirls. The authors spoke various informal institutions that
to around 20 of the girls who were continue to enforce patriarchal norms
abducted and later freed and gained in day-to-day politics. For instance,
access to the journal that one of them regardless of official party commitments
had managed to keep during her three to gender equality, the patron-client
years in captivity. The result is a fine- relationships that undergird much of
grained picture of their harrowing African politics are still dominated by
ordeal, during which they hid in a forest men, especially at the local level. Other
with their captors in precarious circum- factors have also limited progress. In
stances, while the Nigerian army led a South Africa and Tanzania, for example,
desultory and ineffectual search for female parliamentarians are constrained
them. The book also relates the complex by conservative attitudes that still hold
and multilayered negotiations for their sway among party elites and that
release, which it suggests were compli- discourage them from proposing more
cated by the international notoriety the progressive social policies.

Recent Books
In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland Bass is a veteran AIDS activist, and her
and Africa in American Politics book tells the story of the President’s
BY BENJAMIN TALTON. University of Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or
Pennsylvania Press, 2019, 288 pp. PEPFAR, the broadly successful initiative
that U.S. President George W. Bush
To End a Plague: America’s Fight to Defeat launched in 2003. Like many elements of
AIDS in Africa U.S. foreign policy, PEPFAR is largely
BY EMILY BASS. PublicAffairs, 2021, unknown to the broader public but is
470 pp. sustained by the support of a network of
foundations, activists, and civil society
These two fascinating histories of U.S. actors. The book is not a formal history
involvement in Africa illuminate the of PEPFAR and includes little detailed
role of American civil society activists discussion of the program’s policies.
in U.S. foreign policy—and also the Bass, however, appears to have dealt with
extent to which they have viewed their or interviewed all the key players in
work in sub-Saharan Africa as an PEPFAR, and her book nicely balances
extension of their progressive commit- accounts of the debate over the program
ments at home. Talton portrays Mickey and the difficulties in running it with the
Leland, who was a Democratic con- reflections of the Africans she met on
gressman from Texas, as emblematic of the frontlines of the battle against the
a generation of African American disease. Leland viewed the fight against
leaders who came of age during the civil hunger in Africa as a natural extension
rights struggle and understood interna- of his early days fighting poverty in
tional issues through the prism of Third Houston; Bass describes the community
World radicalism. In the 1970s and of U.S. AIDS activists as similarly trans-
1980s, they exerted a significant influ- ferring their commitments from the
ence on U.S. policies on Africa, the domestic arena to the international.
book argues, notably on Leland’s two
signature issues: apartheid in South Regional Integration in West Africa: Is
Africa and the brutal Ethiopian famine There a Role for a Single Currency?
of the early 1980s. On Leland’s sixth BY ESWAR PRASAD AND VERA
trip to Ethiopia, in 1989, he died when a SONGWE. Brookings Institution Press,
small plane on which he was flying to 2021, 180 pp.
visit a refugee camp on the border with
Sudan crashed. Talton’s narrative The Economic Community of West
operates both as a biography of the African States is perhaps the strongest
charismatic Leland and his political subregional organization in Africa. In
evolution from a radical activist in 2019, the member governments agreed
Houston to a well-established Washing- to form a currency union, which they
ton insider and as an insightful history intend to launch by 2027. Prasad and
of the role that groups such as the Songwe’s short book assesses the plan’s
Congressional Black Caucus played in prospects. They concede that the
U.S. policy toward Africa during the potential economic benefits of a cur-
later years of the Cold War. rency union are significant in terms of
Recent Books
greater trade and investment and that it her way there a decade earlier. The
could enhance the macroeconomic disci- shift in perspective between the two
pline of member governments and siblings is a great strength of the book.
protect them from external shocks. Asad is what many Americans might
Still, their informative account focuses think of as the ideal immigrant: he
mostly on the likely pitfalls. They argue earns the American dream through
that a successful launch of such a union hard work, intelligence, and stamina,
would require much greater economic ultimately winning a scholarship and
and policy integration among the admittance to Princeton University.
countries and much stronger institu- Maryan’s experience is more typical—
tional mechanisms for fiscal coordina- and in many ways more revealing about
tion and risk management. In the the risks and tradeoffs that even fortu-
absence of such arrangements, they nate refugees face. She, too, worked
recommend taking more modest steps hard and shone at school, but once in
to further the financial and economic the promised land, she struggled with a
integration of the region, such as controlling husband, low-paying jobs,
harmonizing economic and financial and loneliness. McCormick’s book
policies and encouraging the develop- offers rare insight into the extreme
ment of a regional financial market. difficulties with which some people live
and the amazing ability that some of
Beyond the Sand and Sea: One Family’s them show to dream and persist, even
Quest for a Country to Call Home when the odds are slim and success
BY TY M C CORMICK. St. Martin’s presents challenges of its own.
Press, 2021, 288 pp. SIMON TURNER
In the massive Dadaab refugee camp in

Kenya, the weather is hot, the land-
scape is barren, and relief agencies and
the authorities alike generally treat the
hundreds of thousands of Somali
inhabitants, many of whom have lived
there for decades, with suspicion,
hostility, and abuse. In this environ-
ment, McCormick, an editor at this
magazine, meets Asad, a young man
who is a gifted writer. The book tells
the tale of Asad’s struggle to leave the
camp for the United States and the
story of his sister Maryan, who found
Foreign Affairs (ISSN 00157120), September/October 2021, Volume 100, Number 5. Published six times annually (January, March, May,
July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other
countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at
additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 324, Congers, NY 10920. From time to
time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe
will be of interest. If you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Congers, NY, address indicated above.

Is the Two-State Solution
No Longer Viable?
Foreign Affairs Brain Trust
We asked dozens of experts whether they agreed or disagreed that the two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer viable. The results are below.
20
10
0
STRONGLY DISAGREE NEUTRAL AGREE STRONGLY
DISAGREE AGREE
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9 STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Martin Indyk Marwan Muasher

Distinguished Fellow, Council on Vice President for Studies, Carnegie
Foreign Relations Endowment for International Peace
“There is no other solution that can actually resolve “Political and demographic considerations have
the conflict. The other ‘solutions’ will only perpetuate led to this conclusion. The Israeli government
it. However, the parties are not ready to pursue the is not interested in ending the occupation. The
two-state solution at the moment. There needs to international community, by giving lip service to
be a ripening process that generates new leaders, a the two-state solution while not accompanying
new willingness to take risks, and renewed efforts to it with a credible plan and not holding Israel
rebuild trust in the intentions of the other side.” accountable, has contributed to this eventuality.”
See the full responses at ForeignAffairs.com/TwoState

CONFLICT RESOLUTION • ECONOMY & TRADE
IMMIGRATION • MULTILATERALISM • URBAN ECOLOGY
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS • TRANSNATIONAL SECURITY
TRADE POLICY • POLITICAL VIOLENCE
PEACE BUILDING • NATIONAL SECURITY • DIPLOMACY
SOCIAL ISSUES • TECHNOLOGY
INTERCULTURAL RELATIONS • REGIONAL SECURITY & STABILITY
CLIMATE CHANGE • GLOBAL INEQUALITY
MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
POLITICAL ECONOMY • EUROPE & EURASIA
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY • INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
THE MIDDLE EAST • ANTIRACISM
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE • SOUTHEAST ASIAN POLITICS
NATIONALISM • TRADE RELATIONS
FOOD & AGRICULTURE • RECONCILIATION & JUSTICE
ETHICS, PEACE & HUMAN RIGHTS
FIELD EXPERIENCE • GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH
CYBERSECURITY • ISLAMIC STUDIES
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT • POLITICAL ANALYSIS
At the School of International Service, we’re guided by an important

principle: we need the world, and it needs us. Join our top-10 school of
international affairs and turn your passion for challenging the status
quo into a career of global leadership and service.
Learn more at www.american.edu/sis

FO R T H E LOV E O F
hugs the
world’s been
waiting for.
for the love of progress
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is working to ensure everyone in the world has access
to COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility. Citi is leveraging their global
financial expertise to help Gavi facilitate the equitable distribution of the vaccine in
this historic effort.
Help Gavi reach their goal of

2 billion vaccines this year at gavi.org/donate
© 2021 Citigroup Inc. All rights reserved.

Foreign Affairs

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Foreign Affairs

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Foreign Affairs

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is the article mainly about?

What is the article mainly about?

What challenges does Susana Chavez face?

What challenges does Susana Chavez face?

NORTH KOREA’S NEW NUCLEAR OPTIONS

WHO WON THE WAR ON TERROR?

Susana Chávez juggled numerous jobs throughout

We are dedicated to helping close the digital divide

To learn more, visit att.com/connectingcommunities

© AT&T 2021. All rights reserved.

WHO WON THE WAR ON TERROR?

The Good Enough Doctrine 32

From 9/11 to 1/6 54

North Korea’s Nuclear Family 115

Strategies of Restraint 128

The United States of Sanctions 142

Iran’s War Within 155

The COVID Charter 179

The Center Cannot Hold 192

Discover our degrees in

How Democratic Is the World’s Largest Democracy? 209

Strait of Emergency? 216

Masters and Commanders 230

Recent Books 239

STEPHANIE SOLOMON Chief Revenue Officer

LISA SHIELDS, IVA ZORIC, DALIA DAGHER Media Relations

SUBSCRIP TION SERVICES: Foreign Affairs

After working as a China correspondent for The Wall

Born in Seoul and raised in Hawaii and Virginia, SUE MI

Both a doctor and an economist by training, RAJIV SHAH

WHO WON THE WAR ON TERROR?

Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success From 9/11 to 1/6

Nelly Lahoud 10 Cynthia Miller-Idriss 54

Them and Us Winning Ugly

The Good Enough Doctrine

Bin Laden’s worldview and the

thinking behind the 9/11 attack are laid

10 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S PACKAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN STAUFFER

The Hamilton Lugar School of Global & International Studies at Indiana

Learn more and apply at hls.iu.edu.

HAMILTON LUGAR SCHOOL

A LIFELINE FOR AL QAEDA Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, to merge

though the al Qaeda organization was the leader of a notoriously extremist

the management of immigration to the

construction of government facilities to

and his administration promised—and global revitalization of democracy, and

country’s overreach and belligerent can Senator Lindsey Graham of South

infrastructure by pointing to the need the world’s democracies, and set a

and even backfired. Although al Qaeda

and ISIS are far weaker than they were

NOT-SO-SAFE HAVENS tions. Consider al-Nusra Front, once

Make Fletcher a part of your future.

hiri, bin Laden’s successor as the leader REIMAGINING 9/11

cross-country on the type of aircraft home countries and in transit. If they

decade have been so-called lone-wolf States is for Muslims. As a result,

attacks, in Europe or North America.

Even the most notorious of the separa-

asymmetric war against the United U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

n Experiential opportunities, small

n Network of engaged alumni in