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Features, Print Features, Americas
Demystifying Defense

The most serious impediments to a serious discussion of defense spending are the myths that surround it. Until these myths are cleared away, no rational debate regarding what the United States and its allies around the world should do to secure their interests is possible. The most urgent need, therefore, is for politicians and the public to know how much the United States and other powers spend, to place these expenditures and their trends in historical context, to weigh the dangers of both excessive and insufficient defense spending, to understand why the US and the world’s democracies maintain armed forces, and why the United States spends so much relative to its potential adversaries.

By Ted R. Bromund  |  July 6, 2009
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Features, Print Features, Americas
US Nuclear Policy

It is often said that the world is at a nuclear tipping point. By this, analysts mean that the policy choices we make over the next few years may determine if we tip over into nuclear catastrophe or pull back from the various brinks on which we now teeter. Those who thought talk of nuclear disasters was a thing of the past, that the end of the Cold War ended nuclear threats, might want to pay attention to this debate.

By Joseph Cirincione  |  July 6, 2009
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Spotlight, Americas
An Outflow of Talent

As the world hurtles headlong into the deepest global recession since the Great Depression, the controversial cultural and economic tensions that have always existed around the sensitive topics of immigration and immigration policy are again coming to the surface in the United States. A land of immigrants, religious outcasts, and refugees fleeing wars, poverty, starvation, and oppression abroad, the United States has long been viewed as the most welcoming country in the world.

By Vivek Wadhwa  |  July 6, 2009
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Review Essays, Americas, Middle East
An Eye for an Eye

Mark Osiel’s provocative new book, The End of Reciprocity: Terror, Torture and the Law of War, provides detailed discussions of a number of important moral and legal issues arising for the United States in its ongoing response to the threats posed by the Al Qaeda terrorist network. The specific focus is the US-deployed counter-terrorist methods of sustained detention, torture, and targeted killing of suspected terrorists. The author, Mark Osiel, displays a wide knowledge of relevant literature in a number of fields, including international law, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies.

By Seumas Miller  |  July 6, 2009
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Interviews, Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe
A Renewed Approach

You have extensive experience in Pakistani diplomacy and have served Pakistan as Ambassador for two terms. What do you think were the main diplomatic issues facing Pakistan during your ambassadorship and how, if at all, do you think the issues have improved, worsened, or stayed the same? I think that the first challenge of representing a country like Pakistan is the challenge of making people understand Muslim countries and Muslim societies. Pakistan is the second-largest Muslim nation in the world and has more than its fair share of challenges.

By Fatima Loeliger, Maleeha Lodhi  |  July 6, 2009
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Endpaper, Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East
The Other Great Depression

There is a part of our brain which firmly believes that disaster begets disaster. This intuition probably comes from daily life—for example, we see gambling misadventures lead to a job loss, a painful divorce, and so on. It is also natural to apply this dogma on a macro-level, and the current economic crisis is no exception. A chorus of doomsayers loudly predict that today’s economic ailments will usher in a dark “age of upheaval.” Not surprisingly, these pessimists rush to embrace the 1930s as the empirical centerpiece of their argument.

By Gustavo de las Casas  |  July 6, 2009
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Interviews, Americas, Europe
The Transatlantic Agenda

Could you characterize the transatlantic relationship between the United States and the European Union?

To start with, no other relationship in the world rests on such a solid foundation: the United States and the European Union are each other’s number one partner. For the past 60 years the transatlantic relationship has been the world’s transformative partnership. America’s relationship with Europe—more than with any other part of the world—enables both of us to achieve goals that neither of us could achieve alone.

By Frank-Walter Steinmeier  |  April 25, 2009
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Web Interviews, Americas
Reassessing the Financial Crisis

The views expressed below are those solely of the interviewee and do not, in any way, represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston or the Federal Reserve System.

 

What will be the role of derivatives and complex financial instruments in the future? Looking at the current financial crisis, how is that going to change?

 

By Chris Foote  |  April 8, 2009
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Web Features, Americas
The Return of State-Owned Enterprises

The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has prompted many industrialized states worldwide to increase their stakes in private corporations. This wave of partial nationalizations has come amidst full scale expropriations in developing countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Does this signal a return of “state capitalism”? If so, what should we expect of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that spring back into economic life?

By Aldo Musacchio, Francisco Flores-Macias  |  April 4, 2009
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Global Notebook, Americas
Petrol Power

Oil, former Venezuelan oil minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo famously noted, is “the devil’s excrement.” Ironically, his own country has ignored this prophetic warning most of all. In Venezuela and many other Latin American countries, huge nationalized petroleum companies have firmly entrenched themselves as the means to national wealth and power even though corruption, inefficiency, and innovative stagnation often characterize such industries.

By Collin Galster  |  March 21, 2009
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