Observers

MOST RECENT COMMENTARY - Observers

Michel Rocard

Little more than a decade into the twenty-first century, all major international negotiations and cooperative efforts thus far have ended in failure. The upcoming Rio+20 summit will end the same way If we do not give up the naive dream of consensus and allow the UN General Assembly to vote on environmental and economic measures.

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RECENT COMMENTARIES

FEATURED COMMENTARIES

Sarkozy at Dusk

Dominique Moisi Series: European Observer

2012-02-21

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has had to confront exceptionally difficult circumstances, and his record since assuming office in 2007 is far from poor. But, barring a last-minute miracle, he will lose his re-election bid to the Socialist candidate, François Hollande.... read

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Reinventing the World Bank

Ana Palacio Series: The Turning Point

2012-02-21

Robert Zoellick’s announcement that he will not seek reelection as President of the World Bank has focused attention on whether the tradition of putting an American in charge will or should endure. But, legitimate as that question is, it is just a minor aspect of the debate that is needed about the World Bank’s role in the twenty-first century.... read

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Return to the Arc of Crisis

Jaswant Singh Series: The New Power Game

2012-02-21

Thirty-three years ago, then-US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke of “an arc of crisis” coursing through the Middle East and into Central Asia. Today, events from Syria to Pakistan suggest that Brzezinski’s arc is more salient than ever.... read

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Is the Web Closing?

Esther Dyson Series: Net World

2012-02-20

Within the tech community, there is much angst about whether the Web is about to be “closed”: will it be controlled companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google, or will it remain “open” to all? But the Web’s openness is not a matter to be settled once and for all, for it has always fluctuated, and will continue to do so.... read

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Peace in Kashmir?

Shashi Tharoor Series: Awakening India

2012-02-20

A subtle shift may be occurring in one of the world's most intractable problems – the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. After decades of conflict and thousands of lives lost, Pakistanis are questioning the benefits of continuing the fight.... read

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Germany’s Sunshine Daydream

Bjørn Lomborg Series: Global Warning

2012-02-16

Germany once prided itself on becoming the "world champion" of solar power. But now the German government is vowing to cut its massive subsidies sooner than planned, and to phase out support over the next five years – a reflection of the policy's economic failure and absent impact on global warming.... read

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The Long March from Shanghai

Christopher R. Hill Series: America in a New World

2012-02-15

Forty years ago, US President Richard M. Nixon journeyed to China, and the "Shanghai Communiqué" launched what has become the world's most important and complex bilateral relationship. Today, however, China is increasingly consumed by mistrust of the US – evident in its veto in February of the UN Security Council's resolution on Syria.... read

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Turkey’s Test

Anne-Marie Slaughter Series: Discord and Diplomacy

2012-02-13

Turkey’s international star has risen steadily over the past few years, with its leaders lionized in the region and traveling the world as representatives of an increasingly influential power. But now, in Syria’s carnage, Turkey is facing a critical test of its regional and global aspirations.... read

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Opening Europe’s Mediterranean Window

Ana Palacio Series: The Turning Point

2012-02-10

One year after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, with popular upheaval continuing to roil the Arab world, it is increasingly clear that Europe can no longer sit still and do nothing. The ongoing protests have exposed an urgent need for renewed engagement with the region in general – and, in particular, with the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries.... read

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Should China be “Contained”?

Joseph S. Nye Series: Of Might and Right

2011-07-04

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing, thereby mending the 20-year breach in diplomatic relations between the US and China and enabling them to contain an expansionist Soviet Union. Could the same policy now be turned against a rising China?... read

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Netanyahu’s Border War

Shlomo Ben-Ami Series: War and Peace

2011-05-24

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu furiously rejects Barack Obama’s proposal to use the 1967 borders as the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – frontiers that he called “utterly indefensible.” But his position reflects not only poor statesmanship, but also his antiquated military philosophy.... read

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All the Queen’s Children

Ian Buruma Series: Crossing Cultures

2011-05-02

Monarchy has an infantilizing effect – witness how otherwise sensible adults are reduced to nervously grinning sycophants when they are granted the privilege of touching an extended royal hand. But at a time of rising cultural pluralism in European countries, monarchs might have an important role to play.... read

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Reflections on the Revolution in Egypt

Richard N. Haass Series: The Statesmen's Debate

2011-02-13

Revolutions happen for a reason, and in Egypt, there are several reasons. Indeed, Egypt was ripe for dramatic change, which would have come at some point in the next few years, even absent the spark of Tunisia or the existence of social media.... read

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Why is Rape Different?

Naomi Wolf Series: The Next Wave

2010-12-31

As Swedish prosecutors’ sex-crime allegations against Julian Assange play out in the international media, one convention of the coverage merits serious scrutiny: the anonymity afforded his accusers. This is true of no other crime, and the convention of anonymity actually impedes prosecutions.... read

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WikiLeaks’ Flawed Answer to a Flawed World

Esther Dyson Series: Net World

2010-12-13

People like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, however flawed, are vitally necessary. In a world where governments, corporations, and other institutions have so much information about us, it is only right that we should have more information about them and about the activities of people acting on their behalf.... read

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The Last Line of Decency

Ian Buruma Series: Crossing Cultures

2010-12-08

For more than a year, hundreds of Israeli Jews have protested every Friday in solidarity with Palestinians in East Jerusalem facing eviction to make way for Israeli settlers. However ineffectual in the short run, the demonstrations are essential, for they make Israel a more civilized place.... read

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If Fish Could Scream

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2010-09-13

Evidence is now accumulating that commercial fishing inflicts an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering. We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely – or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.... read

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Hillary’s Kissinger Moment

Yuriko Koike Series: Asia Watch

2010-08-13

TOKYO – Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to Asia may one day be seen as the most significant visit to the region by a United States diplomat since Henry Kissinger’s secret mission to Beijing in July 1971. Kissinger’s mission triggered a diplomatic revolution. Renewal of US-Chinese relations shifted the global balance of power at the Cold War’s height, and prepared the way for China to open its economy – the decision that, more than any other, has defined today’s world. What Clinton did and said during her Asian tour will mark either the end of the era that Kissinger initiated four decades ago, or the start of a distinct new phase in that epoch.... read

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God Crashes the Tea Party	Naomi Wolf
There has always been tension in the US between church-state separation and regular upsurges of religious faith that seek an outlet in the political process – or even seek to dominate it. Nowhere is this tension more visible today than in the struggle for the political soul of the Tea Party.... read
The Dear Leader Nuclear Weapons Company	Yuriko Koike
Neither the recently signed US-Russia treaty to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons, nor upcoming global nuclear arms talks, will have much impact on today’s most perilous threat: the nuclear honeymoon between an Iran determined to acquire nuclear weapons and a North Korea willing to sell Iran much of that capacity for hard currency.... read

Is Pornography Driving Men Crazy?

Naomi Wolf Series: The Next Wave

2011-06-30

Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex, and leading to more difficulty with impulse control? There is an increasing body of scientific evidence to support this idea.... read

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Football is War

Ian Buruma Series: Crossing Cultures

2010-06-07

The notion that international sporting competitions inevitably inspire warm fraternity – an idea advanced by Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games – is a romantic fiction. With the World Cup upon us, we should recall Arthur Koestler's maxim that there is nationalism, and there is football nationalism – and that the latter is the more deeply felt.... read

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The Unknown Promise of Internet Freedom

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2010-03-31

The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that has changed the world. But, as with the steam engine when it was first introduced, we are still only beginning to grasp the extent of what the Internet will do to the way we live.... read

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China’s Best Hope

Ian Buruma Series: Crossing Cultures

2009-01-07

On December 10, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more than 300 Chinese citizens, – law professors to businessmen, farmers, and even some government officials – put their names to a remarkable document, entitled Charter 08. Predictably, the government has responded to the latest homegrown demand for democracy with arrests and harassment.... read

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Is America an Empire?

Joseph S. Nye Series: Of Might and Right

2004-01-26

Three decades ago, the radical left used the term "American empire" as an epithet. Now that same term has come out of the closet: analysts on both the left and right now use it to explain - if not guide - American foreign policy. ... read

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Why is Rape Different?

Naomi Wolf Series: The Next Wave

2010-12-31

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Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War

Joseph S. Nye Series: Of Might and Right

2006-03-28

Earlier this month, Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his 75th birthday with a concert and conference at his foundation in Moscow. Unfortunately, he is not popular with the Russian people, who blame him for the loss of Soviet power. But, as Gorbachev has replied to those who shout abuse at him, “Remember, I am the one who gave you the right to shout.”... read

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The Future of Internet Search

Esther Dyson Series: Net World

2010-08-19

Even as the online world has turned its attention from searching to social networking, Internet search is beginning to get interesting again. When people search, they aren't just looking for information; they mostly want to find something in order to do something - an imperative that first Bing, and now Google, have begun working hard to satisfy.... read

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Why Pay More for Fairness?

Peter Singer Series: The Ethics of Life

2006-04-18

Marks & Spencer, a supermarket and clothing chain with 400 stores throughout Britain, recently announced that it is converting its entire range of coffee and tea, totaling 38 lines, to Fairtrade, a marketing symbol of “ethical production.” The chain already sells only Fairtrade tea and coffee in its 200 Café Revive coffee shops. It is also boosting its purchases of shirts and other goods made with Fairtrade cotton. The announcement came during “Fairtrade Fortnight,” a two-week promotion of Fairtrade products that included speaking tours by farmers from developing countries, telling Britons how Fairtrade has assisted their communities. ... read

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The Ethics of Eating	Peter Singer
Global meat consumption is predicted to double by 2020. Yet in Europe and North America, there is growing concern about the ethics of the way meat and eggs are produced. The consumption of veal has fallen sharply since it became widely known that to produce so-called “white” – actually pale pink – veal, newborn calves are separated from their mothers, deliberately made anemic, denied roughage, and kept in stalls so narrow that they cannot walk or turn around. ... read
The Revolutionary Ethics of Embryo Research	Peter Singer
What appeared to be the most momentous scientific advance of 2005 is currently under siege. In June, the prestigious journal Science published an article by the South Korean scientist Woo-Suk Hwang and an international team of co-authors describing how they had developed what were, in effect, “made to order” lines of human stem cells cloned from an adult. Although the scientific validity of their research is now the subject of several separate investigations, it is no less important to examine its ethical implications.... read

FEATURED COMMENTARY

The Responsibility to Protect Comes of Age
Gareth Evans
Series: History in Motion

To be optimistic about almost anything in international affairs is to run the risk of being thought ignorant, naïve, or demented. But, on the issue of mass-atrocity crimes – situations in which the international community has long had good reason for shame – real optimism is now justified.

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