REBALANCING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. Paul K MacDonald, Daedalus, Spring 2009, pp. 115-126. "The Obama administration has a unique opportunity to reorient American foreign policy and lay out a new national security strategy that more effectively strikes a balance between the ends we seek and the means we possess. Such a strategy would recognize that the United States faces considerable constraints in the realm of foreign policy. Some of these are selfinflicted: the war in Iraq, for example, proved to be a costly undertaking that has severely burdened the U.S. military. Other constraints stem from developments outside of Washington's control. The rise of new regional powers and the erosion of the liberal consensus will increasingly limit the exercise of American power. Given these developments, Washington must not only scale back American ambitions, but also demonstrate prudence with the nation's limited resources." READ MORE

THE CHALLENGING FUTURE OF STRATEGIC PLANNING. Daniel Drezner, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter/Spring 2009, pp. 13-26. "Strategic planning, the ability to formulate both grand strategy and its medium- and long-term execution, has become too peripheral to U.S. policymaking. As the influence of global institutions wanes and the specter of America’s relative loss of power looms, strategic planning must therefore play a larger role in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy. Yet those who advocate for a more robust strategic planning presence must overcome a wide range of internal, external, and historical challenges."  READ MORE

PRESIDENTIAL POWER IN NATIONAL SECURITY: A GUIDE TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT.
Louis Fisher, Presidential Studies Quarterly, June 2009, pp. 347-362. "Over the last half century, presidents have read their national security powers in sweeping terms, doing great damage to themselves, their parties, the nation, and regions around the world. The effective use of military force and foreign policy initiatives requires the building of consensus, public understanding, and acting within the law. Too often, presidents have claimed the unilateral power to commit the nation to war by making uninformed references to the commander in chief clause. They have also asserted "preeminence" in the making and conduct of foreign policy. Heavy political and constitutional costs flowed from miscalculations by Harry S. Truman in Korea, Lyndon B. Johnson in Southeast Asia, and George W. Bush in Iraq. Over the last seven years, the reputation of the United States has lost credit around the world because of indefinite detention without trial, torture memos, Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, the claim of "law-free zones," extraordinary rendition, and other U.S. policies and practices." READ MORE

DIPLOMACY, INC. John Newhouse, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009, pp. 73-92. "The area around K Street in Washington, DC, abounds with lobbyists, many of whom represent foreign governments or entities. Although some major foreign governments continue to work mainly through their embassies in Washington, nearly one hundred countries rely on lobbyists to protect and promote their interests. The subculture of public relations and law firms that do this kind of work reflects a steady decline and privatization of diplomacy -- with an increasing impact on how the US conducts its own foreign policy. Many lobbyists function as surrogates. A law firm or lobbying firm can make arrangements and put forward arguments in ways that its foreign client cannot, in part because most embassies do not operate as comfortably or effectively on Capitol Hill as can the firms. The effects of the relentless increase in the privatization of US foreign policy in recent years remain underexamined and minimally understood. The activities of lobbies representing foreign interests have contributed to the gradual erosion of the US' credibility and influence in the world." READ MORE

CIVIL SOCIETY. Howard Wiarda, American Foreign Policy Interests, May 2009, pp. 145-148. "This critique of the American panacea known as civil society raises serious questions about the efficacy of transporting to and implementing in developing countries an American approach to society that is problematic and may or may not threaten the stability of the states that U.S. policymakers are trying to strengthen. The research explored in the article addresses each question in turn and suggests ways of relating to countries that are as different from one another as they are from the United States." READ MORE

LONG TIME COMING: PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ. Bruce E Moon, International Security, Spring 2009, pp. 115-148. "Prospects for democracy in Iraq should be assessed in light of the historical precedents of nations with comparable political experiences. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was an unusually extreme autocracy, which lasted an unusually long time. Since the end of the nineteenth century, only thirty nations have experienced an autocracy as extreme as Iraq's for a period exceeding two decades. The subsequent political experience of those nations offers a pessimistic forecast for Iraq and similar nations. Only seven of the thirty are now democratic, and only two of them have become established democracies; the democratic experiments in the other five are still in progress." READ MORE

THE UNITED STATES AND THE COUNTERINSURGENCY: THE PEACE PROCESS IN PAKISTAN. Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, American Foreign Policy Interests, May 2009, pp. 149–165. "The phenomenon of the Pakistani government's negotiated peace settlements with Taliban militants may seriously endanger stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, simultaneously lending tremendous strength to the Taliban and Al Qaeda movements. The United States has raised serious reservations about this peace process, which it sees as a beacon for militants to regroup, resulting in renewed insurgency and terror attacks in Afghanistan and the Western Hemisphere in general. This article attempts to contextualize both the peace process negotiated by the Pakistani government with the militants and the policy of the United States regarding the process. Projections for a successful counterinsurgency policy are articulated at the empirical level." READ MORE