Foreign Policy in Focus

Despite frequent alarms about the supposed China threat, China is not an emerging superpower.

The United States operates a vast array of foreign bases manifesting many of the same environmental problems found at domestic bases, including toxics in drinking water, explosives on firing ranges, and noise pollution.

The trade in illicit drugs is estimated to be worth $400 billion a year, and it accounts for 8% of all international trade, according to the United Nations.

The human costs of tobacco use are staggering and rising dramatically.

India has developed its nuclear weapons program in reaction to local, regional, and global nuclear and political realities.

The easy availability of light military weaponry contributes to international crime, terrorism, and internal conflict, which are some of Washington’s foremost security concerns.

Climate change may be one of the defining issues of the twenty-first century, because it pits the potential disruption of our global climate system against the future of a fossil fuel-based economy.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a dramatic increase in the magnitude of international flows of portfolio investment (PI), especially from countries in the North to emerging market economies across the South.

The global economic integration of trade, investment, and finance is raising new issues for U.S. foreign economic policy.

Since the early 1980s, bankers— working together with national policymakers and officials at such international financial institutions (IFIs) as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—have largely succeeded in deregulating the global banking system.

Despite Clinton’s visit, the U.S. has failed to formulate a coherent policy with respect to Africa.

On June 15, 1998, diplomats from around the world will assemble in Rome to finalize a treaty that will establish an International Criminal Court (ICC).

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the U.S. has been a principal force in imposing Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on most countries of the South.

Small and relatively unknown, Macedonia (officially called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM) is the key to stability in the southern Balkans.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the central agency for enforcing the Bretton Woods Articles of Agreement, whose terms serve as its charter.

With South Korea facing serious economic problems and North Korea nearing political collapse, the Korean peninsula is entering a period of turbulence and change.

Tax policy becomes foreign policy when companies operate outside their headquarters country and are subjected to tax laws of multiple jurisdictions.

The 20-year-old U.S. moratorium on sales of advanced military equipment to Latin America was successful in preventing a high-tech arms race in the region.

Though Washington viewed the country as a mere sideshow to U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, U.S. actions in Cambodia were decisive in leading to the destabilization of the neutral government under Prince Norodom Sihanouk and triggering a slow slide into more than two decades of violence.

Although violence is often blamed on the drug trade, the roots of violence run much deeper. A multiplicity of actors create a veritable kaleidoscope of violence.