Foreign Policy in Focus

Islamism is viewed as a force that undermines the Middle East peace process, threatens the flow of oil, and leads to the establishment of Iranian-style regimes in the region.

Pakistani aid together with support from Pashtun traders and tribesmen enabled the Taliban to capture Kabul.

Since the end of the cold war, the global proliferation of chemical and biological weapons (CBWs) has become more prominent in U.S. national security and foreign policy planning.

In promoting structural adjustment, the U.S. has concentrated on short-term profits for businesses and narrow diplomatic gain.

Transnational corporations (TNCs) increasingly shape our lives as they weave worldwide webs of production, consumption, finance, and culture.

A history of mutual dependence underlies U.S.-Panama foreign policy and accounts for the patterns of dominance and dependence in bilateral relations.

The end of the cold war left U.S.-Russian relations in a state of volatile ambiguity.

Immediately following World War II, the major capitalist powers, dominated by the U.S. and Britain, met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to establish multilateral institutions to manage the postwar restructuring and expansion of the global capitalist economy. Two international financial institutions (IFIs) emerged from the July 1944 meeting: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Created to collect information, the CIA quickly became embroiled in covertly upending governments and movements around the world in support of U.S. corporate and political goals.

The special nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance has resulted in special protection of and impunity for Israel in international arenas.

Based on a year-long investigation, reporter Gary Webb wrote that during the 1980s the CIA helped finance its covert war against Nicaragua’s leftist government through sales of cut-rate cocaine to South Central L.A. drug dealer, Ricky Ross.

U.S. agricultural policymakers have long relied on the world marketplace to serve a diverse agenda–including management of the domestic farm economy, promotion of geopolitical interests, and most prominently, bolstering exports.

U.S. drug policy is based on a punitive logic of deterrence that assumes that targeting the drug supply through aggressive law enforcement will deter drug use by making drugs scarcer, more expensive, and riskier to buy.

The conventional arms trade continues to bedevil the international system. Although the world arms trade continues to decline in dollar value, the major arms supplying states have redoubled their efforts to export their weapons overseas.

Washington’s goals in the Middle East involve support for Israel, assuring oil flow, and ensuring political stability for economic growth.

Multilateral debt, the result of lending by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), is contributing to the economic and social crisis that is overtaking many Low Income Countries (LICs).

With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet threat, NATO must find new rationales for its existence.

When Saddam Hussein ordered his tanks and more than 40,000 troops into the Kurdish city of Irbil on August 31, 1996, he offered President Clinton an apparent “win-win,” election-season opportunity.