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The global financial crisis is too pressing for the next administration to wait until January to address. President-elect Obama must re-assess the international financial infrastructure, and decide whether an institutional solution would be more effective than the current ad hoc collaboration.
A substantial majority of the audience at the first of the new series of Doha Debates was convinced that progress towards democracy in the Arab world has come to a halt. An audience of nearly 350 people from states throughout the Middle East voted 64 percent in favour of the motion which heard deep concerns that democracy was not only at a standstill but had regressed from a more liberal era.
The United States is witnessing, at least temporarily, the collapse of effective liquidity for the complex financial instruments that have long been used to conduct transactions. But the real crisis is a Keynesian downward spiral, whereby declining consumption and declining investment reinforce each other.
While the attacks of September 11, 2001 scarred the U.S. deeply, the current financial crisis may prove to have more lasting ramifications. Historians are more likely to see the economic crisis as a true global watershed: as the era of pure neoliberal economics abruptly ends, the U.S. must now decide whether to embrace a new American capitalism and accept greater government involvement.
As the U.S. government steps in to rescue the financial system, Latin American leaders are using the crisis to justify their own leftist policies, claiming the United States' free-market approach has collapsed. But some U.S. scholars see a middle ground; future regulation may help guide markets on the national and even the global stage, without completely departing from the free market system.
Although much of the world is relying on an American economic recovery to fend off a global recession, China has proven that it can support its own growth.
Russia’s new strength and its waning dependence on Western financial institutions help explain the Kremlin’s rejection of a unipolar world dominated by the United States. Russia’s actions in Georgia follow through on what Putin has been saying for years–Russia will not allow Georgia or Ukraine to become a member of NATO.
President Bush’s announcement that 8,000 troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by February 2009 reflects the extreme fragility of the current situation, and a recognition that the gains made to date could quickly unravel. Jessica Mathews discusses the reasons for and consequences of the withdrawal timetable.
Carnegie's Michele Dunne discusses the progress in U.S.-Libyan relations and the events that led to Secretary Rice's visit to Libya, the first for a U.S. Secretary of State since 1953.
Climate change is one of the most pressing threats the next president will face. While the current debate focuses on alternatives to oil, the next administration must recognize that the key priority is demand management.