At some point Putin and Medvedev will have to decide between giving priority to the survival of the current system and accepting Russia's steady marginalization, or supporting modernization by opening up the system and putting its survival at risk.
On a global stage, losers of the decade include the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, who are suffering from violence, poverty, and extremism. Global winners include Google, J.K. Rowling, and Hugo Chavez, who has proven more resilient than expected in surviving both his opponents and his own misdeeds.
Before China can move from being a great power to a superpower, it will have to overcome a number of economic, political, environmental, and regional challenges, from low per capita income and an aging and primarily rural population to the threat of ethnic secessionism.
Whoever wins the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine must lead a country divided by identity issues and hit hard by the global financial meltdown, while maintaining a delicate balance between Western integration and Eastern cultural roots and affinities.
While China's role in global trade is continuing to grow, the dollar, not the yuan or the euro, will remain the world’s leading reserve currency for the foreseeable future.
President Obama has had some major accomplishments in the past year, but serious challenges still lay ahead: strengthening the nonproliferation regime, climate change, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, and Afghanistan.
As the war in Afghanistan begins to enter a new phase, it is important to reexamine some of the premises of U.S. policy in the Central Asian region and to consider whether the conditions in the region have changed in the last decade.
Although Prime Minister Putin’s eighth annual call-in show was much livelier than the typical state television coverage of the government’s public policy, it will take much more than a yearly show to establish a genuine two-way dialogue between the government and the people.
While the global recession has benefited China’s international standing, the rise of China should not be overestimated, as the country continues to face the challenges of economic rebalancing, nonperforming loans, and domestic instability.
As Asian countries seek to maintain trade advantage by manipulating their currencies, the United States and Europe, who have little room to devalue, may respond with protectionist measures that will hurt global trade.























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