Showing results by author "Gideon Rose" in All Categories

In 1991, the United States Army trounced the Iraqi army in battle only to stumble blindly into postwar turmoil. Then in 2003 the United States did it again. How could this happen? How could the strongest power in modern history fight two wars against the same opponent in just over a decade, win lightning victories both times, and yet still be woefully unprepared for the aftermath? Because Americans always forget the political aspects of war.

How should one judge a president’s handling of foreign policy?

When is an anticorruption campaign not just an anticorruption campaign? When it might be a harbinger of a regime’s approaching developmental crisis.

In September 2015, General Martin Dempsey retired from the US Army after more than four decades in uniform. Commissioned as an armor officer following his graduation from West Point, he served in both the Gulf War and the Iraq war and eventually rose to become chief of staff of the US Army and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He spoke with Foreign Affairs’ editor, Gideon Rose, in June.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, one question has been on the mind of every American: "How did this happen?" Foreign Affairs' editor and managing editor, James Hoge, Jr. and Gideon Rose, have brought together an impressive list of experts to answer this question in all its critical aspects: the motives and actions of the terrorists, the status of our military, the current and historical context of the Middle East, airport security, biological threats, and more.

Everybody knows that racial tensions have been at the center of American political debate in recent months, but the story of racial and ethnic division is actually a global one, with a long and tortured history.

From the cotton gin and the steam engine to electricity and the transistor, new technologies have been revolutionizing the world for centuries, transforming life and labor and enabling an extraordinary flourishing of human development. Now some argue that advances in automation and artificial intelligence are causing us to take yet another world-historical leap into the unknown.

Over the past several years, the shale revolution has upended oil and gas markets in the United States and the world at large. At first, shale development was dismissed as unworkable, then it was minimized as unsustainable. Now, having helped drive a massive drop in the global price of oil, it is hailed as an economic and geopolitical game changer. But shale isn’t the only energy story of interest, nor even the only potentially revolutionary one.

CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Director Richard Betts, RAND Senior Political Scientist Rick Brennan, Georgetown Professor Daniel Byman and Brookings Fellow Jeremy Shaprio, and former U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Peter Tomsen debate the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Entrepreneurs drive innovation and dynamism, which in turn drive growth. So our lead package explores entrepreneurialism today - what it involves, what it accomplishes, and what can be done to spur and profit from it.