Foreign affairs 2017 09-10

Recent Books meanors, and so on. After two decades riveting immediacy. De-Stalinization of close study, a good deal of it con- unleashed forces that the regime could ducted in courtrooms, she paints an not bear, and which it had crushed by authoritative picture of how the law the end of 1956. But the changes that works for ordinary Russians and what started that year forever marked a they think of it. Russians normally try generation, one that would continue to resolve their problems out of court. to chip away at the Soviet system and But when they do seek legal recourse— that would ultimately bring it down. and they increasingly do—they do so without misgivings. Hendley provides Russia: The Story of War a ine example of how Russian reality BY GREGORY CARLETON. Harvard is often much more complicated than University Press, 2017, 304 pp. those on the outside believe. Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring It is common for histories of Russia to BY KATHLEEN E. SMITH. Harvard stress how much the state and society University Press, 2017, 448 pp. have been subordinated over the centu- ries to the military enterprise. Carleton Nineteen ifty-six was an important does not contradict that judgment but year in Russian history, not because a turns it around, arguing that war is war or a revolution began that year but central to Russia’s historical identity: because that is when Soviet Premier indeed, since the thirteenth century, Nikita Khrushchev gave a speech to a Russia’s capital, Moscow, has been a Communist Party congress in which battleield in every century except one he unmasked the monstrous crimes and (the eighteenth). Deeply etched into mistakes of his predecessor, Joseph the Russian mind is the aggrieved sense Stalin. The content of the “secret that the country’s fate has been to be speech,” the motivations behind it, civilization’s savior—aggrieved because and in broad terms the waves it cre- others, rather than appreciating Russia’s ated are all familiar. But until this noble role, have usually viewed the book, the intricate and fraught ways country as aggressive and barbarous. that the confession played out in the Carleton explores elements of Russian Soviet Union were not. Smith proceeds self-image as they appear not only in month by month, choosing a theme oicial narratives but also in literature for each: for March, the disorientation and ilm: the endurance and bravery of of the party faithful and their awkward the solitary soldier, a people rising to efort to explain how Stalin’s abuses could defend the Motherland, the ever-present have happened; for April, the impeded threat of war and the unspeakable toll process of rehabilitating Stalin’s victims; it takes. To understand Russia in the for May, the struggle of prison camp Putin era, Carleton argues in this spare, victims to regain normal lives. The original book, one must recognize the thoroughness with which she introduces mental and emotional outlook that her characters lends the account a near-constant war has produced. September/October 2017 189

Recent Books Middle East The Islamic Enlightenment: The Struggle John Waterbury Between Faith and Reason, 1798 to Modern Times BY CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE. Liveright, 2017, 432 pp. Salai-Jihadism: The History of an Idea De Bellaigue is an erudite journalist BY SHIRAZ MAHER. Oxford and historian who takes on a vast University Press, 2016, 256 pp. subject: the Middle East’s incomplete coming to terms with the Enlighten- In the recent lood of accounts of ment. His book tells a sweeping story radical Islam, this one stands out. of how the three great centers of Middle Maher’s compelling exploration of Eastern society and religion—Cairo, Salai jihadism achieves a level of clarity Istanbul, and Tehran—have ridden a that perhaps could be produced only by roller coaster in dealing with the West, someone who, like Maher, once adhered and he peppers his tale with marvelous to that strain of thought. The book is portraits of leaders, thinkers, and activ- exceptional also in its focus on theol- ists. De Bellaigue blurs the plot a bit ogy: although Maher is a specialist in by using terms such as “Enlightenment,” jihadist radicalization, he dwells little “modernity,” and “liberal values” inter- on jihadists’ motivations, paying much changeably. But he makes a strong case more attention to their beliefs. Salai that, contrary to the conventional wis- jihadism rests on ive doctrinal building dom, the Middle East has not sufered blocks that together create a coherent from intellectual torpor but in fact often and consistent ideology: jihad (holy war), creatively incorporated and developed tawhid (the oneness of God), hakimiyya many ideas that originated in the West. (true Islamic government), al-wala wal- He also describes, however, a reactionary bara (loyalty to divine truth and disavowal “counter-Enlightenment” that is now of untruth and polytheism), and takir more powerful than ever and whose (the naming of disbelievers). (There origins he locates in the 1928 founding are some partially irreconcilable tenets, of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. however, when it comes to the killing of De Bellaigue posits that the intellec- innocents.) This extremist creed relects tual history of the region has been too core Islamic beliefs. But the contempo- often told by “triumphalist” Western rary appeal and spread of Salai jihad- historians and “renegade” Muslims who ism have been most profoundly shaped have turned on their religion. But his by the civil war in Algeria in the 1990s, references suggest otherwise, and his the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and own arguments echo those of advocates the ongoing turmoil in Afghanistan. of “defensive modernization,” who in The unending conlict in Syria will the 1950s and 1960s argued that the lead to the further reinement and main problem facing the Middle East growth of this form of radicalism, and was how to absorb the military and not to its demise. engineering prowess imported from an aggressive West. 190 f o r e i g n af fai r s

Recent Books False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and country’s presidency and a parliamentary Violence in the New Middle East plurality in Egypt’s irst free elections BY STEVEN A. COOK. Oxford in decades. Trager chronicles the 891 University Press, 2017, 360 pp. days that followed at a level of detail that only Egyptoholics like me might “The Middle East looks the way it does appreciate. Trager asks a very big ques- because the conluence of uprisings (not tion and delivers an unequivocal answer: revolutions), institutions or the lack of Are the Brotherhood and its ofshoots them, and the search for identity and the face of moderate Islam, capable of authenticity have conspired to thwart” sharing power in a democratic, pluralis- the region’s dreams of democracy. So tic system, or is the group a totalitarian argues Cook, a seasoned analyst of the entity that tolerates no internal debate Middle East, in this highly readable, about its mission of bringing Islamic sometimes chatty, and ultimately very government to Egypt and the world? pessimistic book. All four of the countries Trager believes the totalitarian face is he examines—Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and real, and the moderation mainly a mask. Turkey—have fallen victim to unresolved For that reason, he argues, the eforts identity crises and “sticky institutions” of the Obama administration to engage that refuse to reform. Even in Tunisia, with the presidency of Mohamed Morsi, often held up as the sole success story of a former Brotherhood leader, were mis- the mostly failed Arab revolts of 2010–11, guided and ultimately unproductive, progress has been precarious. The factors although Trager notes that there were that fueled those movements and the no good alternatives. But if Trager is large protests that erupted in Istanbul in right, and if political Islam is here to 2013 will persist for at least a generation. stay, the Egyptian story has bleak The United States, Cook argues, had little implications for the future of the to do with the uprisings and could not Muslim world. have done much to afect their outcomes; it is hubris to think otherwise. But Cook Fractured Lands: How the Arab World suggests, somewhat forlornly, that Wash- Came Apart ington can still play the long game, using BY SCOT T ANDERSON. Anchor foreign aid to foster social change that may Books, 2017, 240 pp. alter political realities far down the road. Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Anderson believes that beginning with Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003— BY ERIC TRAGER. Georgetown and despite the brief promise ofered University Press, 2016, 296 pp. by the popular revolts of 2010–11—the Arab world started a steady descent into Trager’s book is based on extensive wars over identity, as deined by religion, interviews with senior and midlevel sect, ethnicity, and tribe. Anderson, a leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brother- veteran journalist, uses portraits of hood, which in 2012 captured the three Arab men, two Arab women, and a Kurdish man to illustrate this process September/October 2017 191

Recent Books in personalized terms. He doesn’t quite topic, presenting a literary culture more pull it of, but the stories are compel- complex, cosmopolitan, and profound ling and well told, depicting jarring life than even many specialists might realize. choices in the face of horrifying circum- The book presents a wealth of detail stances. The resurgent “primordialism” about personalities and events through- that Anderson identiies is captured by out the Chinese-speaking world and an Iraqi Kurd he meets who wants to connects them to cultural forms ranging raze homes in his village so that their from poetry, iction, and opera to pop former occupants can never try to reclaim songs, cartoons, photographs, and ilm. them. Sentiments such as that one have It challenges much of the received wisdom led some observers to conclude that only about how literary history should be polities built on primordialism can survive written, refutes the cliché that Chinese in the region. Anderson doesn’t take a literature in the modern and contem- position on that question. One problem porary periods has been derivative and with Anderson’s overall argument is mediocre, and opens up inspiring pros- that by using the invasion of Iraq as a pects for future scholarship. kickof, it neglects the 50-year Sudanese civil war, the Lebanese civil war, the Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives Iran-Iraq War, and three Arab-Israeli BY SUNIL KHILNANI. Farrar, Straus wars, all of which were steeped in the and Giroux, 2016, 464 pp. same kind of primordialism that Anderson laments in today’s Middle East. With 50 biographical sketches, Khilnani builds a mosaic of India’s history since Asia and Paciic the time of the Buddha, paying less attention to the distant past and more Andrew J. Nathan to the last couple of centuries. Some of the subjects, such Mohandas Gandhi A New Literary History of Modern China and the poet Rabindranath Tagore, are familiar, whereas many others—seers, EDITED BY DAVID DER-WEI WANG. rulers, slaves, poets, artists, yogis, engi- neers, and entrepreneurs—will be new Harvard University Press, 2017, 1,032 pp. to most non-Indian readers. As the stories accumulate, they bring into One hundred and forty-three focus the diversity as well as the inter- authors contributed 161 short connectedness of Indian society, the chapters to this monumental strictness of social hierarchies along survey of modern Chinese literature in with the power of individuality, the all its forms, from the late eighteenth intensity of religious commitment and century to the present. Yet the book reads the clash of diferent faiths, the gradual like the work of a single versatile author: construction of a sense of nationhood vivid, probing, and occasionally playful. and the long struggle for independence. It raises to a new level the knowledge In almost every sketch, Khilnani shows available in English about this vast how the past has been remade to serve 192 f o r e i g n a f fa i r s

present-day agendas. The book reads like the bbc radio series from which it was adapted: punchy, personal, and quick moving, creating an incentive to learn more. Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations BY DEAN CHENG. Praeger, 2016, 290 pp. As the Internet and social media have surged in Chinese civilian life since the 1990s, communications technology has also taken an important place in Chinese war planning. The Chinese term for cyber- enabled warfare is “war under conditions of informatization.” Cheng expertly interprets the wealth of data available in Chinese-language open sources on what this means in practice, including not only the use of technology to gather battleield intelligence, coordinate joint operations by diferent military arms, and assist in targeting but also its use to inluence public attitudes in target countries, conduct espionage, and gain access to adversaries’ military and civilian cyber-infrastructures. The boundary is also blurring between external warfare and internal control. As technology advances, information warfare becomes as all-encompassing as information itself. When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics BY MILAN VAISHNAV. Yale University Press, 2017, 440 pp. India is one of many democracies, past and present, where voters do not “throw the bums out” but instead pack their state 193

Recent Books and national legislatures with people national consensus remains elusive, the who have been charged with (if not center of public discourse on this subject always convicted of) serious, sometimes has moved to the right, even if not all violent crimes. The money such repro- the way to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bates can muster helps them gain oice, preferred stance of revising the “peace but Vaishnav argues that the two real constitution.” So-called conservative enablers are ethnic rivalries and weak realists have taken over the mainstream institutions. When courts and adminis- in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, trative agencies don’t work, voters in new parties have emerged to the ldp’s ethnic or religious communities may right, the main opposition parties on rationally prefer representatives who the left have become more pragmatic can protect their interests by whatever about security issues, and the military means necessary, which allows criminal- has gained greater inluence. Signs of the minded musclemen to shift from merely resulting “security renaissance” include supporting candidates to running for Japan’s acquisition of sophisticated new oice themselves. Vaishnav makes a ships and antimissile systems, the re- convincing case by telling tales from the deployment of Japanese forces to defend campaign trail, analyzing the conditions the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, that breed crime and corruption, and strengthened military cooperation with probing survey data that reveal that the United States, an embrace of a larger voters who are particularly focused on role in collective defense beyond East their ethnic identities are more willing Asia (including in the Middle East), and than others to vote for candidates charged outreach to regional neighbors such as with crimes. His study reinforces the Australia, India, and Vietnam. Japan is growing consensus that healthy democ- not reverting to militarism, but it has racies require strong institutions not become a more formidable security actor. only of accountability (such as elections) but also of governance, and he concludes North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: with a robust set of recommendations Entering the New Era of Deterrence for how to clean up Indian politics. EDITED BY SUNG CHULL KIM AND Japan’s Security Renaissance: New Policies and Politics for the Twenty-irst Century MICHAEL D. COHEN. Georgetown BY ANDREW L. OROS. Columbia University Press, 2017, 240 pp. University Press, 2017, 320 pp. Although the United States insists that Over the past decade, intensifying North Korea must give up its nuclear Chinese and North Korean threats to weapons, most analysts agree that won’t Japan have accelerated a long-brewing happen. Nor is the regime in Pyongyang shift in what Oros calls Japan’s “security likely to solve the problem by collapsing. identity,” from a country that can never A military attack to end North Korea’s use force to one that must play a larger nuclear program is close to unthinkable role in defending itself. Although a because of the huge cost it would impose on South Korea, which would face imme- diate retaliation from the North. What 194 f o r e i g n af fai r s

Recent Books remains as the most likely scenario, this complexity as “a series of homelands” for book’s contributors argue, is nuclear more than 50 distinct ethnic groups that deterrence. Although deterrence theory forged a common identity as Vietnamese is highly developed, few have discussed only in the last couple of centuries and how it may apply to this case. The con- that even now only partially adhere to tributors warn that deterrence between that identity. The territory was divided Washington and Pyongyang may be less and redivided by successive chiefdoms stable than it was between Washington and kingdoms; invaders came and went. and Moscow during the Cold War. North Languages and religions were formed Korea would likely take advantage of the and reformed by migration, trade, and standof to proliferate nuclear technology conquest. Although the war against the and to increase its nonnuclear provoca- United States is an important part of tions, and the lack of communication Vietnam’s story, it takes its place in the between the two sides would generate a broad sweep of history as just one episode higher risk of escalation than existed in a long series of struggles that people during the Cold War. Because a nuclear have waged over this piece of land. strike on North Korea would damage China, fear of Beijing’s response would Africa make U.S. resolve less credible. Japan and South Korea might not trust the United Nicolas van de Walle States to protect them to the same degree that Washington’s European allies did, Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military and they could go nuclear themselves. Leaders and Electoral Politics Deterrence may be the least worst option for dealing with a nuclear-armed North EDITED BY ANDERS THEMNER. Korea, but it would be no panacea. Zed Books, 2017, 264 pp. Viet Nam: A History From Earliest Times to the Present In a number of African countries, BY BEN KIERNAN. Oxford University civil conlicts have ended with Press, 2017, 656 pp. awkward transitions from military rule to civilian leadership. Regular multi- This ambitious survey is pathbreaking party elections have become the norm not only in its chronological scope (from in most of these countries, leaving former prehistory to the present) and the breadth guerrilla leaders, military oicers, and of its sources but also in its thematic reach. other assorted “big men” with little Kiernan explores Vietnam’s ecological choice but to put away their guns and diversity, from mountains to lowlands begin second careers as politicians, to coastal regions; the country’s envi- asking citizens for votes. This collection ronmental changes and their efects on of essays assesses how this phenomenon Vietnamese society; Vietnam’s evolving has shaped African democracy. A prob- literary genres; and the changing role of ing essay discusses the career of Rwandan its women. He emphasizes Vietnam’s President Paul Kagame and makes clear September/October 2017 195

Recent Books that the strategic skills he developed as Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in a guerrilla commander have helped him Europe’s Scramble for Africa entrench himself as a strongman ruler. BY STEVEN PRESS. Harvard Other informative chapters proile less University Press, 2017, 384 pp. well-known igures, such as João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira of Guinea-Bissau, Afonso Decolonization: A Short History Dhlakama of Mozambique, and Riek Machar of South Sudan. The book’s main BY JAN C. JANSEN AND JÜRGEN takeaway is that the role of such men in postconlict democracies remains gener- OSTERHAMMEL. Princeton ally negative, in part because once in University Press, 2017, 272 pp. power, they tend to adopt approaches anchored in their pasts. These two irst-rate books respectively examine the beginning and the end of The African Union: The First Ten Years the colonial enterprise in Africa. Press’ BY OMAR ALIEU TOURAY. Rowman book details the events leading up to the & Littleield, 2016, 260 pp. Berlin conference of 1884–85, at which the European powers carved up the African The African Union emerged in 2001 as continent and divided it among them- a replacement for the dysfunctional selves. The book expertly steers through Organization of African Unity. With its fairly familiar stories of interstate compe- 55 members, the au is the premier inter- tition and of adventurers such as Henry governmental organization on the conti- Morton Stanley, whose peregrinations nent. Touray’s balanced survey of its record in the Congo River basin provided the during its irst ten years argues that the basis for King Leopold II of Belgium’s au hasn’t made much more progress than personal claim to the vast territory. (Press the oau achieved in realizing the long- also relates the less familiar tale of how standing pan-African aspirations of its Leopold irst sought to establish a iefdom architects, who hoped to promote eco- in Borneo before turning to central Africa.) nomic integration and improve national Press’ originality lies in adding a thorough governance. Both organizations have analysis of the private companies, typi- failed in part because their member cally chartered or at least encouraged by governments have treated them as clubs European governments, that paved the for heads of state and in part because of way for colonization. In many instances, a chronic lack of resources. Compared agents working on behalf of private irms with the oau, however, the au has played made deals with local traditional chiefs a much more productive role in interna- and kings in the African interior, which tional peacekeeping operations, where it later formed the basis for the legal claims has proved useful to both African countries to territory that European states made and Western governments. Touray also during the Berlin conference. argues convincingly that the au has helped change norms in the region on issues such Jansen and Osterhammel have written as the legitimacy of military rule. a concise history of the end of the colonial enterprise, analyzing the political and economic dynamics of decolonization and its implications for Africa and the 196 f o r e i g n af fai r s

Recent Books Caribbean. Jansen and Osterhammel Isaias Afwerki, run the country with an usefully distinguish between the nation- iron grip. Afwerki’s rule combines alist and the anticolonial ideologies that old-fashioned authoritarian repression started to emerge prior to World War II. (inspired by Maoist doctrines) with African and Caribbean intellectuals and unrestrained corruption: the handful of elites who protested against colonial proitable businesses in the country are rule often initially sought only limited controlled by regime cronies—with the reforms, well short of independence; an help of banks in nearby Dubai, according array of grievances typically competed to Plaut. Because the regime has never with nationalist motivations. The emer- conducted a real census, keeps no oicial gence of a cohesive nationalist anticolo- economic statistics, and refuses to publish nialism came only late in the struggle a national budget, analysts have been and remained partial in many colonies left to merely guess at the extent of the of the region. Jansen and Osterhammel government’s economic malpractice. nicely contrast the clear break with Plaut has written a well-informed and colonialism represented by political useful introduction to the country. He independence with the fuzzier continu- argues that the long-standing border ity that has characterized economic dispute with Ethiopia is sustained by relations between ex-colonies and their Afwerki’s growing paranoia but that former rulers. Finally, the book shows the Ethiopians have also helped keep that, although important intellectual the conlict going for their own pur- and political movements in the colonies poses, even though international law is had long advocated a loosening of ties pretty clearly on Eritrea’s side.∂ for a combination of ideological and pragmatic reasons, it was the Cold War competition between the West and the Soviet bloc that really made decoloni- zation inevitable, thanks to communist opposition to colonialism and to West- ern fears that nationalist groups in the colonies would turn to the Soviet Union for support. Understanding Eritrea: Inside Africa’s Most Repressive State BY MARTIN PLAUT. Oxford University Press, 2017, 264 pp. Since gaining its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a long and bitter war, Eritrea has retreated further and further into itself. A secretive, narrow- minded elite helps the president for life, September/October 2017 197

Return to Table of Contents Letters to the examining its limitations is not the same Editor as dismissing it. And Kausikan himself then acquits me of his own charge by DISORDER UNDER HEAVEN reprinting my own words to the efect that asean never sought to become an To the Editor: Asian variant of the eu or a dominant I appreciate Bilahari Kausikan’s review political player. of my book The End of the Asian Century Third, Kausikan makes grander claims (“Asia in the Trump Era,” May/June 2017). for my “concentric triangles” initiative He is correct to point out my focus on than I do. I never assert that it should the economic, political, and security risks become a new regional security archi- that may derail Asia’s future stability. But tecture or that it should replace the his misinterpretation of my argument current U.S. hub-and-spoke alliance at several points, although not fatal to system. Rather, I argue that Washing- an understanding the book, gives a ton should update its current strategy misleading impression of some of its and have a clearer objective for engag- more signiicant claims. ing on a multilateral basis with allies and partners alike, linking them in an First, Kausikan writes that I misread endeavor to create more durable bonds history by asserting that Asia never of trust and cooperative activity so as to recovered politically from the fall of promote order and commonly accepted the last stable political order, the Qing rules of behavior. dynasty, in 1911, and that I sufer from “nostalgia for the traditional Chinese Finally, Kausikan writes that “it is order.” But to identify a regional political delusional to think that the Chinese vacuum after 1911 is far from indulging Communist Party” would interpret in nostalgia for a sclerotic, premodern U.S. attempts to promote liberalization dynastic system; rather, it is an acknowl- around the region, including in China, edgment of the failure of any successor “as anything but a blatant attempt to state to create a system, ritual-based or undermine its rule.” I make that very otherwise, that most regional players claim myself, but argue that the United interpret as legitimate and in which States should return, in part, to a values- they willingly participate. based diplomacy, to help create a robust liberal community of interests. Engaging Second, Kausikan claims that I with the Chinese people, when possible, dismiss the Association of Southeast is part of that approach, and it is no less Asian Nations and initiatives such as legitimate for being opposed by Beijing. the East Asia Summit as “insuiciently ambitious” in replacing the Qing order. michael auslin Actually, I devote extensive space to asean but never claim that it was designed to Williams-Griis Research Fellow in replace the Qing order; moreover, Contemporary Asia, Hoover Institution, Stanford University Kausikan replies: I thank Michael Auslin for his attempt to clarify his arguments. But they still 198 f o r e i g n af fai r s

Letters to the Editor leave me puzzled about what he con- he writes, “At its best, the concentric siders a desirable East Asian order. triangles strategy will encourage Beijing to adapt its policies around accepted He writes in The End of the Asian rules and norms.” That is a desirable Century that “in some ways, Asia has outcome, but it is also surely a grand never recovered from the fall of the claim. Auslin argues that his design Last Emperor, the Qing ruler Puyi, in will give the United States a “clearer 1911 during the Chinese Revolution.” objective.” Maybe. But if it does, it Later, he argues that the Association will be one that increases the risks of Southeast Asian Nations could not rather than reduces them, particularly “ever be a replacement for the last if coupled with, as he advocates, a stable political order in Asia, the Qing greater “commitment to reaching out Empire.” Such statements certainly to ordinary Chinese” to “provide an suggest nostalgia. If that was not his insight into democratic thinking, to intent, he should have resisted using encourage those voices in China strug- historical references that convey an air gling for civil society, and to let them of erudition but get the facts wrong. know they are not alone.” In fact, the “last stable political order To think that China would not regard in Asia” was the U.S.-led one. Because such actions as attempts at regime change that system is no longer sustainable in and that they would not destabilize the its present form, the issue that seizes region is delusional.∂ East Asia is how—or whether—it can maintain peace and prosperity by recon- ciling the existing order with China’s legitimate ambitions. Auslin correctly notes that “asean’s primary goal has always been to forge closer ties among its own members.” But most of his discussion of asean betrays a lack of understanding of the practical realities of East Asian diplo- macy. This is evident from his refer- ences to the eu and nato, which he apparently considers desirable models. The issues are complex, but, in short, it is pointless to criticize a cow for being an imperfect horse. Auslin argues that I make “grander claims” for his “concentric triangles” initiative than he does. But in his book, Foreign Afairs (ISSN 00157120), September/October 2017, Volume 96, Number 5. Published six times annually (January, March, May, July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at additional mailing oices. postmaster: Send address changes to Foreign Afairs, P.O. Box 60001, Tampa, FL 33662-0001. From time to time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe will be of interest. If you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Tampa, FL, address indicated above. September/October 2017 199

A Major Climate Setback? Foreign Afairs Brain Trust We asked dozens of experts whether they agreed or disagreed that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement will have a signiicant negative impact on global eforts to combat climate change. The results from those who responded are below: Agree Disagree “Because the Paris agree- “The challenges in ment is quite limited with decarbonizing a growing regard to targets, time- global economy that is tables, and compliance, still more than 80 percent the link between ratifying dependent on fossil the agreement and actual fuels—and with several outcomes on emissions, adaptation, and billion people still lacking decent energy inance is primarily symbolic. That said, services—transcend a single presidency, symbols matter.” even this one.” AMANDA H. LYNCH is Professor of ANDREW REVKIN is Senior Reporter for Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Climate and Related Issues at ProPublica. Sciences at Brown University. See the full responses at ForeignAfairs.com/ParisWithdrawal