Foreign Policy - #169 November-December 2008

Google to Bono—are autonomous global players T H E M A R K E T P L A C E O F I D E A S on the front lines of international affairs. Who In the United States, it is popular to declare war on holds sway over the decisions made in a world a problem. So, for example, American political lead- more networked than heirarchical? ers, whether liberal or conservative, consistently Capitalism decisively beat socialism. But it has appeal for a “war of ideas” to defeat international now split into distinctive and competing forms, with terrorism. The metaphor is crisp, actionable, and governments owning and directing large parts of the morally compelling. It’s also wrong. Ideas don’t economy in some of the most critical states and sec- fight wars, and any policy that follows from that for- tors. Take energy—where, in a radical reversal from mulation won’t work. Ideas don’t go to combat; just 15 years ago, national oil companies now own they vie for the commitment of individuals in an more than three quarters of the world’s known oil arena that is less like a battlefield and more like a reserves. Take finance—a supposed pillar of Ameri- marketplace. The United States is facing a global can strength, now bailed out and backstopped by U.S. competition of ideas, and the rules of engagement are government debt. Has the market come to need the much closer to those set out by Milton Friedman state as much as the state needs the market? than Carl von Clausewitz. Democracy has brought freer societies. But is it Who dominates in such a marketplace? To start, as effective in efficiently creating just and peaceful markets are places where leaders need followers ones? That China, a nondemocratic state, has had the more than the other way around. Presumptive lead- greatest success meeting the basic human needs of its ers don’t issue orders; they make offers. Eventually, people and pulling them out of poverty in the past 20 years speaks volumes to this point. It is now hardly an The U.S. must reenter the competition to answer the most acceptance of repression to recognize the simple fact basic questions about how the world should be ordered. that in many societies polit- ical legitimacy is a function of performance, not just process. it is the followers who decide whose leadership they And while the most raw and visceral expressions find most attractive at that moment. Market lead- of anti-Americanism may very well subside when the ers don’t depend heavily on private deals and sub- Bush administration leaves office, the “be like us” era terfuge to hold their bargains in place; there’s too (about which some Americans will always wax nos- much transparency to offer inconsistent options to talgic) will never return. Modernization did not bring different constituencies. And market leaders don’t homogenization; culture and identity are powerful, ever relax or lose their edge because they know that enduring forces between and within societies. their competitors will be relentless. The foreign-policy community isn’t blind to these Put simply: In a marketplace of ideas, we offer questions—at least not when they are asked one at and they choose. One does not win a market- a time. In fact, the notion that each Big Idea is sub- place; one outcompetes for market share. And it ject to debate has become so mainstream that most doesn’t last unless you make it last. supposedly new contributions to the debate are real- It’s worth asking why it’s so hard for the Unit- ly just attempts to state more eloquently what are by ed States, a country that understands market com- now familiar arguments. But the challenges to the five petition in so many other respects, to countenance Big Ideas of the 20th century—when taken togeth- a global competition of ideas. It would appear that, er—create a different and much more difficult when it comes to international issues, the United reality. The United States has not confronted, either States prefers not to acknowledge it competes on an intellectually or politically, the profound consequences even playing field with others. of that reality. The 21st century will not be an ideo- It took almost the entire decade of the 1980s for logical rerun of the past 100 years. The United States the American economic and business elite to come must reenter the competition to answer the most to grips with what it meant to compete with Japan, fundamental questions about how the 21st-century in particular when it seemed to play the capitalism world should be ordered. Indeed, it has already and trade game by a different set of rules. For the begun. Welcome to the new age of ideology. United States, it was a long and hard learning curve, N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 45

[ ]America’s Hard Sell which along the way included many dysfunctional None of these alternatives is simply a retrograde policies and self-inflicted wounds through import version of liberalism, and none of them depends on quotas, talk of trade wars, and near panic over pur- naiveté or false consciousness on the part of those chases by Japanese investors of iconic real estate in who hold them. They are vibrant competitors in a New York and California. There was even a small global marketplace. avalanche of books demanding that the Japanese change their business practices, laws, and culture so that the competition would be more “fair”—that is, T H E N E W E R A H A S A R R I V E D played according to Washington’s rules. It would be best for the United States to get serious It took the decade of the 1990s to come to grips about how to compete most effectively in the bub- with similar kinds of geopolitical competition. Stuck bling, energetic, creative, and occasionally infuriat- for an embarrassingly long period in a peculiar ing marketplace of ideas that is contemporary glob- debate about the dynamics of “unipolarity,” Amer- al politics. To gain a solid footing, there are three ican policymakers fundamentally overestimated U.S. central rules that must be understood: control over international events. More important, they underestimated the capabilities and creativity 1) Ideology is now the most important, yet most of those whose interests really were at odds with uncertain and fastest-changing, component of their own. Lesser, even nonstate, powers might not national power. have been able to confront the United States direct- ly, but they had obvious alternatives: to go nuclear, The new age of ideology remains an age of to go underground, to bypass American power with power. Consider, though, where the score card of their own initiatives, to disrupt whatever they could power can change most significantly. Military and in the U.S.-led plan for the world. Perhaps if the Unit- economic power are crucial, but they are also largely ed States recognized the reality of the competitive predictable. Even after Iraq and the current finan- environment in which we live—and thus under- cial crisis, the United States’ strengths in both areas stood the creative options others invent as they will only be somewhat eroded. These are “slow- develop their strategies for competing—it would burn” phenomena. But the ideological components have been easier, for example, for Washington to of power can change much more radically. The have seen the “red lights” flashing around al Qaeda in the summer of 2001. Everyone competes. Outside the United States, people no longer believe that Today, they compete around ideas as much as or more the alternative to Washington-led order is chaos. than anything else. The notion of a single sustain- able model for national success—the American rate of change is faster for ideology because the bar- model—does not resonate with the majority of peo- riers to entry are so much lower. The costs of, say, ple on this planet. The 300 million Chinese who lift- building a navy are tremendous while the costs of ed themselves out of poverty in a single generation disseminating a new set of ideas about how the have a different narrative, one that emphasizes state world works are now trivial. control of economic growth at the expense of polit- In this fast-paced and unpredictable setting, the ical freedoms. The Russians subscribe to a narrative five Big Ideas of American ideology were never of “sovereign democracy,” which says an efficient immutable. Outside the United States, people no autocrat can bring economic recovery, stability, longer believe that the alternative to Washington-led basic security, and pride to a nation much more order is chaos. State-led economies that consciously quickly and effectively than any rulebound institu- rid themselves of democratic freedom are no longer tion. The hundreds of millions in Africa, Latin Amer- assumed incapable of producing great wealth. ica, and parts of Asia who experimented with free- Charismatic autocrats are no longer necessarily dom, democracy, and free enterprise but are poorer, believed to be corrupt and dysfunctional. The sicker, and more likely to die in violent conflict than optimal model for a just society, one that offers they were 30 years ago have their own narratives. dignity to people, is no longer synonymous with 46 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

American democracy. The most fundamental questions of what counts for a legitimate order, progress, human dignity, and meaning are open—and the rest of the world has no fear about experimenting with alternatives. 2) Technology massive- ly multiplies soft power—particularly video technology, and particularly in the hands of nonstate actors. The new market- 3) Each player represents a single ideology, so place of ideas is pow- “domestic values” and “international values” must ered by technology. be consistent. One of the most cru- cial changes is that The new marketplace of ideas is not bound by governments and other borders. In the past, foreign-policymakers typically “official” sources of brushed off concerns that contradictory policies information have lost would be seen as hypocritical because pragmatic their role as key bro- decision-making warranted this necessary but man- kers of credibility. The ageable cost. However, a presumptive leader can no Internet radically longer claim the legitimacy of one principle or policy boosts soft-power capability, while distributing for people on one side of a border, while denying those capabilities more broadly. The power and the same to others on the other side. Everything is distinction of a government’s voice is lost in the visible to everyone. If Americans want to make competing chatter, and in some ways, it becomes the their own choices about family planning and con- least compelling simply because it’s the least novel. traception, they can’t deny foreign aid to coun- tries that give their citizens the same right. If It’s not just voices that are engaged—or more Moscow says that oil is a global commodity that precisely, not just words competing against words. anyone should be able to purchase openly on global Images are now competing against images. People markets, then it can’t undermine the rights of foreign are visual creatures, and they tend to respond to oil companies to invest fairly and transparently in videos and pictures on a much less rational and its energy assets. much more visceral level. Al Qaeda’s recruiting videos are set to rap music, and the emotional impact of cellphone photos showing monks being shot by security forces is far more poignant than a govern- ment white paper or even a colorless text message. Does anyone not remember the image of the hood- ed Abu Ghraib prisoner standing on a box with wires connected to his arms? YouTube (and what- ever follows it) will soon have greater global influ- ence over narratives about international events (if it doesn’t already) than any government information source could hope to have. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 47

[ ]America’s Hard Sell Consistency in policymaking is now a funda- World Bank and the International Monetary Fund mental necessity, not a luxury. And it’s constant, that guarantees by default an American president because the demands of soft power follow the 24/7 for the bank and a European managing director for news and argument cycle on the Internet. It’s harder the fund will end. The U.N. Security Council will to buy time and deceive others about ideology than expand. A new operational definition of multilateral- it is about almost anything else. Militarily weak ism will emerge that enhances the effectiveness of states have long built Potemkin villages to hood- action, while being candid about its limitations. The wink their adversaries about how capable they really United States could lead in this direction, but so are. There are no Potemkin villages for soft power. could many others, without the intellectual and emotional burdens of incumbency. P L AY I N G A N E W G R E AT G A M E The second area of competition will be a notion of a just society that balances individual rights and social The 21st-century global marketplace of ideas has its equity. It must make the provision for basic human own dynamic. As the Big Ideas of the 20th century seem needs—food, water, and health—an explicit and direct increasingly inadequate for meeting the challenges and component of social justice. In countries plagued with choices that define this new age of ideology, a new set mass poverty and endemic injustice, “freedom from” of leaders will compete to rise to the fore. And those is not enough; it also must be about the “capacity to.” successful players will be the states, companies, indi- People are looking not just to be protected from gov- viduals, and nongovernmental organizations that are ernment but also to be protected by government. That capable of articulating and implementing the new Big Ideas necessary for societal Other international players have their own survival in the 21st century. The four central areas of strengths and shortcomings, but they will competition during at least the next decade will be: compete with Americans on a level playing field. mutuality, a just society, a healthy planet, and societal heterogeneity. First, amid the proliferation of different forms of means that any ideology that overprivileges process— nationalism and other narrow self-interests, who will even democratic process—but fails to deliver on basic commit to the mutuality essential to a global era? The human needs will lose. Beijing understands this point, second half of the 20th century left a legacy of unbal- and so do some major global megaphilanthropies. anced bargains—often clearly favoring the United The third area is the health of the planet as a States—on issues such as nonproliferation and arms motivating vision that both inspires hope and provides control, intellectual property, agricultural trade, and the strategic direction. The environmental movement is right to use military force. Russia seems bent on reclaim- now a global phenomenon and no longer simply ing some of the Soviet Union’s position of power. Parts about the environment. It’s equally about security, of Africa and Latin America are open to the attractive economics, social stability, natural disasters, and terms of trade China offers but not simply to trading humanitarian crises. It is a long-term goal—the most Western dominance for Chinese. Indian pharmaceuti- vital legacy to be left to future generations. It is also cal firms seek asymmetric rights to distribute generic increasingly in the here and now, as the effects of drugs. Leadership will come in rebalancing such bar- global climate change begin to be felt and the critical gains. They not only hurt others substantively; they junctures for policy action grow nearer. There are no grate symbolically. In a global age, it is more essential more “externalities”; the system no longer has that than ever to have a credible claim that one uses power kind of slack. A healthy planet is the ultimate global more for shared benefits than selfish interests. public good. Systems of wealth creation that ignore Mutuality also requires greater sharing of decision- pollution won’t attract and hold followers for long. making responsibilities around global issues. Some Brussels understands this point, and, increasingly, so changes will be obvious, including the reform of the do many large multinational firms. major international institutions that reflect a post- The final challenge is societal heterogeneity, learn- World War ii-era nostalgia. The bargain between the ing to live together amid differences of individual and 48 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

group identities that breed fear of “the other.” The it be liberal internationalism, Salafi jihadism, prole- migration of peoples has combined with technologies tarian solidarity, or “sustainability”—because it won’t. of travel and communications to produce increasingly extreme combinations of nationalities, races, eth- Let’s assume the United States wants to be a real nicities, and religions within societies. Yet few com- competitor for leadership in this new era. The most munities exist harmoniously with heterogeneity. In important thing for Americans to recognize is that it some cases—Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan—the really is a new game and that the challenge is funda- tensions reached extremes and the politics of identity mentally different from containing communism or have been about “who I am,” “who you are,” and defeating terrorism. Other international players— that “I need to kill you before you kill me.” In other countries, global corporations, religious movements, instances—think China and Tibet, Muslims in West- Internet communities—have their own strengths and ern Europe, Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir—con- shortcomings, but they will compete with Americans sistent episodes of violence overlap with systematic on a level playing field. The only real certainty is discrimination to create a poisonous atmosphere. that the new age of ideology will not end in victory The United States has its immigration demagoguery and defeat. It might not “end” in any meaningful way and persistent racial inequalities. No major global at all. “Equilibrium” and “stability,” the intellectual player has really yet articulated a compelling vision obsessions of so-called status quo powers, are going for how to manage this kind of heterogeneity—and to be very tenuous states of being, and mostly illusory. that is a huge opportunity for leadership. Here’s another certainty: The next decade will Mutuality, a just society, a healthy planet, and soci- probably have its “end of ideology” prophets, just as etal heterogeneity. They don’t add up to neatly packed past ones did. Beware those trying to corner the mar- “isms.” But that’s not what the people of the world ket with vaguely familiar talking points that brand the are shopping for. Smart players will beware doctrinal coming “new” ideas with a shinier version of the rigidity as well as any tired claims that history moves same old American-centered stamp. They will be just inevitably toward one conclusion or another, whether as wrong. And, chances are, the new crop of buyers won’t be interested in what they’re selling. [ ]Want to Know More? Bruce W. Jentleson surveys the United States’ changing role in the world in American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000). Steven Weber’s The Success of Open Source (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) explores the political and economic implications of one of the most promising new developments in it. In The Post-American World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), Fareed Zakaria argues that even as other countries are rising to a U.S. level of growth and prosperity, they do not yet threaten America’s premier role in the global community. For a look at why the international order needs the United States at the helm, read Michael Mandelbaum’s The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World’s Government in the Twenty-First Century (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005). Parag Khanna claims that globalization has negated “Americanization” in The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (New York: Random House, 2008). In “Fading Superpower?” (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9, 2007), David Rieff challenges the assumption that the United States is “the guarantor of international security and global trade, for the foreseeable future.” In “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” (Foreign Policy, September/October 2005), a selection of thinkers, journalists, scientists, and policymakers name the world’s most endangered ideas and institutions. “How Globalization Went Bad” (Foreign Policy, January/February 2007), coauthored by Weber, argues that a unipolar world breeds threats unlike those of any other system. »For links to relevant Web sites, access to the FP Archive, and a comprehensive index of related Foreign Policy articles, go to ForeignPolicy.com. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 49

DreThae m Team The next American president will confront a host of potential cataclysms: from a virulent financial crisis to a vicious terrorist enemy, nuclear proliferation to climate change. He’ll need his country’s brightest minds—not his party’s usual suspects. So, we asked 10 of the world’s top thinkers to name the unlikely team that can best guide No. 44 through the turbulent years ahead. 50 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

ROBERT L. GALLUCCI Dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School at Georgetown University The No.1 challenge facing the next president is to solid understanding of the global economy, with proven prevent a terrorist group from detonating a nuclear success in both the public and private sectors. weapon in an American city. If he successfully ended the Marc Grossman conflict in Iraq, checked Iran, brokered an Israeli- Palestinian peace, cut carbon emissions, stabilized DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Pakistan, and artfully managed relations with China Grossman is a universally respected diplo- and Russia—but lost a million citizens in a nuclear mat with the integrity, management, and attack, the nation would not be grateful. leadership skills to coordinate the com- Strobe Talbott plex intelligence community—while never forgetting that the purpose of intelligence is SECRETARY OF STATE to improve policy. Capable of discerning America’s interests, the Brook- Jessica T. Mathews ings Institution president and former deputy secretary of state has the gravitas NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR and experience to execute policy The Carnegie Endowment presi- and lead the department. dent is a brilliant analyst of the Robert Gates thorniest policy issues, with the temperament and strength to SECRETARY OF DEFENSE manage the national security Secretary Gates is a keeper: bureaucracy for the president. He inspires confidence in all Susan Rice BONUS PICK quarters, providing indepen- dent advice to the president AMB. TO THE UNITED NATIONS while respecting the expertise The former assistant secretary of state of the professional military. projects American values with intelligence David Lipton Talbott and passion, while understanding that the United States must inspire others in order to succeed. Plus, her SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY Africa expertise gives her an advantage in dealing with A former under secretary of the Treasury, Lipton has a today’s most vexing challenges. C BHRISTOPH ERTRAM Former director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs ILLUSTRATIONS BY ZINA SAUNDERS FOR FP Given the United States’ immense domestic problems, foreign-policy brains around, is a Washington insider the key challenges for the next president will be at familiar with the diverse international arena, and knows home. Abroad, his toughest task will be to adapt U.S. how to run a large organization. foreign policy to a world in which America must relearn how to exert influence through coalitions and institutions. Hillary Clinton James Baker SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY Hillary’s the one, precisely because the senator is not a Wall SECRETARY OF STATE Street product but a highly skilled politician with political clout Baker, an excellent deal maker and an international realist, so and a sense of the economic needs of ordinary Americans. impressively mastered the job under George H.W. Bush that, even today, it is still difficult to think of a better candidate. James Steinberg Robert Zoellick DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE The former deputy national security advisor combines SECRETARY OF DEFENSE first-class analytical heft with tough administrative skills The president of the World Bank has one of the best and a deep sense of the value of undoctored intelligence. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 51

[ ]The Dream Team Richard Haass Arnold Schwarzenegger BONUS PICK NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SECRETARY FOR ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Haass is The Governator has proven himself to be a get-the-job-done familiar with the whole range of international and strate- environmentalist who commands international respect. To gic issues. He’s also one of the sharpest minds on how address this increasingly vital area properly, the next the United States can best mobilize influence in a glob- president must view energy and the environment as two alized world. sides of the same coin. GIDEON RACHMAN Chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times The next president’s advisors must finally Omaha does as manager of the world’s largest hedge jettison the idea that U.S. foreign pol- fund. icy should be centered on a “war on ter- ror.” They should concentrate instead on Richard Holbrooke rebuilding alliances and restoring the U.S. economy. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE I know he would prefer Foggy Bottom, but Richard Lugar Buffett I’m sure the former assistant secretary of state could have some fun (and do some SECRETARY OF STATE good) by bringing his robust management style to the intel world. U.S. foreign policy has been far too exciting under Bush. We need someone sober, experi- James Steinberg enced, and dull: Senator Lugar. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR Robert Gates Experienced, clever, and commit- ted, Steinberg has the talents need- SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ed to steer policy from the White He’s doing a good job manag- House. ing two wars and seems to be opposed to a strike on Iran. Sarah Palin BONUS PICK Why change now? U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA Warren Buffett The governor’s taste for hunting, plain- spoken talk, and foxy boots—not to men- SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY tion long years of staring at Russia from With the government nationalizing half Alaska—ensure a special relationship with Putin. the financial sector, let’s see how the Sage of KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL Editor, The Nation The new president must understand the limits of Lawrence Korb American power, extricate the United States from Iraq and Afghanistan, repair damaged alliances, and refocus SECRETARY OF DEFENSE our energy on rebuilding American society and making the An assistant defense secretary under Ronald Reagan global economy work better for working men and women. and now at the Center for American Progress, Korb has done groundbreaking strategic thinking on issues includ- Bill Bradley ing a speedy and orderly exit from Iraq, support for troops and veterans, and cutting billions in wasteful SECRETARY OF STATE Pentagon spending. The former New Jersey senator and Knicks star is a slam dunk: He opposes NATO expansion and has a keen under- James K. Galbraith standing of the importance of statecraft, multilateral diplo- macy, and international economics. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY Like his father, Galbraith understands that finance must 52 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

serve the real economy. He recognizes the ruinous eco- Andrew Bacevich nomic effects of our hypermilitarized foreign policy, thinks that world prosperity depends upon rising wages NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR and public investment, and has the wisdom to guide us An Army officer for more than 20 years, Bacevich was con- through the remaking of our global financial architecture. sidered one of the U.S. military’s leading intellectuals. He is also a transpartisan truth teller who understands the limits James Bamford of U.S. military and economic power. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Al Gore and Van Jones BONUS PICK An investigative journalist whose 1982 book about the NSA, The Puzzle Palace, has been used as a textbook at ENERGY SECURITY COUNCIL CO-CHAIRS the National Defense Intelligence College, Bamford values Because global warming is going to be catastrophic, we wisdom and history above intelligence factoids. He will need to end our dependence on fossil fuels while simulta- challenge convention and abuses and draw the line on neously creating well-paid, green-collar jobs. No other covert action. A man of integrity, he’ll always refuse to nation has the power to get others to the table, and bend intelligence for political purposes. nobody can do it better than the former vice president and the founder of the advocacy group Green for All. SHASHI THAROOR Former U.N. under secretary general for communications and public information The next president’s challenge is to restore expert, and visionary. Perhaps he can do for America’s standing in the eyes of the a shaken Wall Street what he has done for world. He must reinvent the United States as the company that bears his name. a country that listens, engages with others, Jane Harman and, as its founders hoped, shows “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Bill Clinton The California congresswoman demonstrates a firm grasp of both the usefulness of an SECRETARY OF STATE effective national intelligence apparatus and There is no more popular American in the need for it to be properly accountable. the world than the former presi- She enjoys the respect of both the intelli- dent, and no one else with gence community and the political comparable energy, knowl- establishment. edge, experience, and credi- Wesley Clark bility to undo the negative stereotypes that have NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR grown out of Washington’s A thinking-man’s soldier with field conduct after 9/11. experience and an Oxford degree, Richard Lugar General Clark would bring a rare mix of credentials to the job. But he SECRETARY OF DEFENSE needs a strong deputy in Susan Although Lugar’s reputation is as a Rice, who understands Africa and foreign-policy statesman rather than Nooyi other important but neglected areas a defense expert, the Defense and issues that Clark knows little about. Department must be better attuned to international politi- cal realities. And the world would benefit from enlightened Indra Nooyi BONUS PICK leadership of its most powerful military establishment. U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE Michael Bloomberg A business leader who heads a multinational corporation, an immigrant knowledgeable about conditions in the devel- SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY oping world, and a feisty woman with advanced diplomatic The mayor of New York has extraordinary credentials as a skills, the PepsiCo chair could transform the negotiations corporate leader, government administrator, financial for a new “development round” of global trade talks. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 53

[ ]The Dream Team KISHORE MAHBUBANI Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School at the National University of Singapore A merica’s destiny is increasingly tied to an intuitive feel for the interdependence of that of others, yet the gap between the today’s global markets and how the United United States and the ever shrinking world States can gain international support to get its has never been greater. The main challenge economy in order. of the next president is to bridge this gap Brent Scowcroft and explain to Americans why their country must provide global leadership. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Strobe Talbott The U.S. intelligence community has been politi- cized and demoralized. George H.W. Bush’s nation- SECRETARY OF STATE al security advisor has the bipartisan stature and the His new book, The Great credibility to help it rebuild its confidence. Experiment, explains eloquently Fareed Zakaria how America can regain the trust of the world. And who bet- NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR ter than the author, with his In The Post-American World, Zakaria diplomatic skills and unflap- describes the complex world the pable temperament, to accom- United States must navigate and why plish this task? a return to pragmatic realism is the Sam Nunn answer. Newsweek International’s editor is a great communicator, in SECRETARY OF DEFENSE public and in private, and he can The Nuclear Non-Proliferation persuade the Washington establish- Treaty is legally alive but spiritually Zakaria ment to change its outdated worldview. dead. Former Senator Nunn knows that American leadership by example is the only thing that will Anne-Marie Slaughter BONUS PICK push the nuclear genie back into its bottle. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS Mohamed El-Erian The world’s richest country would benefit as much as any- one from better global governance. The Woodrow Wilson SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY School’s dean appreciates that a revitalized United Having excelled at the International Monetary Fund, at the Nations can best serve America’s national interests by Harvard endowment, and in private finance, El-Erian has delivering this international public good. CESARE MERLINI Executive vice president at the Council for the United States and Italy The next occupant of the Oval Office will need a [ Robert Zoellick team that can restore the American people’s confi- dence in their economic system and fend off protection- SECRETARY OF STATE ist impulses at home. Above all, he needs advisors who Given the turmoil in the global economy, having a secretary understand that strengthening the rule of law, rather than of state who combines top-level competence on both spreading democracy, should be the guiding principle of foreign policy and economics seems like a smart move. U.S. foreign policy. Chuck Hagel [For More Online Whom do you think the next president should hire? SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Pick your dream team at: Widely respected in Washington and in foreign capitals, ForeignPolicy.com/extras/dreamteam. the Nebraska senator would ensure sufficient consen- sus across the aisle as it becomes increasingly appar- ent that a dramatic reexamination of America’s military deployments is needed. 54 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

Indra Nooyi Strobe Talbott SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR The PepsiCo chair is not only a woman (a first for the The Brookings president has the right blend of seasoned Treasury), but she also comes from the manufacturing sec- realism and consistent idealism, and he understands tor rather than the toxic atmosphere of Wall Street. that boosting the rule of law, not pushing for hasty elec- tions, must guide U.S. foreign policy. Richard Holbrooke Jessica T. Mathews BONUS PICK DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE Seen from abroad, rich diplomatic experience would be AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS a welcome addition to the basic requirements of inter- With her deep understanding of shared global problems, agency management skills and an objective approach Mathews is the right person to represent the United States to intelligence. at the world’s most inclusive international organization. ROBERT BAER Author and former CIA case officer assigned to the Middle East The next administration is tasked with Warren Buffett ending two wars in which we still SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY cannot define victory, let alone the enemy. The incoming president must figure out how Among my old CIA colleagues, I cannot globalization went so wrong on Wall Street. I’d get a consensus on whether Osama bin ask Buffett. He sniffed out the derivatives dis- Laden is dead or alive. How do you aster long before anyone else. And because beat an enemy who may already be people trust him, he can guide America out dead? And then there is Iran, which is of this crisis of confidence. either the real enemy in the Middle East John Abizaid or, potentially, a reluctant ally. Figuring out which will be the new president’s DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE greatest strategic puzzle. General Abizaid understands that intelligence is an Sam Nunn organized search for a windfall; sometimes it is very good, and sometimes there is none at all. Plus, SECRETARY OF STATE having a general atop the intelligence com- During the next four munity will keep the Pentagon happy. years, we can count on Buckminster Fuller one or more major crises and some tough negotia- NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR tions with Russia. Nunn, Fuller is long dead, but the White who understands how the House needs a visionary of his breakup of the Soviet Union caliber to think our way out of oil left a deep well of Russian dependence on unstable dictator- resentment, can detect where ships like Saudi Arabia and Moscow’s red lines really are. Venezuela. We need a Manhattan Robert Gates Project for solar power, windmills, Gates and even nuclear energy. We also need SECRETARY OF DEFENSE someone who can look objectively at our options on glob- Gates has already gone a long way toward cleaning up al warming before it’s too late. the mess left by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. And, however you want to cut it, the so-called surge T. Boone Pickens BONUS PICK succeeded under his watch. More importantly, Gates is SECRETARY OF ENERGY on record saying that a war with Iran would be “disas- It will take an oil man to convince Americans that it’s time trous.” He knows what can and cannot be accom- to move on. Either we’re out of oil, or it will kill the planet plished militarily in the next four years. and we’re out of luck. Pickens has a plan for both. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 55

[ ]The Dream Team GROVER NORQUIST Founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform The United States is the freest, most dynamic, most for lower marginal tax rates—just the area where we have competitive, and wealthiest economy in the world. To fallen behind many of our competitors. keep it that way, the next president must expand free trade, David Norquist cut U.S. corporate taxes, and avoid expensive social welfare commitments, such as running other coun- DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE tries for them. Not every fight in the schoolyard is He’s my brother and he’s good. He did defense America’s fight. intelligence budgets for the Pentagon, and he is Chuck Hagel now the chief financial officer for the Department of Homeland Security. SECRETARY OF STATE Dov Zakheim If you cannot go back in time and change mistakes, you can replace those who made the NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR errors with those who had the The president’s closest foreign-policy advi- wisdom to oppose them at the time. sor needs common sense and experi- Robert Gates ence. The former Defense comptroller has both, and he knows where to look for SECRETARY OF DEFENSE extra zeros in the budget. Simply put, he needs more time to Robert Zoellick BONUS PICK fix things. Four more years! Steve Forbes U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY Forbes It would be unusual for the World Bank president to return to his old job. But he left too soon, and it’s time to He is a committed free trader and has a record of fighting make progress on all of these stalled trade agreements. LESLIE H. GELB Board senior fellow and president emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations There are no new requirements for America’s next crop confidence. That’s Altman, a financial wizard with years of of leaders. Like the best of their predecessors, they government experience and a sound head on his shoulders. must have common sense and think strategically, because to the extent that nations respond to anything today, it’s still Jamie Gorelick power. I mean real power, especially pressure and coercion of the diplomatic and economic variety. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE This high-powered lawyer and former 9/11 Commission Richard Holbrooke member knows the intel business well, having served at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense depart- SECRETARY OF STATE ments. She’ll be very smart and very tough. Holbrooke thinks strategically and has a proven ability to get things done. Plus, he’s courageous and highly bipartisan. Dennis Ross Robert Gates NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR With his strategic outlook and broad experience working SECRETARY OF DEFENSE for both parties as the chief Middle East peace negotia- Why change horses midstream? Secretary Gates has tor, Ross would be seen as an honest broker inside and done a superb job. He’s clearheaded and pragmatic, and outside government. he doesn’t seem to have a partisan bone in his body. Susan Rice BONUS PICK Roger Altman AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY Tightly wound, Rice has the fire to drive U.S. policy in What the markets need right now is someone who inspires Turtle Bay’s diplomatic maze. 56 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

NEW BOOKS FROM THE Globalization is confronting govern- This short primer provides “ “ments with an increasingly competitive an excellent, panoramic fiscal environment. Investors now introduction to the world of have many choices among competing trade policy today. Readers will country tax climates. Global Tax get a clear understanding of the Revolution shows that countries big picture after reading Razeen ignore this reality at their peril. ”Sally’s splendid book. ”— VERNON L. SMITH, Nobel Laureate in Economics —DR. DOUGLAS A. IRWIN, Dartmouth University In the world’s increasingly integrated economy, nations This compelling analysis of today's rapidly growing and are battling to attract investment and skilled workers interdependent global economy provides a sharp look at by overhauling the key trends that their tax codes to are shaping the create a more future of free trade attractive business and international environment—a commerce. Sally process known as explores the spread tax competition. of protectionist The authors reactions to global- challenge the U.S. ization, the swiftly government to rising market power be a leader in tax of China and Asia, reform and to and in the end re-tool the federal paints a hopeful but tax system to meet realistic picture of the challenges of the forces that are the global market- shaping the interna- place. tional economy in the 21st century. $21.95 • hardcover 978-1-933995-18-2 $18.95 • hardcover 978-1-933995-21-2 Smart Power: Toward a The Cult of the Presidency: Prudent Foreign Policy for America’s Dangerous America Devotion to Executive Power BY TED GALEN CARPENTER BY GENE HEALY “In an age of imperial folly and “Rhetorical—and related—excesses militarized illusions, Ted Galen are inherent in the modern Carpenter has been a voice of reason presidency. This is so for reasons and good sense. In this impressive brilliantly explored in the year’s collection of essays, he surveys the most pertinent and sobering wreckage of the Bush era and public affairs book, The Cult of illuminates the way ahead. ”the Presidency. —GEORGE F. WILL, ”—ANDREW J. BACEVICH, Author of The Limits of Power Newsweek $24.95 • hardcover • 978-1-933995-16-8 $22.95 • hardcover • 978-1-933995-15-1 BUY YOUR COPY AT BOOKSTORES, CALL 800-767-1241, OR VISIT CATO.ORG.

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ARTIGA PHOTO/CORBIS lthiee lowve e Foreign adoption seems like the perfect solution to a heartbreaking imbalance: Poor countries have babies in need of homes, and rich countries have homes in need of babies. Unfortunately, those little orphaned bundles of joy may not be orphans at all. | By E.J. Graff We all know the story of international adoption: Millions of infants and toddlers have been abandoned or orphaned— placed on the side of a road or on the doorstep of a church, or left parentless due to aids, destitution, or war. These little ones find themselves forgotten, living in crowded orphanages or end- ing up on the streets, facing an uncertain future of misery and neglect. But, if they are lucky, adoring new moms and dads from faraway lands whisk them away for a chance at a better life. Unfortunately, this story is largely fiction. Westerners have been sold the myth of a world orphan crisis. We are told that millions of children are waiting for their “forever families” to rescue them from lives of abandonment and abuse. But many of the infants and toddlers being adopted by Western parents today are not orphans at all. Yes, hundreds of thou- sands of children around the world do need loving homes. But more often than not, the neediest children are sick, disabled, traumatized, or older than 5. They are not the healthy babies that, quite understandably, most Westerners hope to E.J. Graff is associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University’s Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 59

[ ]The Lie We Love adopt. There are simply not enough healthy, adoptable discount. Agencies claim the costs pay for the agency’s infants to meet Western demand—and there’s too fee, the cost of foreign salaries and operations, staff much Western money in search of children. As a result, travel, and orphanage donations. But experts say the many international adoption agencies work not to fees are so disproportionately large for the child’s find homes for needy children but to find children for home country that they encourage corruption. Western homes. To complicate matters further, while interna- Since the mid-1990s, the number of international tional adoption has become an industry driven by adoptions each year has nearly doubled, from money, it is also charged with strong emotions. Many 22,200 in 1995 to just under 40,000 in 2006. At its adoption agencies and adoptive parents passionately peak, in 2004, more than 45,000 children from insist that crooked practices are not systemic, but developing countries were adopted by foreigners. tragic, isolated cases. Arrest the bad guys, they say, but let the “good” adoptions con- tinue. However, remove cash from Many international adoption agencies the adoption chain, and, outside of China, the number of healthy work not to find homes for needy children babies needing Western homes all but disappears. Nigel Cantwell, a but to find children for Western homes. Geneva-based consultant on child protection policy, has seen the dan- gerous influence of money on adop- tions in Eastern Europe and Central Americans bring home more of these children than Asia, where he has helped reform corrupt adoption any other nationality—more than half the global systems. In these regions, healthy children age 3 and total in recent years. younger can easily be adopted in their own countries, Where do these babies come from? As interna- he says. I asked him how many healthy babies in tional adoptions have flourished, so has evidence that those regions would be available for international babies in many countries are being systematically adoption if money never exchanged hands. “I would bought, coerced, and stolen away from their birth hazard a guess at zero,” he replied. families. Nearly half the 40 countries listed by the U.S. State Department as the top sources for international adoption over the past 15 years—places such as Belarus, T H E M Y T H O F S U P P LY Brazil, Ethiopia, Honduras, Peru, and Romania—have International adoption wasn’t always a demand- at least temporarily halted adoptions or been prevent- driven industry. Half a century ago, it was primarily ed from sending children to the United States because a humanitarian effort for children orphaned by con- of serious concerns about corruption and kidnapping. flict. In 1955, news spread that Bertha and Henry And yet when a country is closed due to corruption, Holt, an evangelical couple from Oregon, had adopt- many adoption agencies simply transfer their clients’ ed eight Korean War orphans, and families across the hopes to the next “hot” country. That country abrupt- United States expressed interest in following their ly experiences a spike in infants and toddlers adopted example. Since then, international adoption has overseas—until it too is forced to shut its doors. become increasingly popular in Australia, Canada, Along the way, the international adoption indus- Europe, and the United States. Americans adopted try has become a market often driven by its customers. more than 20,000 foreign children in 2006 alone, up Prospective adoptive parents in the United States will from just 8,987 in 1995. Half a dozen European pay adoption agencies between $15,000 and $35,000 countries regularly bring home more foreign-born (excluding travel, visa costs, and other miscellaneous children per capita than does the United States. Today, expenses) for the chance to bring home a little one. Spe- Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and the United States cial needs or older children can be adopted at a account for 4 out of every 5 international adoptions. [For More Online [ Changes in Western demography explain much of For a photographic tour of the global baby trade, the growth. Thanks to contraception, abortion, and visit: ForeignPolicy.com/extras/adoption. delayed marriages, the number of unplanned births in most developed countries has declined in recent decades. Some women who delay having children 60 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

Left behind: At this orphanage in Ukraine, most of the babies’ parents are still alive but cannot provide for them. RUDI TARNEDEN/CORBIS discover they’ve outwaited their fertility; others have Orphans are rarely healthy babies; healthy babies are difficulty conceiving from the beginning. Still others rarely orphaned. “It’s not really true,” says Alexandra adopt for religious reasons, explaining that they’ve Yuster, a senior advisor on child protection with been called to care for children in need. In the United unicef, “that there are large numbers of infants with States, a motive beyond demography is the notion no homes who either will be in institutions or who that international adoption is somehow “safer”— need intercountry adoption.” more predictable and more likely to end in suc- cess—than many domestic adoptions, where there’s That assertion runs counter to the story line that an outsized fear of a birth mother’s last-minute has long been marketed to Americans and other West- change of heart. Add an ocean of distance, and the erners, who have been trained by images of destitution idea that needy children abound in poor countries, in developing countries and the seemingly endless and that risk seems to disappear. flow of daughters from China to believe that millions of orphaned babies around the world desperately But international adoptions are no less risky; need homes. unicef itself is partly responsible for this they’re simply less regulated. Just as companies out- erroneous assumption. The organization’s statistics source industry to countries with lax labor laws and on orphans and institutionalized children are widely low wages, adoptions have moved to states with few quoted to justify the need for international adoption. laws about the process. Poor, illiterate birthparents in In 2006, unicef reported an estimated 132 million the developing world simply have fewer protections orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, than their counterparts in the United States, especial- and the Caribbean. But the organization’s definition ly in countries where human trafficking and corrup- of “orphan” includes children who have lost just one tion are rampant. And too often, these imbalances are parent, either to desertion or death. Just 10 percent of overlooked on the adopting end. After all, one coun- the total—13 million children—have lost both parents, try after another has continued to supply what adop- and most of these live with extended family. They are tive parents want most. also older: By unicef’s own estimate, 95 percent of orphans are older than 5. In other words, unicef’s In reality, there are very few young, healthy “millions of orphans” are not healthy babies doomed orphans available for adoption around the world. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 61

[ ]The Lie We Love to institutional misery unless Westerners adopt and “Guatemala is a perfect case study of how inter- save them. Rather, they are mostly older children liv- national adoption has become a demand-driven ing with extended families who need financial support. business,” says Kelley McCreery Bunkers, a former The exception is China, where the country’s three- consultant with unicef Guatemala. The country’s decades-old one-child policy, now being loosened, has adoption process was “an industry developed to created an unprecedented number of girls available for meet the needs of adoptive families in developed adoption. But even this flow of daughters is finite; countries, specifically the United States.” China has far more hopeful foreigners looking to Because the vast majority of the country’s institu- adopt a child than it has orphans it is willing to send tionalized children are not healthy, adoptable babies, overseas. In 2005, almost none has foreign parents been adopted adopted nearly abroad. In the fall 14,500 Chinese of 2007, a survey children. That conducted by the was far fewer Guatemalan gov- than the number ernment, unicef, of Westerners and the interna- who wanted to tional child wel- adopt; adoption fare and adoption agencies report agency Holt Inter- many more clients national Chil- waiting in line. dren’s Services And taking those found approxi- children home has mately 5,600 gotten harder; in children and 2007, China’s Family reunion: After 14 months, Ana Escobar found her stolen child about to be adopted. adolescents in central adoption Guatemalan insti- authority sharply reduced the number of children tutions. More than 4,600 of these children were age sent abroad, possibly because of the country’s grow- 4 or older. Fewer than 400 were under a year old. And ing sex imbalance, declining poverty, and scandals yet in 2006, more than 270 Guatemalan babies, all involving child trafficking for foreign adoption. younger than 12 months, were being sent to the Unit- Prospective foreign parents today are strictly judged by ed States each month. These adopted children were their age, marital history, family size, income, health, simply not coming from the country’s institutions. and even weight. That means that if you are single, gay, Last year, 98 percent of U.S. adoptions from fat, old, less than well off, too often divorced, too Guatemala were “relinquishments”: Babies who had recently married, taking antidepressants, or already never seen the inside of an institution were signed have four children, China will turn you away. Even over directly to a private attorney who approved the those allowed a spot in line are being told they might international adoption—for a very considerable fee— wait three to four years before they bring home a without any review by a judge or social service agency. child. That has led many prospective parents to shop So, where had some of these adopted babies around for a country that puts fewer barriers between come from? Consider the case of Ana Escobar, a them and their children—as if every country were young Guatemalan woman who in March 2007 China, but with fewer onerous regulations. reported to police that armed men had locked her One such country has been Guatemala, which in in a closet in her family’s shoe store and stolen her 2006 and 2007 was the No. 2 exporter of children to infant. After a 14-month search, Escobar found the United States. Between 1997 and 2006, the num- her daughter in pre-adoption foster care, just weeks ber of Guatemalan children adopted by Americans before the girl was to be adopted by a couple from more than quadrupled, to more than 4,500 annually. Indiana. dna testing showed the toddler to be Incredibly, in 2006, American parents adopted one of Escobar’s child. In a similar case from 2006, Raquel RODRIGO ABD/AP every 110 Guatemalan children born. In 2007, nearly Par, another Guatemalan woman, reported being 9 out of 10 children adopted were less than a year old; drugged while waiting for a bus in Guatemala City, almost half were younger than 6 months old. waking to find her year-old baby missing. Three 62 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

months later, Par learned her daughter had been these millions of middle-class families could eas- adopted by an American couple. ily absorb all available babies. The country’s per- On Jan. 1, 2008, Guatemala closed its doors to vasive poverty does leave many children fending American adoptions so that the government could for themselves on the street. But “kids are not on reform the broken process. Britain, Canada, France, the street alone at the age of 2,” Cantwell, the Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain all stopped child protection consultant, says. “They are 5 or accepting adoptions from the country several years 6, and they aren’t going to be adopted.” That’s earlier, citing trafficking concerns. But more than partly because most of these children still have 2,280 American adoptions from the country are still family ties and therefore are not legally available being processed, for adoption, and albeit with addi- partly because tional safeguards. they would have Stolen babies have difficultly adjust- already been found ing to a middle- in that queue; class European or Guatemalan author- North American ities expect more. home. Many of G u a t e m a l a ’s these children are example is extreme; deeply marked by it is widely consid- abuse, crime, and ered to have the poverty, and few world’s most notori- prospective par- ous record of cor- ents are prepared ruption in foreign to adopt them. adoption. But Surely, though, the same troubling Who’s your daddy?: Parents might never know if their adopted child is truly an orphan. prospective parents trends have emerged, can at least feel on smaller scales, in more than a dozen other coun- secure that their child is truly an orphan in need of a tries, including Albania, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Liberia, home if they receive all the appropriate legal papers? Peru, and Vietnam. The pattern suggests that the Unfortunately, no. supply of adoptable babies rises to meet foreign demand—and disappears when Western cash is no longer available. For instance, in December 2001, the N U R S E RY C R I M E S U.S. immigration service stopped processing adop- In many countries, it can be astonishingly easy to fab- tion visas from Cambodia, citing clear evidence that ricate a history for a young child, and in the process, children were being acquired illicitly, often against manufacture an orphan. The birth mothers are often their parents’ wishes. That year, Westerners adopted poor, young, unmarried, divorced, or otherwise lack- more than 700 Cambodian children; of the 400 adopt- ing family protection. The children may be born into ed by Americans, more than half were less than 12 a locally despised minority group that is afforded few months old. But in 2005, a study of Cambodia’s rights. And for enough money, someone will separate orphanage population, commissioned by the U.S. these little ones from their vulnerable families, turning Agency for International Development, found only a them into “paper orphans” for lucrative export. total of 132 children who were less than a year old— Some manufactured orphans are indeed found in fewer babies than Westerners had been adopting every what Westerners call “orphanages.” But these estab- three months a few years before. lishments often serve less as homes to parentless chil- Even countries with large populations, such as dren and more as boarding schools for poor youngsters. JASON REED/REUTERS/CORBIS India, rarely have healthy infants and toddlers Many children are there only temporarily, seeking who need foreign parents. India’s large and grow- food, shelter, and education while their parents, because ing middle class, at home and in the diaspora, of poverty or illness, cannot care for them. Many fam- faces fertility issues like those of their developed- ilies visit their children, or even bring them home on world counterparts. They too are looking for weekends, until they can return home permanently. In healthy babies to adopt; some experts think that 2005, when the Hannah B. Williams Orphanage in N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 63

[ ]The Lie We Love Meet the parents: Guangzhou’s White Swan Hotel, less than a block from the city’s U.S. Consulate, is a hub for international adoptions from China. Monrovia, Liberia, was closed because of shocking Law reported poor Guatemalan families being paid GILLES SABRIE living conditions, 89 of the 102 “orphans” there beween $300 and several thousand dollars per child. returned to their families. In Vietnam, “rural families in particular will put their babies into these orphanages Sometimes, medical professionals serve as child that are really extended day-care centers during the har- finders to obtain infants. In Vietnam, for instance, a vest season,” says a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in finder’s fee for a single child can easily dwarf a nurse’s Hanoi. In some cases, unscrupulous orphanage direc- $50-a-month salary. Some nurses and doctors coerce tors, local officials, or other operators persuade illiter- birth mothers into giving up their children by offering ate birth families to sign documents that relinquish them a choice: pay outrageously inflated hospital bills those children, who are then sent abroad for adoption, or relinquish their newborns. Illiterate new mothers are never to be seen again by their bereft families. made to sign documents they can’t read. In August 2008, the U.S. State Department released a warning Other children are located through similarly that birth certificates issued by Tu Du Hospital in Ho nefarious means. Western adoption agencies often Chi Minh City—which in 2007 had reported 200 contract with in-country facilitators—sometimes births a day, and an average of three abandoned babies orphanage directors, sometimes freelancers—and per 100 births—were “unreliable.” Most of the hos- pay per-child fees for each healthy baby adopted. pital’s “abandoned” babies were sent to the city’s Tam These facilitators, in turn, subcontract with child Binh orphanage, from which many Westerners have finders, often for sums in vast excess of local wages. adopted. (Tu Du Hospital is where Angelina Jolie’s These paydays give individuals a significant financial Vietnamese-born son was reportedly abandoned one incentive to find adoptable babies at almost any month after his birth; he was at Tam Binh when she cost. In Guatemala, where the gdp per capita is adopted him.) According to Linh Song, executive $4,700 a year, child finders often earned $6,000 to director of Ethica, an American nonprofit devoted to $8,000 for each healthy, adoptable infant. In many promoting ethical adoption, a provincial hospital’s cases, child finders simply paid poor families for chief obstetrician told her in 2007 “that he provided infants. A May 2007 report on adoption trafficking 10 ethnic minority infants to [an] orphanage [for by the Hague Conference on Private International adoption] in return for an incubator.” 64 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

To smooth the adoption process, officials in the agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce- children’s home countries may be bribed to create false ment who investigated Galindo. “It’s not a crime.” identity documents. Consular officials for the adopt- ing countries generally accept whatever documents they receive. But if a local U.S. embassy has seen a R O C K I N G T H E C R A D L E series of worrisome referrals—say, a sudden spike in Buying a child abroad is something most prospective healthy infants coming from the same few orphan- parents want no part of. So, how can it be prevented? ages, or a single province sending an unusually high As international adoption has grown in the past number of babies with suspiciously similar paper- decade, the ad hoc approach of closing some corrupt work—officials may investigate. But generally, they countries to adoption and shifting parents’ hopes (and do not want to obstruct adoptions of genuinely needy money) to the next destination has failed. The agen- children or get in the way of people longing for a cies that profit from adoption appear to willfully child. However, many frequently doubt that the adop- ignore how their own payments and fees are causing tions crossing their desks are completely aboveboard. both the corruption and the closures. “I believe in intercountry adoption very strongly,” says Some countries that send children overseas for Katherine Monahan, a U.S. State Department official adoption have kept the process lawful and transpar- who has overseen scores of U.S. adoptions from ent from nearly the beginning and their model is around the world. “[But] I worry that there were instructive. Thailand, for instance, has a central gov- many children that could have stayed with their fam- ernment authority that counsels birth mothers and ilies if we could have provided them with even a lit- offers some families social and economic support so tle economic assistance.” One U.S. official told me that poverty is never a reason to give up a child. Other that when embassy staff in a country that sent more countries, such as Paraguay and Romania, reformed than 1,000 children overseas last year were asked their processes after sharp surges in shady adoptions which adoption visas they felt uneasy about, they in the 1990s. But those reforms were essentially to stop replied: almost all of them. international adoptions almost entirely. In 1994, Most of the Westerners involved with foreign Paraguay sent 483 children to the United States; last adoption agencies—like business people importing year, the country sent none. foreign sneakers—can plau- sibly deny knowledge of unethical or unseemly prac- tices overseas. They don’t When embassy staff in a country that last year sent more have to know. Willful igno- rance allowed Lauryn than 1,000 children overseas were asked which adoption Galindo, a former hula dancer from the United States, to collect more than visas they felt uneasy about, they replied: almost all of them. $9 million in adoption fees over several years for Cam- bodian infants and toddlers. Between 1997 and 2001, For a more comprehensive solution, the best hope Americans adopted 1,230 children from Cambodia; may be the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adop- Galindo said she was involved in 800 of the adop- tion, an international agreement designed to prevent tions. (Galindo reportedly delivered Angelina Jolie’s child trafficking for adoption. On April 1, 2008, the Cambodian child to her movie set in Africa.) But in United States formally entered the agreement, which a two-year probe beginning in 2002, U.S. investiga- has 75 other signatories. In states that send children tors alleged that Galindo paid Cambodian child find- overseas and are party to the convention, such as ers to purchase, defraud, coerce, or steal children Albania, Bulgaria, Colombia, and the Philippines, from their families, and conspired to create false Hague-compatible reforms have included a central identity documents for the children. Galindo later government authority overseeing child welfare, efforts served federal prison time on charges of visa fraud and to place needy children with extended families and money laundering, but not trafficking. “You can get local communities first, and limits on the number of away with buying babies around the world as a Unit- foreign adoption agencies authorized to work in the ed States citizen,” says Richard Cross, a senior special country. The result, according to experts, has been a N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 65

[ ]The Lie We Love sharp decline in baby buying, fraud, coercion, and kid- regulations but are still sending $20,000 anywhere— napping for adoption. well, you can bypass any system with enough cash.” In adopting countries, the convention requires a Improved regulations will protect not only the central authority—in the United States’ case, the State children being adopted and their birth families, but Department—to oversee international adoption. The also the consumers: hopeful parents. Adopting a State Department empowers two nonprofit organi- child—like giving birth—is an emotional experience; zations to certify adoption agencies; if shady practices, it can be made wrenching by the abhorrent realization fraud, financial improprieties, or links with traffick- that a child believed to be an orphan simply isn’t. One ing come to light, accreditation can be revoked. American who adopted a little girl from Cambodia in Already, the rules appear to be having some effect: Sev- 2002 wept as she spoke at an adoption ethics con- eral U.S. agencies long dogged by rumors of bad ference in October 2007 about such a discovery. “I practices have been denied accreditation; some have was told she was an orphan,” she said. “One year shut their doors. But no international treaty is perfect, after she came home, and she could speak English well and the Hague Convention is no exception. Many of enough, she told me about her mommy and daddy the countries sending their children to the West, and her brothers and her sisters.” including Ethiopia, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, and Vietnam, have yet to join the agreement. Unless we recognize that behind the altruistic veneer, international adoption has become an indus- Perhaps most important, more effective regula- try—one that is often highly lucrative and sometimes tions would strictly limit the amount of money that corrupt—many more adoption stories will have changes hands. Per-child fees could be outlawed. Pay- unhappy endings. Unless adoption agencies are held to ments could be capped to cover only legitimate costs account, more young children will be wrongfully taken such as medical care, food, and clothing for the chil- from their families. And unless those desperate to dren. And crucially, fees must be kept proportionate become parents demand reform, they will continue— with the local economies. “Unless you control the wittingly or not—to pay for wrongdoing. “Credu- money, you won’t control the corruption,” says lous Westerners eager to believe that they are saving Thomas DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on children are easily fooled into accepting laundered International Children’s Services, which represents children,” writes David Smolin, a law professor and more than 200 international adoption organizations. advocate for international adoption reform. “For there “If we have the greatest laws and the greatest is no fool like the one who wants to be fooled.” [ ]Want to Know More? For more resources and reporting on corruption in the international adoption trade, visit the Web site of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. Ethica, a nonprofit advocacy organization for ethical adoption worldwide, publishes news about adoption reform and country fact sheets on its site. The Adoption Agency Research Group on Yahoo! is a useful Internet bulletin board with resources that allow prospective parents to compare different agencies. Law scholar David M. Smolin argues that current adoption laws provide the context for the kid- napping and trafficking of children in “Child Laundering: How the Intercountry Adoption System Legit- imizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Stealing Children” (Berkeley Electronic Press Legal Series, Aug. 29, 2005). Ethan B. Kapstein examines how corruption permeates international adoption in “The Baby Trade” (Foreign Affairs, November/December 2003). Sara Corbett investigates adoption practices in Cambodia, where improprieties led to a temporary moratorium, in “Where Do Babies Come From?” (New York Times Magazine, June 16, 2002). “The Diaper Diaspora” (Foreign Policy, January/February 2007) charts the rise of international adoption and breaks down the costs that prospective parents can expect. »For links to relevant Web sites, access to the FP Archive, and a comprehensive index of related Foreign Policy articles, go to ForeignPolicy.com. 66 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

www.isn.ethz.ch Research made easy For international relations and security professionals Access: Over 20,000 full text research papers and journal articles Thought-provoking commentary and analysis A comprehensive directory of international affairs actors An extensive collection of historical primary source material E-learning courses on key security issues ISN Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich ETH Zurich

Cities bear the brunt of the world’s financial meltdowns, crime waves, and climate crises in ways national governments never will. So, when Foreign Policy, A.T. Kearney, and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs teamed up to measure globalization around the world, we focused on the 60 cities that shape our lives the most.

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM National governments may shape the broad But what makes a “global city”? The term itself GRAPHICS BY TRAVIS DAUB outlines of globalization, but where does it conjures a command center for the cognoscenti. It really play out? Where are globalization’s means power, sophistication, wealth, and influ- successes and failures most acute? Where ence. To call a global city your own suggests that else but the places where most of humanity now the ideas and values of your metropolis shape the chooses to live and work—cities. The world’s biggest, world. And, to a large extent, that’s true. The cities most interconnected cities help set global agendas, that host the biggest capital markets, elite univer- weather transnational dangers, and serve as the hubs sities, most diverse and well-educated populations, of global integration. They are the engines of growth wealthiest multinationals, and most powerful inter- for their countries and the gateways to the resources national organizations are connected to the rest of their regions. In many ways, the story of global- of the world like nowhere else. But, more than ization is the story of urbanization. anything, the cities that rise to the top of the list are N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 69

[ ]The 2008 Global Cities Index Dimension those that continue to forge global links despite Ranking intensely complex economic environments. They Business Activity Human Capital are the ones making urbanization work to their Information Exchange Cultural Experience advantage by providing the vast opportunities of Political Engagement global integration to their people; measuring cities’ City international presence captures the most accurate 1 New York 1 1 4 3 2 picture of the way the world works. 2 London So, Foreign Policy teamed up with A.T. 3 Paris 4231 5 4 Tokyo 5 Hong Kong 3 11 12 4 Kearney and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs 6 Los Angeles 26 77 6 to create the Global Cities Index, a uniquely com- 7 Singapore 55 6 26 40 8 Chicago 15 4 11 5 17 prehensive ranking of the ways in which cities are 9 Seoul 10 Toronto 6 7 15 37 16 integrating with the rest of the world. In constructing 11 Washington 12 3 24 20 20 this index of the world’s most global cities, we have 12 Beijing 7 35 5 10 19 collected and analyzed a broad array of data, as well 13 Brussels 26 10 18 4 24 14 Madrid 15 San Francisco 35 17 10 14 1 as tapped the brainpower of such renowned cities 16 Sydney experts as Saskia Sassen, Witold Rybczynski, Janet 17 Berlin 9 22 28 19 7 Abu-Lughod, and Peter Taylor. 18 Vienna 19 Moscow 19 34 2 32 3 20 Shanghai 21 Frankfurt 14 18 9 24 33 22 Bangkok 23 Amsterdam 27 12 22 23 29 Specifically, the Global Cities Index ranks cities’ 24 Stockholm 25 Mexico City 17 8 27 36 43 metro areas according to 24 metrics across five dimen- 26 Zurich sions. The first is business activity: including the value 27 Dubai 28 29 12 8 14 28 Istanbul 29 Boston 13 31 29 11 9 30 Rome 31 São Paulo 23 15 33 6 39 of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 32 Miami 8 25 42 35 18 33 Buenos Aires 11 43 19 13 34 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the 34 Taipei 18 14 23 41 13 goods that pass through the city. The second dimen- 35 Munich 36 Copenhagen 10 38 25 12 56 sion measures human capital, or how well the city acts 37 Atlanta 25 33 13 16 27 38 Cairo 34 23 32 9 11 as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. 39 Milan 30 20 8 31 54 This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, 40 Kuala Lumpur 41 New Delhi 21 19 14 44 44 the number of international schools, and the per- 42 Tel Aviv 43 Bogotá 32 13 34 43 8 centage of residents with university degrees. The third 44 Dublin dimension is information exchange—how well news 45 Osaka 37 9 35 33 50 and information is dispersed about and to the rest of 46 Manila 47 Rio de Janeiro 31 30 30 15 22 48 Jakarta 49 Mumbai 16 36 31 27 23 50 Johannesburg 51 Caracas 33 21 26 39 21 the world. The number of international news bureaus, 52 Guangzhou 40 16 43 25 12 the amount of international news in the leading local 53 Lagos 20 49 21 40 15 papers, and the number of broadband subscribers 54 Shenzhen 29 27 49 18 36 55 Ho Chi Minh City 56 Dhaka 36 41 16 42 28 round out that dimension. 57 Karachi 38 24 39 21 32 58 Bangalore 48 28 17 45 10 The final two areas of analysis are unusual for 59 Chongqing 24 42 41 28 37 most rankings of globalized cities or states. The 60 Kolkata 22 46 40 49 38 fourth is cultural experience, or the level of diverse 47 50 20 46 35 51 45 38 17 31 attractions for international residents and travelers. 46 26 51 34 25 That includes everything from how many major 41 39 48 30 48 sporting events a city hosts to the number of per- 54 32 45 29 51 43 48 47 38 26 forming arts venues it boasts. The final dimension— 44 47 50 22 46 political engagement—measures the degree to which 42 40 36 51 41 a city influences global policymaking and dialogue. 39 37 53 52 52 How? By examining the number of embassies and 45 55 37 48 45 consulates, major think tanks, international organ- 52 54 44 55 42 49 53 54 50 30 izations, sister city relationships, and political 58 56 46 60 53 conferences a city hosts. We learned long ago that 50 59 57 56 47 [55 52 58 53 58 For More Online [ 59 51 55 54 49 See which cities outperformed their home countries 56 57 52 59 55 53 44 60 57 60 at ForeignPolicy.com/extras/cities. 60 60 56 47 57 57 58 59 58 59 70 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

globalization is much more than the simple lowering Kong and Singapore finished at fifth and seventh, of market barriers and economic walls. And because respectively. Chicago’s strong human-capital per- the Global Cities Index pulls in these measures of cul- formance sent it into the eighth spot. What’s more, tural, social, and policy indicators, it offers a more several strong performers are emerging from for- complete picture of a city’s global standing—not merly closed societies: Beijing (No. 12), Moscow simply economic or financial ties. (19), Shanghai (20), and Dubai (27). The new, some- The 60 cities included in this first Global Cities times abbreviated, often state-led, paths to global Index run the gamut of the mod- ern urban experience. There’s thriving, wealthy London, with its THE BEST CITIES TO GET A DEGREE firmly entrenched global networks built on the city’s history as capi- 1. London 6. Sydney 11. Istanbul 16. Zurich tal of an empire. But there are also 2. Chicago 7. Boston 12. Bangkok 17. Beijing Chongqing, Dhaka, and Lagos, 3. Tokyo 8. Los Angeles 13. Toronto 18. Buenos Aires cities whose recent surges tell us a 4. New York 9. Paris 14. Madrid 19. Mexico City great deal about the direction glob- 5. Singapore 10. San Francisco 15. Moscow 20. Washington alization is heading and whose RANKINGS BASED ON NUMBER OF INHABITANTS WITH UNIVERSITY DEGREES, NUMBER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AT experiences offer lessons to other THE TERTIARY LEVEL, INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS AT THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY LEVEL, AND TOP GLOBAL UNIVERSI- TIES LOCATED IN THE CITIES. aspiring global cities. The cities we highlight are world leaders in important areas such as finance, policymaking, and dominance these cities are treading threaten the old culture. A few are megacities in the developing formulas that London, New York, and Los Angeles world whose demand for resources means they must (No. 6) followed to reach their high spots. nurture close ties with their neighbors and provide As diverse as they are, the most successful glob- services to large numbers of immigrants. Some are al cities have several things in common: As New gateways to their region. Others host important York proves, global cities are those that excel across international institutions. In other words, they rep- multiple dimensions. Even Shanghai’s staggering, resent a broad cross section of the world’s centers of decades-long double-digit annual economic growth commerce, culture, and communication. alone can’t make it global. The city also must deter- mine how to use that wealth to influence policy, THE WINNER’S CIRCLE attract the brightest young minds, and accurately portray the rest of the world to its citizens. Global So, which city topped them all? If anything, the results cities continuously adapt to changing circumstances. prove there is no such thing as a perfect global city; no London may be the city hardest hit by the global city dominated all dimensions of the index. However, credit crunch, but chances are that it will leverage its a few came close. New York emerged as the No. 1 glob- abundant global financial ties to bounce back. Sin- al city this year, followed by London, Paris, and Tokyo. gapore, San Francisco (15), and Mexico City (25) The Big Apple beat out other global powerhouses will no doubt be taking notes. largely on the back of its financial markets, through the As the world readjusts to the fits and starts of a networks of its multinationals, and by the strength of volatile global economy, as well as other transna- its diverse creative class. Overall runner-up London won tional problems such as climate change, human traf- the cultural dimension by a mile, with Paris and New ficking, and fuel shortages, the Global Cities Index York trailing far behind. Perhaps surprisingly for a will track the way cities maneuver as their popula- city known more for museums than modems, third- tions grow and the world shrinks. Although we ranked Paris led the world in the information exchange can’t predict next year’s winner, the odds are good category. No. 4 Tokyo ranked highly thanks to its that New York will have to fight to stay on top. strong showing in business. And, though it finished 11th overall, Washington easily beat out New York, © Copyright 2008, A.T. Kearney, Inc., The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Brussels, and Paris as the leader in global policy. and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. All rights reserved. A.T. Although the winners may be the usual sus- Kearney is a registered service mark of A.T. Kearney, Inc. Foreign Policy and pects, they have plenty of new competition on their its logo are registered trademarks owned by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Inter- heels. Buoyed by their strong financial links, Hong active, a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 71

[ ]The 2008 Global Cities Index How to Be a Global City There is no single correct path a city should tread to become global. But how should cities that want to boost their international profile go about it? They could follow any of the tried-and-true models that came before them. Just look at the various ways some of this year’s 60 global cities manage to use urbanization and globalization to their advantage. Open Cities National Leaders PHOTOS: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM, ANITA BUGGE/CORBIS, CHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES What they look like: Large cities with a free press, open What they look like: Large cities that shape the collective markets, easy access to information and technology, low identity of their countries. They usually have homogenous barriers to foreign trade and investment, and loads of populations, and their new urban policies tend to evoke a cultural opportunities. They often rely on a heavy service industry shared history. They do well in and are outward looking, rather international business, but not than focused on domestic affairs. because they’re necessarily Who they are: New York (#1), globally connected; in these London (#2), Paris (#3) places, foreign firms can find something no other city offers. Lifestyle Centers Who they are: Tokyo (#4), Seoul (#9), Beijing (#12) What they look like: Laid-back cities that enjoy a high quality of Policy Hubs life and focus on having fun. They attract worldly people and offer What they look like: Cities with cultural experiences to spare. outsized influence on national Who they are: Los Angeles (#6), and international policy debates. Toronto (#10) Their think tanks, international organizations, and political Regional institutions shape policies that Gateways affect all people, and they tend to be full of diplomats and What they look like: Efficient journalists from somewhere else. economic powerhouses with Who they are: Washington (#11), favorable incentives for business- Brussels (#13) es and easy access to the natural resources of their region. They attract smart, well-trained Platform Cities people from around the world, and they often must reinvent themselves to remain competitive. What they look like: Large hubs Who they are: Hong Kong (#5), Singapore (#7), in typically small countries that attract huge amounts of Chicago (#8) investment through their strategic locations and international connections. Firms don’t set up shop in these cities to invest THE BEST CITIES TO DO BUSINESS in the local economy; they move there so they can reach important foreign financial markets without dealing with the region’s political headaches. Who they are: Amsterdam (#23), Dubai (#27), Copenhagen (#36) 1. New York 6. Singapore 11. Frankfurt 16. São Paulo RANKINGS BASED ON CITIES THAT ARE HQ 2. Tokyo 7. Seoul 12. Chicago 17. Bangkok OF FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 FIRMS, CITIES 3. Paris 8. Shanghai 13. Vienna 18. Brussels WHERE THE TOP 40 GLOBAL SERVICE FIRMS 4. London 9. Beijing 14. Madrid 19. Taipei HAVE OFFICES, THE STRENGTH OF THEIR 5. Hong Kong 10. Amsterdam 15. Los Angeles 20. Sydney CAPITAL MARKETS, THE VOLUME OF THEIR FLOW OF GOODS, AND THE NUMBER OF GLOBAL PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION CON- FERENCES HELD IN THE CITIES. 72 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

The Mayors of the Moment No city globalizes on its own. But with shrewd investments and smart urban planning, a mayor can help turn a region- al player into a global powerhouse. Here’s how three of the world’s top mayors are climbing the ladder: Klaus Wowereit MAYOR OF BERLIN (#17) The concept of the global city isn’t lost on Klaus Wowereit. Since taking office in 2001, the popular, 55-year-old mayor of Berlin has tied his fate to rebrand- ing the city as a glamorous, artistic model of urban renewal. And Berlin’s reputation has thrived as a vibrant, tolerant, creative metropolis under his watch. Wowereit cites the construction of a gigantic international airport, the successful 2006 World Cup, and a cultural festival called “Asia-Pacific Weeks” as land- mark accomplishments. His critics claim that he focuses more on the city’s image than its crumbling infrastructure or budget shortfalls. “We are poor but sexy,” admits Wowereit. A fun fantasy it may be, but Berliners will probably only be willing to play the starving artist for so long. Syed Mustafa Kamal MAYOR OF KARACHI (#57) The new mayor of Karachi is an unlikely poster child for innovative urban planning. The 36-year-old Syed Mustafa Kamal governs a city that’s more often in the news for religious violence than cosmopolitan ways. But the hard-charging Kamal is look- ing to change all that. He’s courting foreign investment, encouraging international ties, and boosting the city’s tourism. Kamal isn’t shy about his goals: He has said he wants to turn Karachi into the “next Dubai.” His Green Karachi project aims to plant thousands of trees in the city. No stranger to Karachi’s bare-knuckled politics, Kamal isn’t letting anything stand in the way of his grand plans: He has threatened to arrest anyone who tries to cut down the new saplings. Wang Hongju MAYOR OF CHONGQING (#59) Think Michael Bloomberg has his hands full? Wang Hongju is mayor of the fastest-growing city on the planet, one whose metropolitan area is already bursting at 32 million—more than the population of Iraq. But Wang isn’t letting China’s urban revolution happen under his feet. He has been known to collect advice from citizens (for cash rewards), from mayors of sister cities such as Toronto, and even from the works of Thomas Friedman. Wang has sought heavy foreign investment, which his administration says has topped a whopping $3 billion in the past five years. In 2005, he claimed his antipoverty programs had helped 3 million Chongqing residents rise out of poverty in the pre- vious eight years. Wang rarely shies from reporters’ questions, even about hot-button topics such as Tibet or SARS. His approach, a stark depar- ture from Communist Chinese officials of old, has made the 63-year- old Wang the face of a new breed of Chinese mayors. THE BEST CITIES TO GET SOME CULTURE 1. London 6. Moscow 11. Vienna 16. Stockholm 2. Paris 7. Tokyo 12. Amsterdam 17. Tel Aviv 3. New York 8. Berlin 13. Frankfurt 18. Munich 4. Toronto 9. Mexico City 14. Washington 19. Beijing 5. Los Angeles 10. Seoul 15. Rome 20. Chicago RANKINGS BASED ON MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS IN CITIES, INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS, CULINARY OFFERINGS, MUSEUMS, AND PERFORMING ARTS. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 73

[ ]The 2008 Global Cities Index Beijing (#12) Long in Shanghai’s global shadow, The Biggest Beijing’s successful Olympic spectacle earned it Boomtowns much international respect. In this year’s index, the city scores as the highest-ranking megacity from a poor country. But This year, for the first time, more people live in Beijing isn’t stopping to take a breath: Among other projects, it cities than in rural areas. And, increasingly, has announced a new bullet train to Shanghai, which, when those cities are gigantic. The United Nations counts completed in 2013, will be the fastest in the world. 19 megacities—or those with more than 10 million people—throughout the world. In 2025, it expects Buenos Aires (#33) A cultural hub of to see eight more join their ranks: Chennai, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lahore, the Americas, Buenos Aires is intent on showcas- Paris, and Shenzhen. ing elegant design in planning the city’s future. It invests $25 million each year to promote industrial design, urban In this year’s Global Cities Index, cities in rich planning, and the arts. The city has seen a construction countries overwhelmingly outperform their coun- boom since the dark days of Argentina’s debt default, and it terparts in poorer countries in cultivating global continues to draw prominent engineering and software ties. Three of the top 15 cities are megacities from firms. One problem city planners will need to solve as its developed countries; six of the bottom 15 are wealthier population booms? Traffic. megacities from the poor world. Mexico City (#25) Deadly drug violence Urbanization can help cities that have already become wealthy climb higher, while anchoring has plagued the city in recent months, prompting down those that have the unlucky fate of being an anticrime rally of 150,000 people in August. Its landfills located in a poor state. Part of the problem is a are overflowing. And now, engineers are trying to avert an vicious, reinforcing cycle: The challenges any large even worse threat: Low-lying slums, the old historic district, city faces—how to deal with sanitation, educa- and the city’s subways could be flooded with raw sewage tion, infrastructure, crime, and taxes—are much from its crumbling drainage system. easier to solve with cash in the bank and well- trained officials at the helm. Dhaka (#56) With massive traffic jams and However, a few of these developing-country sewage-filled rivers, Dhaka could arguably be a test megacities are breaking out of that cycle and figur- case of a megacity gone wrong. Local papers recently report- ing out how to make urbanization translate into ed that coordination between city planners was so poor that globalization, while several others teeter on the edge: newly constructed roads had to be torn up because they for- got to run the water, sewer, and gas lines first. The good Megacities news for Dhaka: There’s likely nowhere to go but up. In the Index: KEY: Megacities in Developed Countries Megacities in Developing Countries 74 F o r e i g n P o l i c y









Chinapolis Shenzhen (#54) It’s the most rapidly urbanizing country on the planet. More than 170 Population: 7.2 million mass-transit systems are slated for construction by 2025. And by 2030, Population in 2025: 10.2 million Claim to Fame: Shenzhen has seen the the country could count more than 1 billion people among its city dwellers. most rapid growth among all China’s So, when we talk about urbanization and the ways in which cities are grow- cities. At some points in the past 30 ing, China can’t be ignored. The statistics are staggering: While the Unit- years, it grew at 40 percent a year. ed States has nine cities with a million or more people, China has nearly Major Industries: IT, software, con- 100. Five are featured in the index (as well as Hong Kong), with Beijing struction, food processing, medical topping its Chinese neighbors, at 12th place, and Chongqing rounding out supplies the bottom, at 59th. Their mixed performances prove that even cities that GDP per capita: $11,445 develop thanks to the heavy-handed dictates of a central government can No. of Days to Start a Business: follow their own unique paths. Around 30 Roadblocks to Development: Traffic, Beijing (#12) Guangzhou (#52) high rates of HIV/AIDS, labor unrest. Population: 11.1 million Population: 8.4 million Chongqing (#59) Population in 2025: 14.5 million Population in 2025: 11.8 million Population: 6.4 million Claim to Fame: China’s cultural, edu- Claim to Fame: The largest and Population in 2025: 7.3 million cational, and political capital. Host of wealthiest city in the south. An (2015) the 2008 Summer Olympics and now important seaport and connection to Claim to Fame: Often called the home to the world’s largest airport. the rest of the world. “Chinese Chicago,” the city is an Major Industries: Government, Major Industries: Automobiles, industrial center and gateway to tourism, chemicals, electronics, textiles petrochemicals, electronics, telecom, China’s western regions. GDP per capita: $9,237 shipbuilding Major Industries: Mining, automobiles, No. of Days to Start a Business: 37 GDP per capita: $9,970 textiles, chemicals, manufacturing Roadblocks to Growth: Pollution, dust No. of Days to Start a Business: 28 GDP per capita: $5,500 storms, avoiding a post-Olympic slow- Roadblocks to Development: Crime, No. of Days to Start a Business: 39 down, overcrowding. traffic, wide gaps between the rich Roadblocks to Development: Air pol- Shanghai (#20) and the poor, clashes between lution, potential of landslides, drought. migrants and locals. Population: 15 million Population in 2025: 19.4 million Claim to Fame: The country’s eco- THE BEST CITIES TO BE A DIPLOMAT nomic capital Major Industries: Banking, finance, 1. Washington 6. Tokyo 11. Mexico City 16. Singapore fashion, electronics, shipbuilding 2. New York 7. Beijing GDP per capita: $9,584 3. Brussels 8. Istanbul 12. Buenos Aires 17. Los Angeles No. of Days to Start a Business: 35 4. Paris 9. Vienna Roadblocks to Development: Danger 5. London 10. Cairo 13. Bangkok 18. Shanghai of a bursting economic bubble, ISTOCKPHOTO.COM replenishing energy supplies, a slow- 14. Berlin 19. Seoul down in the global economy, traffic. 15. Taipei 20. Chicago RANKINGS BASED ON A CITY’S NUMBER OF EMBASSIES, CONSULATES, AND TRADE MISSIONS; THINK TANKS; PARTNER CITIES; LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL REACH; HEADQUARTERS OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS; AND POLITICAL CONFERENCES HELD IN THE CITY. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 75

[ ]The 2008 Global Cities Index A Clean Break The problem for today’s developing giants like Lagos (53), Ho Chi Minh City (55), and Bangalore Every week, a million more people move to cities (58) is a matter of scale. Their populations are so around the world. It’s a constant, quiet migra- much bigger, and their resources are scarcer, that they don’t have the luxury of decades to solve their tion that amounts to adding the entire population sanitation problems. All of which means it of Dublin to the planet’s urban landscape every few may be harder for the next generation of cities days. It’s easy to assume that the waste, pollution, to clean up its act. and population booms that this rapid urbanization Dirty Cities vs. breeds inevitably lead to dirty cities. New Delhi’s sewage- Globalization Score filled rivers and Moscow’s gag-inducing air attest to that. Wealthier lifestyles mean more waste, and more people mean dirtier cities, right? New York Not necessarily. Using the MORE GLOBAL -----> London Beijing 2007 Mercer Consulting 10 Washington ranking of health and sani- tation around the world, we 5 Stockholm Istanbul found that the most global Zurich cities aren’t the dirtiest cities. 0 In fact, some of the biggest, <----- LESS GLOBAL Kuala Lumpur Jakarta most integrated cities are some of the cleanest urban areas on the planet. Wash- Lagos ington (11), Stockholm (24), Ho Chi Minh City Zurich (26), and Boston (29) Bangalore rank in the cleanest top 20 <----- LESS DIRTY MORE DIRTY ------> of 215 cities, for example. [ ]Want to Know More? For seven years, the Foreign Policy/A.T. Kearney Globalization Index measured global integration among states. Explore previous years’ findings, discover hidden success stories, and see why Singapore surged when South Korea sank, at ForeignPolicy.com. There, you can also find complete charts and methodology for the Global Cities Index. In The Endless City (New York: Phaidon Press, 2008), Richard Burdett and Deyan Sudjic examine the various urban challenges of six global cities, includ- ing index topper New York. In “Beyond City Limits” (Foreign Policy, January/February 2008), Burdett explains the vastly different ways in which urbanization is playing out around the world. For two seminal works in the study of global urban spaces, read Saskia Sassen’s The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) and Joel Kotkin’s The City: A Global History (New York: Modern Library, 2005). Citymayors.com offers extensive statistics about the world’s cities and their governments. Metropolis magazine and City Journal are excellent, lively sources about the ever evolving role that cities play in shaping our culture, societies, and daily lives. »For links to relevant Web sites, access to the FP Archive, and a comprehensive index of related Foreign Policy articles, go to ForeignPolicy.com. 76 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

World Economic Outlook A unique international exercise in information-gathering and analysis An extraordinary confluence of global forces has kept the world economy strong in the past few years, but there are now numerous challenges to growth. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) presents the IMF’s leading economists’ analyses of global economic developments during the near and medium terms. It is a respected, one-stop, trusted resource offering remarkable insight, balance, and perspective to decision makers and policymakers worldwide. Published at least twice yearly, the World Economic Outlook presents the outlook for growth, inflation, trade, and other economic developments in a clear, practical format. Each WEO considers the issues affecting advanced and emerging economies. The analytic chapters provide the global intelligence required to deal with global interdependence. These analyses focus on pressing concerns or hotly debated issues, putting prospects for liquidity, inflation, and growth into context. The statistical appendix presents historical data as well as projections and selected series from World Economic Outlook database updated for each report. The October 2008 edition examines commodity prices and inflation, economic cycles in the aftermath of financial crises, the role of fiscal policy during downturns, and current account imbalances in emerging economies. Recent analytic chapters have examined climate change, the housing cycle, commodity prices, capital inflows, globalization and inequality, and the global business cycle. Annual subscription: $108. Paperback. Published twice yearly. ISSN: 0256-6877. Stock# WEOSEA Global Financial Stability Report Tracking global capital flows The GFSR assesses key issues in global financial market developments in order to identify systemic vulnerabilities. By calling attention to fault lines in the global financial system, the report aims to play a role in preventing crises and, when they do occur, helping to mitigate their effects and offer policy advice, thereby contributing to global financial stability and sustained economic growth. As a semiannual report, the GFSR focuses on current conditions, examining structural issues and financial imbalances that could pose risks to financial market stability and sustained market access by emerging economies. Along with the IMF’s semiannual World Economic Outlook, the GFSR is a key vehicle for communicating the IMF’s multilateral surveillance. The GFSR also draws out the financial ramifications of economic imbalances highlighted by the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, making it an indispensable companion publication. Annual subscription: $108. Paperback. Published twice yearly. ISSN: 1729-701X. Stock# GFSREA For detailed information or to place an order, please go to www.imfbookstore.org/FP0811 and use promotion code FP0811p during checkout or send an email to [email protected] quoting the promotion code.

[ ]A R G U M E N T Power to the People Why it’s the poor—not the experts—who can best solve the food crisis. By Eric Werker E very nongovernmental organization has a mission statement. For example, care, one of the world’s largest and best-funded ngos, explains its mission as serving “individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Drawing strength from our global diversity, resources and experience, we promote inno- offering a rare opportunity for farmers in these coun- vative solutions and are advocates for global respon- tries to make a tidy profit. Dumping imported food sibility.” Indeed, care has teams of experts with on the market will cut into many farmers’ incomes years of experience in more than 70 countries, and and thus might do more harm than good. Low-wage its efforts to tackle the “underlying causes of poverty” work programs could help people avoid hunger, but are impressive. Implicit in its mission statement, like they might also take farmers away from their fields those of most ngos, is the notion that care is excep- just when farming is becoming lucrative. tionally knowledgeable about how to meet the needs of the world’s poor. But does it know best? Priorities, moreover, vary from person to person and from place to place. A West African farmer might Take one of the most confounding global prob- choose to forgo next season’s seeds and fertilizer to put lems today: the skyrocketing cost of food. Prices food on the table today. A garbage collector in Jakar- for staple crops such as rice and wheat have more ta might sacrifice trips to the doctor to keep from than doubled since 2006, putting an enormous strain going hungry. Mexican parents might keep their kids on the 1.2 billion people living on a dollar a day or home from school as the cost of education gets priced less. In 2004, a typical poor farmer in Udaipur, out of the family budget. Aid agencies can’t always India, was already spending more than half his daily predict what the poor value most. dollar of income on food—and that was before grain prices went through the roof. The first step in truly addressing the food crisis, therefore, is abandoning the idea that the donor ngos and relief agencies are on the front lines of knows best. Instead of more advice or another bag of this global crisis, distributing food and other forms rice, the poor should be given relief vouchers. The of assistance to the hardest-hit victims. But food basic premise is simple: Give poor people a choice handouts may be the last thing that poor countries about what type of assistance they receive. Vouchers, need right now. In many of the worst-stricken places, backed by major donor countries, could be distributed agriculture is the top employer. High food prices are to needy recipients in the areas hardest hit by the food crisis. The recipients could then redeem the vouchers Eric Werker is assistant professor at Harvard Business School. in exchange for approved goods (such as food or 78 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

fertilizer) or services (such as healthcare or job train- off. Products that people aren’t willing to buy typically ing). Relief vouchers would allow families to meet don’t survive long. It is time to expose the nonprofit their most pressing needs without harming the very sector to the same market feedback. markets that can bring about permanent solutions. At If that scares some ngos, it shouldn’t. Too often, the same time, they would give firms and ngos an they must cater to the whims of donors when they incentive to provide a wider array of services. would prefer to serve those in need. Without finan- Relief vouchers could also save ngos millions of cial support, they would never be able to conduct dollars that victims never see. Figuring out what their important work. But if a significant share of people need is hard ngos’ financing enough during a natu- came through ral disaster, when a voucher redemp- helicopter flyover can tion, they would be reveal the physical able to focus their damage. But the effects attention on the of the food crisis are poor without wor- much harder to diag- rying as much about nose. Each ngo must pleasing large foun- conduct household dations and govern- surveys, hire experts, ment agencies, meet with local gov- which often have ernment officials and their own agendas. foreign donors, and Vouchers, of then write grant appli- course, aren’t a sil- cations and raise funds There’s no free lunch. ver bullet. Corrup- before it can ever help tion and fraud will its first victim. Meanwhile, monitoring these efforts be a concern. Moreover, some needs are best deliv- eats up precious resources. With vouchers, agencies ered at the community level, such as clean water, or would simply follow the invisible hand of the at the national level, such as public-health campaigns. market—in this case, the market for relief. And in countries with well-developed national Relief vouchers would solve another problem: safety nets, such as South Africa, there may be no accountability. Most ngos today answer only to the need to bypass functioning institutions by introduc- donors who fund their operations, not to their actu- ing vouchers. In some cases, relief vouchers would be al clients—the poor. Most major donors do their impractical. Aid workers are fortunate if they utmost to make sure their money is spent as prom- can even reach those in need in a failed state like ised. But even donors whose hearts are in the right Somalia or a dictatorship like Burma. place cannot anticipate the exact needs of so many Voucher schemes have already shown promise. different communities. With no mechanism for the Catholic Relief Services pioneered their use in 2000 poor to communicate their priorities, nonprofits and by setting up “seed fairs” for farmers. In Ethiopia their donors are only accountable to themselves. A in 2004, the organization successfully introduced system of relief vouchers would change that. livestock vouchers for sheep, goats, and even Such a radical shift in accountability will have veterinary services. The Red Cross distributed major ramifications. The development world is littered vouchers to vulnerable families in the West Bank in with projects that keep getting funded long after they 2002 and 2003; the program was only discontinued are no longer useful. Under a voucher system, if an for political reasons. Governments have long used THOMAS GRABKA/LAIF/REDUX ngo delivered a product that no one needed, or failed other types of vouchers on larger scales: for schools, to deliver what it promised, beneficiaries would stop in many developing countries, and in the form of coming to it for relief. This is why nonprofits work- food stamps in the United States. Vouchers, in short, ing for vouchers wouldn’t have to waste funds on can work—and it’s time to extend their logic to a expensive evaluations. After all, Pepsi does not have much wider array of problems. It’s time to give the to prove whether its soda makes its customers better poor the power of choice. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 79

IN OTHER WORDS [ ]R E V I E W S O F T H E W O R L D ’ S M O S T N O T E W O R T H Y B O O K S A Fight to Protect By James Traub The Thin Blue Line: How a politically engaged, rather than ner. In his provocative new book, Humanitarianism Went to War rigorously neutral, humanitarian- The Thin Blue Line, Foley writes, By Conor Foley ism. But in retrospect, it’s also clear “The broader lesson from a range 256 pages, London: Verso, 2008 that the humanitarian corridor to of international interventions in Sarajevo sent the United Nations, recent years is that it will always On June 28, 1992, French and those it hoped to protect, be difficult to impose governance President François down a disastrous path. Peace- and assistance mechanisms from Mitterrand and Bernard keepers stood by helplessly while the outside.” Kouchner, the minister of state for Serbian gunners in the hills mowed humanitarian affairs, arrived by down Bosnian civilians. The peace- Like the journalist David Rieff, helicopter in the war-ravaged cap- keepers became, quite literally, author of A Bed for the Night, ital of Yugoslavia. It was a daring hostage to their own mission: Ser- and the scholar Alex de Waal, and dangerous bid to break the bian leader Slobodan Milosevic Foley has come to view the chokehold that Bosnian Serb mili- was able to ward off a nato attack history of humanitarian interven- tias were applying to Sarajevo’s by threatening to capture or kill tion as one long episode of Muslim population. And it worked: the lightly armed blue helmets. And hypocrisy and failure. Thus while Mitterrand reached a deal with the Balkan calamity plunged “liberal interventionists” argue Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian toward the Götterdämmerung of that the international community Serb leader, to reopen the airport Srebrenica. failed the people of Bosnia by and to permit relief agencies to offering a humanitarian response serve the city’s besieged citizens. Humanitarianism engagé to what was, in fact, a military The U.N. Security Council swiftly sounds tremendously noble, not challenge, and has done so once approved the dispatch of peace- to mention very exciting, until you again in Darfur, Foley advances keepers as a humanitarian protec- try it in practice. Conor Foley is a the opposite argument. He claims, tion force, and crucial supplies veteran of what he would say are first, that humanitarian actors began flowing into the capital. too many such misbegotten mis- have made themselves the hand- sions. He has worked for the Unit- maiden—and the pretext—of mil- The helicopter ride was a high ed Nations and for human rights itary interventions; second, that water mark for Mitterrand, for the and humanitarian organizations by doing so, humanitarianism has adventurous Kouchner, and for the in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and post- sacrificed its precious neutral idea, still quite new at the time, of tsunami Indonesia, among other stance; and finally, that the sacri- places. The experiences left him fice has been largely for naught, James Traub is contributing writer for quite chastened about the limits of since external attempts to impose foreign intervention, whether in good governance or halt atroci- the New York Times Magazine. His latest the form of military action, ties are likely to fail. nation-building, or emergency book is The Freedom Agenda: Why assistance—and quite critical of In his catalog of humanitarian humanitarian heroes like Kouch- interventions, Foley passes over America Must Spread Democracy (Just those by non-Western states, such Not the Way George Bush Did) (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008). 80 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

as India in what is now Bangladesh in 1971, or Viet- nam’s in Cambodia in 1979, perhaps because they don’t implicate humanitarian actors or a specifically Western view of human rights (or perhaps because they more or less suc- ceeded). Humanitarian inter- vention, for him, is a creature of Western activism, largely chan- neled through the United Nations, in the years immedi- ately following the end of the Cold War. Thus he begins his history with the colossal and unprecedented U.S.-led mission to protect the humanitarian effort in Somalia. Foley observes that agencies like care and Oxfam Ameri- ca, whose aid was being stolen and whose workers were being killed, pressed for a military force. These were the blithe and palmy days of intervention- ism—the new U.N. force was just then assembling in Bosnia— and few could have imagined the consequences of such a com- mitment. U.S. Army Rangers wound up chasing a murder- ous warlord through the streets of Mogadishu; the “Black Hawk Down” nightmare, in which the corpses of American sol- Foley thinks that the appetite Annan believed that Milosevic planned a massive campaign of diers were dragged through the for intervention far exceeds the expulsion and favored a military response. And none of the Koso- dust, brought those consequences need. He contends that “there is no vars I met a few years later wished that nato had held off. home to Americans all too brutal- evidence” that the massacres of Moreover, what is one to do ly. Foley views the Somali inter- Kosovar civilians by Serbian forces when peaceful means really are unavailing? Humanitarian groups vention as an unmitigated deba- in 1998 and early 1999 “were part called loudly for intervention in Rwanda; and in that case, with cle, not only for the country but of a systematic campaign of ‘ethnic Somalia fresh in memory, no one listened. Foley presumably wishes for his own profession. In Somalia, cleansing.’” It was the nato bom- that the interventionists had suc- ceeded, for he tells the familiar story ILLUSTRATION BY ESTHER BUNNING FOR FP he asserts, humanitarianism began bardment itself, he asserts, that of the United Nations’ failure to heed the desperate calls from to surrender to the logic of armed caused the Serbs to drive great intervention. numbers of Kosovars from their [ ]For More Online homes and that resulted in the Read FP’s interview with The Thin overwhelming portion of the Blue Line author Conor Foley at: deaths suffered during this period. ForeignPolicy.com/extras/foley. He’s certainly right about the fig- ures and the chronology, but even so peace-loving a figure as Kofi N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 81

[ ]In Other Words Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian gen- help less, but he would have us In 2005, the world’s heads of eral who headed the small peace- impose less. One of the few state, gathered at the U.N. Gener- keeping force there. But Foley does- encouraging stories he tells con- al Assembly, adopted the doctrine n’t actually say that an intervention cerns Mozambique, which weaned of “the responsibility to would have been justified—nor that itself from dependence on foreign protect,” which stipulates that “Rwanda never again” is a rallying aid and inscribed in its disaster- states have an obligation to protect cry worth raising. preparedness report a determina- their citizens from crimes against tion to stop “running to interna- humanity and other mass atroci- Despite claims from the “anti- tional donors without first ties, and that, should they be imperialist” left—which Foley does exhausting national capacities.” unable or unwilling to do so, other not countenance—states do not states incur that obligation. That lightly send soldiers into battle to But we should ask ourselves responsibility, in the most extreme halt atrocities across the globe. whether international relations are cases, includes military action. Humanitarian interventions are now plagued by too little respect for R2P, as the norm has come to be waged in countries so far gone that sovereignty, or too much. known, formalizes the principle, all alternatives look bad and almost Certainly if you were to ask the which lies at the heart of humani- all consequences ugly. And yet we leaders of the Group of 77 at the tarian intervention, that the right must choose. Foley’s suggestion that United Nations or regional bodies of people to be free from the worst humanitarian organizations in such as the African Union (AU), Somalia should have sought to “re-empower traditional commu- Humanitarian interventions are waged in countries so far nity leaders through dialogue,” gone that all alternatives look bad and almost all rather than beat the drums for consequences ugly. And yet we must choose. military action, does not sound all that persuasive. And even that the answer would be “too little,” as forms of mistreatment supersedes feckless engagement saved several it is for Foley. That’s why, for exam- the right of states to be free from hundred thousand lives. Foley also ple, efforts to penalize Khartoum external intervention. It is scarce- argues that both Kosovo and for unleashing a campaign of mur- ly possible in the aftermath of Bosnia remain ethnically riven and der and ethnic cleansing in Darfur Rwanda to argue otherwise, and enfeebled states. That’s true; but have largely come to naught; that’s so no one does directly. But the it’s also true that the Balkans are no why the AU is seeking to postpone principle is under attack from the longer a war zone and that Serbia by a year the war crimes indict- absolutists of sovereignty, a group is a democracy, if a tenuous one. Is ment of Sudan’s President Omar that includes not just Iran and that so very bad an outcome? Hassan al-Bashir by the Interna- Venezuela but India and Egypt. tional Criminal Court. These And the war in Iraq has made it all In later chapters of The Thin largely Western-inspired efforts are too easy for the absolutists to claim Blue Line, Foley wrestles with the said to constitute an assault on that the United States and other difficult question of how, or Sudan’s sovereignty—as if the pre- Western countries will cite the whether, humanitarian aid can be rogatives and protections that moral imperative of R2P to inter- used to force political change. He belong to Sudan and its citizens vene when and where they wish. offers hard wisdom distilled from had been transferred to Bashir and Perhaps that’s a real danger, but years of experience. Humanitari- his regime. Are the sovereign rights what seems far likelier is that Iraq ans, he argues, should worry less of the peaceful Mozambiques of has poisoned the logic of human- about conformity to the suppos- this world really so threatened that itarian intervention for years to edly universal principles and we should mount a campaign of come. Anti-interventionists like inalienable rights that preoccupy deference that will serve as protec- Foley may take comfort in that Westerners than they should about tive cover for the likes of Sudan, thought; others, however, will “building trust” among donors, Zimbabwe, or Burma? rightly view it as a tragedy. the general public, and benefici- aries. And the best way to gain the trust of host countries, he notes, is to show respect for their sovereignty and their domestic capacity. Foley would not have us 82 F o r e i g n P o l i c y

An Arab Study of Jews By Robert Silverman Al-Mukawwin al-Yahudi fi the opinions and interests of local and understanding. The Jewish al-Hadharah al-Gharbiyyah readers. Among my recent discov- Component in Western Civiliza- (The Jewish Component in eries on the region’s bookshelves is tion, by the pro-Western literary Western Civilization) the existence of Judaica sections, columnist and university professor By Saad Al-Bazei just like in the United States or Saad al-Bazei, was easy to find. 423 pages, Beirut: The Arab Europe, but with one major, dis- During my stay in Riyadh, the Cultural Center, 2007 (in Arabic) tinguishing difference. As one international Arabic daily al-Hayat might expect, store shelves in Mus- reviewed it on page one, announc- Whenever I visit the lim countries are heavy with trans- ing a new book on the positive cul- Middle East, curiosity lations of well-known anti-Semitic tural contributions of “enlight- leads me into bookstores tracts, like the notorious screed ened” Jews. I suspected that it was so I might gain some insight into “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” a slow news day in the Arab world and that this publicity was intend- Robert Silverman is a career officer in Imagine my pleasant surprise ed to boost the reputation of Bazei the U.S. Foreign Service. The views then, during a recent stay in (who writes a regular column for a expressed in this review are his, and not Riyadh, to discover a book by a sister publication of al-Hayat). necessarily those of the U.S. State Depart- prominent Saudi writer that aims Surely a book of this sort would ment or the U.S. government. to inform Arab readers about Jew- not pass Saudi censorship, much ish culture and promote tolerance Master’s Degree in Public Policy Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University The Woodrow Wilson School’s M.P.P. program, a one-year degree program for mid-career professionals, Financial Assistance: Our generous policy meets physicians, Ph.D. scientists, or lawyers, provides rising leaders in the international and domestic policy with the full demonstrated needs of all admitted arenas an opportunity to expand their organizational skills and intellectual breadth to compete in an students. More than three-quarters of graduate students increasingly complex global environment. at the School receive financial aid, which for most includes full tuition and a stipend for living expenses. M.P.P. for Mid-Career Professionals: This program provides an opportunity for those with Qualifications: Successful candidates demonstrate significant public sector work experience to broaden their economic, policy, and leadership skills. Mid- creativity, leadership, a commitment to public service, career professionals generally have a minimum of seven or more years of public service experience in and the intellectual capacity to thrive in a demanding government agencies or nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and abroad. academic setting. M.P.P. for Physicians: This program aims to enroll medical doctors in a one-year training program Application Deadline: in public policy. As M.D.s play an active role in policy issues related to health, medical degrees are December 1, 2008 implicitly, if not explicitly, a prerequisite for many senior policy jobs concerned with health. For more information, call us at (609) 258-4836, M.P.P. for Ph.D. Scientists: With many of today’s most pressing and controversial policy issues e-mail us at [email protected], rooted in science, this program seeks to enroll leading professionals in the natural and physical sciences or visit our website at in such disciplines as physics, engineering, information technology, climatology, the geosciences, wws.princeton.edu/grad/mpp/ biology, and many more. M.P.P. for Lawyers: This program is intended for those who have completed their J.D.s and The Woodrow Wilson School also offers a recognize, after a few years years of work experience, the need to acquire the analytical tools for policy two-year Master’s Degree in Public Affairs analysis. They also may enroll in courses in International Relations or Domestic Policy analysis, (M.P.A.)degree and a Doctor of Philoso- depending upon their interests. phy in Public Affairs (Ph.D.). Applicants who are lawyers or Ph.D. scientists must have completed the law or doctoral degree before applying; physicians may apply before the final year of medical school, before or during a residency, or as a practicing medical doctor. wws.princeton.edu/grad/mpp/

WEB [ ]In Other Words and New Testaments, but it SHOWCASE excludes the Jewish version of only less be distributed in Riyadh. I was the earlier texts. Muslims view University of Kent wrong. There it was, at my local their holy book as distinct from at Brussels Riyadh bookshop, next to the Ara- both the Christian Gospels and bic translation of Bob Woodward’s the Jewish Torah, he notes, allow- Graduate programs in International latest chronicle of the war in Iraq. ing, in theory, the independence Relations, International Law, of each revelation from those of The Jewish Component in the other two. In general, his Conflict Analysis, Political Economy, Western Civilization is a serious assessment of a unique and impor- Migration Studies, Political Strategy, work of research, analyzing major tant Jewish contribution to West- Jewish writers from the 17th cen- ern culture would strike most and more in Brussels. tury to the present, from Baruch Westerners as unremarkable. http://www.kent.ac.uk/brussels Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn to Jacques Derrida and Harold But this book is remarkable, [email protected] Bloom. The basic thesis is that for several reasons. Here is a work there is a distinctive Jewish voice in in Arabic, by a Saudi author, suf- each of the figures, including both fused with understanding for the secularized Jews and converts such Jews and their predicament as a as Heinrich Heine and Benjamin minority in Christian Europe. Disraeli, reflecting their struggles Does this commentary on the for identity in a Christian-domi- Holocaust, for instance, sound nated culture. Al-Bazei offers sev- like words you’d expect from a eral insights from a non-Western Saudi intellectual? “The 1930s perspective. For instance, the com- brought a terrifying end to the monly accepted definition of Jews’ dream of Jewish-Christian “Bible” in the West is the coexistence in Europe, and Christian version of both the Old Nazism wasn’t alone in fashioning it. There was also Stalinism and ?KHQI>E= fascism, and a collective silence about what was happening. But -FBSO NPSF BU XXXDVQDPMVNCJBFEV Nazism was in the vanguard of committing the genocide called #FZPOE UIF 'JOBM 4DPSF ‘the Holocaust’ or ‘al-Shoah.’ . . . After the Holocaust, the Jew was 5IF 1PMJUJDT PG 4QPSU JO \"TJB forced to return to being Jewish, even if he could not return com- 7JDUPS % $IB pletely.” In most places, this acknowledgment of the existence %JE UIF  #FJKJOH 0MZNQJDT DIBOHF of the Holocaust would be indis- $IJOB GPS UIF CFUUFS PS GPS UIF XPSTF putable. But, then, Bazei’s book ®\"O FTTFOUJBM HVJEF UP IPX BOE XIZ XIBU appeared shortly after nearby Iran USBOTQJSFT PO UIF QMBZJOH ºFMET PG UIF hosted an official conference \"TJBO1BDJºD SFHJPO NBUUFST UP VT BMM¯ whose premise was denying the ­,VSU . $BNQCFMM $FOUFS GPS B Holocaust. /FX \"NFSJDBO 4FDVSJUZ $0/5&.103\"3: \"4*\" */ 5)& 803-% … %&$&.#&3 The book addresses the need for more balance toward Jews in %VCBJ 3VTTJB BOE UIF #BMLBOT the Arab media and on the shelves of Arab bookstores. Bazei sums 5IF 7VMOFSBCJMJUZ PG 4VDDFTT 'PSFJHO 1PMJDZ GSPN :FMUTJO UP 1VUJO up the need for balance as follows: “If the process of analyzing and $ISJTUPQIFS %BWJETPO +BNFT )FBEMFZ evaluating Jewish contributions requires us to make judgments, ®%BWJETPO USBDFT %VCBJ±T SJTF GSPN \"O BOBMZTJT PG UIF USBKFDUPSZ PG TMFFQZ (VMG QPSU UP QMBZFS PO UIF XPSME 3VTTJB±T GPSFJHO QPMJDZ GSPN TDFOF¯ ­$ISJTUPQIFS )BXUIPSOF UIF EFBUI PG DPNNVOJTU :VHPTMBWJB -PT \"OHFMFT 5JNFT UP UIF DPO»JDUT JO #PTOJB $SPBUJB $0-6.#*\")6345 ,PTPWP BOE .BDFEPOJB $0-6.#*\")6345

A STORY OF TRUE JIHAD then these judgments should not First, there is more than one always be against the Jews. Some- truth in the Middle East. Public times we should be pro-Jewish. It discourse in Saudi Arabia offers a is not possible, for example, to surprising diversity, while the evaluate the works of a thinker American narrative about the like Sigmund Freud or a poet like country tends toward a stereo- Heine without an amount of sym- type: that Saudi politics and soci- pathy, understanding, and, indeed, ety are governed by extreme Mus- admiration.” lim fundamentalists in league Bazei underscores in his intro- with the Saudi royal family. The duction that respect for Jewish stereotype has some truth. But it contributions to culture shouldn’t is a monochromatic view that be confused with support for misses the interesting color. For Israel or its policies. It’s a neces- example, this stereotype often sary caveat for his readers. He is glosses over the growing influ- attempting something they haven’t ence of Saudi Arabia’s Western- President Lincoln, Queen Victoria, Pope Pius IX, Sir Richard Burton, French prisoners sang encountered before in Arabic: an educated elite. his praises. A town in Iowa was named in his honor… objective study of It began with the bungled occupation of Al- the Jews. In giers in 1830 by a French army of 30,000… DQG WKH $UDE UHVLVWDQFH OHG E\\ D WZHQW\\ÀYH today’s Middle Here is a work in Arabic, by a Saudi year old Koranic scholar. East, everything is “…one of those dazzling biographies that in- mobilized in sup- form our modern life.” — Susan Eisenhower port of one side of author, suffused with understanding for the Arab-Israeli conflict, even the Jews and their predicament as a ´7RGD\\ PRUH WKDQ HYHU 0XVOLPV DQG QRQ 0XVOLPV DOLNH QHHG WR EH UHPLQGHG RI WKH Bazei’s field of lit- minority in Christian Europe. courage, compassion and intellect of Emir erary criticism (for Abd el-Kader…. Abd el-Kader’s jihad pro- which we have YLGHV 0XVOLPV ZLWK D PXFK QHHGHG DQWLGRWH to the toxic false jihads of today, dominated Edward Said to E\\ DQJHU YLROHQFH DQG SROLWLFVµ thank). To his credit, Bazei doesn’t Second, al-Bazei himself rep- — His Royal Highness, Prince Hassan bin gloss over Zionism but briefly resents this influence. A 55-year- Talal of Jordan mentions it as an important polit- old graduate of Purdue Universi- ical and ideological movement in ty, he belongs to the first wave of “When, in our own day al-Qaeda terrorists FODLP WKH WLWOH RI ´NQLJKWµ LW·V ZRUWK UHFDOOLQJ modern Jewish thought, placing Saudi men (and a few women) a time when Arab warriors embodied the QREOHVW DWWULEXWHV RI NQLJKWKRRG FRXUDJH it in the context of other 19th- who began traveling to Britain compassion and restraint. John Kiser brings century European strains of and the United States for college both the man and his world brilliantly to life.” nationalism. and graduate studies after the — Steve Simon, research fellow With all this talk of tolerance 1973 oil boom. These Western- Council on Foreign Relations and reasonable discussion, one educated graduates now number could easily get the impression that in the tens of thousands and run “Abd el-Kader teaches the French and the ZRUOG WKDW WR DFKLHYH VXFFHVV PRUDO DXWKRULW\\ Bazei’s book signifies some kind the government ministries, the is necessary, not simply military might…This of sea change in views toward Jews state oil company, the largest IDVFLQDWLQJ UHYLYDO RI D WK FHQWXU\\ ZRUOG KHUR·V VWRU\\ KROGV YDOXDEOH OHVVRQV IRU WRGD\\·V among the Arab reading public. banks, the major universities, and 0LGGOH (DVW ZDUULRU Here, it’s worth remembering that other institutions. They are the — Col. Jon Smythe 860& UHW few people will read the book most influential pro-American (print runs of Arabic books are bloc in the Arab world, and they “Notable for illustrating that the meeting usually limited to several thousand tend to share the political values RI FLYLOL]DWLRQV QHHG QRW DOZD\\V SURGXFH D copies), though many more have of openness and tolerance they clash.” — Kirkus Reviews seen or heard its positive press cov- associate with the United States www.truejihad.com $YDLODEOH IURP ÀQH ERRNVHOOHUV HYHU\\ZKHUH erage. However, the book does dating back to the 1970s and ’80s. lead to two important conclusions, At the same time, this generation 0RQNÀVK %RRN 3XEOLVKLQJ &RPSDQ\\ ZZZPRQNÀVKSXEOLVKLQJFRP and hints at a third. lives in a conservative, patriar-

[ ]In Other Words chal country. Reconciling these conflicting influences is a source of continuing tension in Saudi society, and Bazei’s objective study of Jews places him at the forefront of the liberalizing trend. The book hints at a third conclusion: tacit support for such projects from the Saudi govern- ment. The Saudi royal family governs through multiple alliances, among them a conser- vative clergy and a more liberal professional class, each enjoying royal patronage. In order to be published, this book would have had to pass a government cen- sorship bureau that is controlled by the clergy. In this context, the dedication of Bazei’s book to his deceased parents tells the Saudi reader something more. His mother was from the powerful al-Sudairy clan, and he is related through her to the crown prince and other senior royals (who also own the newspaper that publi- cized his book). In addition, Bazei’s book should be seen in the Saudi context as providing intellectual backing for King Abdullah’s recent initiative to convene an interfaith dialogue that includes Jewish religious leaders. To Westerners working in the Middle East, Bazei’s tolerant and broad-minded views are very much in line with those that we often hear in private conversa- tions with Arabs in the region. But Bazei has been courageous by going public, in print. West- erners should welcome and encourage such efforts, and thereby help make the goal of promoting understanding suc- cessful. Otherwise, this impor- tant Saudi test balloon could serve as nothing more than a regional curiosity.

What They’re Reading Cuba’s New Revolution As the Castro regime’s grip weakens, could Cuba’s cultural establishment finally have some room to breathe again? FP asked prominent Cuban blogger and cultural critic Yoani Sánchez for her take. FOREIGN POLICY: Has the political transition between Fidel and Raúl Castro influ- enced Cuba’s literary scene or political debates? Yoani Sánchez: The greatest influence that this political succession has had was an electronic debate among Cuban intellectuals in January and February 2007. For a cou- ple weeks, numerous writers, poets, and musicians held an exchange of e-mails with criti- cisms of the cultural policy of the Castros’ revolution. That would not have been possible with Fidel in power just months before. ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES FP: Who are the most suc- FP: How do important aspects enough to eat. The economic discovering another reality cessful authors in Cuba today? of Cuban culture, such as food crisis has made many typical through the pages of a book Is their writing at all political? and sports, influence the liter- Cuban dishes disappear, and is a good inducement. Hence, ary culture? the memory of those lost fla- many of us know Paris by YS: Leonardo Padura and vors is a constant in literary heart even though we have Pedro Juan Gutiérrez are per- YS: The topic of African reli- expression. never set foot in that city. The haps the most successful gions has influenced Cuban same is true of Berlin, Rome, writers, both on the foreign literature the most in recent FP: With the restrictions on and even Tokyo. Thanks to lit- market as well as within the times. It’s hard to find a novel travel, do you notice a greater erature, we manage to travel country. Both write critically that does not deal, even tan- demand for books about other to a bunch of places without about our reality, but neither gentially, with what for some places? the immigration officials being does political literature per se. is folklore and for others is able to say a word. Their texts paint a different spiritual life. YS: Reading is a form of Cuba than official discourse travel. Given the limitations Interview: Alex Ely, a student of would have us believe, and On the subject of culinary that we Cubans face in travel- government at the College of that is one of the reasons they arts, what you see is a con- ing outside our country, William and Mary. are embraced by the Cuban cern with simply getting public. N ov e m b e r | D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 87

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NET EFFECT [ ]H O W T E C H N O L O G Y S H A P E S T H E W O R L D Development 2.0 Earlier this year, Raj Kumar, five years of experience? Devex gives president and cofounder of the Wash- you a choice of 28. ington-based Development Executive They’ve been called the “develop- Group, launched a social networking At the heart of the site, though, is its ment mafia”—shadowy experts in tool designed to connect development massive projects database, which cur- rently lists more than 47,000 projects on obscure disciplines such as drip irrigation professionals and the firms that require everything from rural sanitation in Bangladesh to policing in the Palestinian and capacity building. But until recently, their expertise. The site, devex.com, territories—searchable by region, coun- try, donor, project type, or status. By the tens of thousands of freelance con- was inspired by Web 2.0 companies aggregating this information in one place, Kumar says, Devex gives every- sultants, ngo workers, and aid agency such as Facebook and LinkedIn. But one a chance to find out about oppor- tunities, not just the well-connected employees who make up the interna- whereas Facebook junkies list their (though executive members do get “early intelligence” reports about tional development world were more of favorite bands and upload photographs upcoming projects). a scattered horde than a cohesive com- of friends, Devex’s nearly 90,000 glob- Kumar’s goal is to make a profit, but he also hopes the site will help more munity. That might be about to change. al users boast about their project man- foreign aid reach those in need. “Effi- ciency isn’t sexy,” he admits. “But with agement skills and their $200 billion in foreign aid each year, a few percentage points of efficiency gains latest professional cer- is like adding another Gates Foundation to the world.” ActionAid International, tifications. an antipoverty group, estimates that in 2004 alone, nearly $12 billion was spent Site members can, on “over-priced and ineffective technical assistance.” For the world’s poorest, the depending on their social networking revolution couldn’t come soon enough. —Blake Hounshell level of access, post projects, form net- works based on com- mon interests, browse and monitor upcoming bids, find job opportu- nities, and get in touch with experts on the ground. Looking for an English-speaking agri- cultural specialist in Endangered species: High-priced foreign experts are in big trouble. Colombia with at least Rebels with a Server Caught in the Net: Contacting elusive rebel factions was once something for The European Union reporters to boast about at the hotel bar. Not anymore. Rebel press offices have gone digital—building Web sites, e-mail After Ireland shocked Europe by voting “no” to the Lisbon Treaty ref- erendum in June, an offended and befuddled European Commission lists, and even online chat rooms. Want to know what Darfur wondered, “Why do they hate us?” According to an EU investigation leaked to London’s Telegraph newspaper, bloggers are partly to rebels are thinking? Check the latest communiqués on the blame. Blogging, the report claims, is an “anti-establishment” activity. The EU investigation tracked sites between March and May Justice and Equality Movement’s home page. The photo gallery of this year, carefully documenting the uptick in anti-EU of Chad’s Union of Forces for Change and Democracy depicts messages. “A number of viral emails, videos, songs etc. were TOP: RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI/REUTERS; BOTTOM: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM sunglasses-clad rebel leaders brandishing their AK-47s—but created by the No campaign which were creative, often humorous, and had a lot please respect the copyright notice at the bottom of the page. of ‘cut through’.” Alas, says the report, the pro-Brussels Today’s rebel groups use the Internet to broadcast their campaign was over- whelmed by the Internet, a grievances the world over, and sometimes even move markets. “fragmented battle ground dominated by The Nigerian Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Euro-scepticism.” Delta (mend), for instance, adroitly manipulates oil prices through colorful e-mail blasts. Many of these illicit press offices far outpace their government rivals. mend responds within hours to e-mailed queries. But the commission charged [ ]For More Online with developing the Explore the Web sites of rebel groups at: Niger region? Good ForeignPolicy.com/extras/rebels. luck finding contact info on its Web site. —Elizabeth Dickinson 90 Foreign Policy