Foreign Affairs Magazine

The West has a chance to win concessions from a new Syrian government that is willing to engage. It should not squander the opportunity, as it did after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, write Delaney Simon, Graeme Smith, and Jerome Drevon. https://fam.ag/4a1DwHs

“This conflict is not only about Ukraine or the rules-based international order. It is also about how the United States and the West more broadly should think about escalation thresholds in a new era of great-power rivalry.” https://fam.ag/40k2AXc

“U.S. President Jimmy Carter transformed U.S. national security strategy by modernizing force levels, mobilization, and communications.” Read Tom Donilon on the former U.S. president’s foreign policy legacy: https://fam.ag/3PmVpXR

“A continued U.S. troop presence in Syria, combined with a lack of measures to help stabilize the new Syrian government, could lead to an increasingly costly U.S. mission in a country that is not at the center of Washington’s global strategic concerns.” https://fam.ag/3Psz7DT

“This inescapable challenge of dealing with depopulation is going to be a problem for the entire world economy. Who’s going to deal with it well?” Listen to the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” featuring a conversation with Nicholas Eberstadt. https://fam.ag/3W3UOhE

In “The Conscience of the Party,” Robert L. Suettinger provides a detailed account of Hu Yaobang, who strove to ensure that the imperatives of reform prevailed in Chinese policymaking for much of the 1980s. Read Chen Jian’s review: https://fam.ag/400WgCu

“Chinese defense experts believe that AI technologies will offer the PLA the best chance to equal, or surpass, the warfighting capacity of the U.S. armed forces.” Read Sam Bresnick on why adopting AI technologies in the Chinese military may be harder than expected: https://fam.ag/42iFyRZ

A nuclear South Korea could establish the deterrence against North Korea needed for the United States to focus on the competition with China, argue Robert E. Kelly and Min-hyung Kim. https://fam.ag/4gxBIIU

“The war has still fostered greater patriotism among Ukrainians, stiffened their resolve to fight for their freedom, and deepened their desire to escape Russia’s orbit,” write Anton Gruschetskyi and Volodymyr Paniotto. https://fam.ag/40fHrNR

“In four years in office, Carter managed to shape four decades of American foreign policy. His legacy can be seen in the approaches that his successors took toward the Middle East, Beijing, and Moscow, but it does not end there.” https://fam.ag/4fGFMVI