Middle East & North Africa

The fall of Aleppo is a human catastrophe. It’s also a demonstration of the perils of choosing the middle course in a military conflict. Sometimes it’s possible to talk and fight at the same time. But in Syria, the U.S. decision to pursue a dual-track, halfway approach made the mayhem worse.

"I think that he has on some level grasped the difficulties I mentioned a moment ago: the difficulties of counterinsurgency and nation building, the limits of American power. I think he has acted on the basis of those convictions. I think he has a fundamental faith in diplomacy, which I think is right. He understands that diplomacy and negotiations can be a very powerful tool in the tool kit of American strategists, and I think that he is exactly right. So I am appreciative of the fact and supportive of the fact that he has pursued negotiations with Iran most notably, also with Cuba."

"The world—and our foreign policy—requires a broader vision than a fixation on terrorism and the troubled Middle East. American foreign policy will be central to the long-term global balance of power and the production of public goods—but can the next American President explain that to a public that has become entranced with the crisis du jour?"

Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power con­tinuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that con­tinues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist as­sumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its oppo­nents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and secu­rity. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic re­lationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.

The term soft power is entrenched in the theory and practice of American foreign policy, yet scholars have not yet developed, or empirically tested, a theory about the conditions under which governments can use soft power to their advantage—and that makes good policy hard to design. Drawing on research from the fields of communications, social psychology, and international relations theory, we develop a theory about the conditions under which state efforts to employ soft power will be most likely to succeed.

"On January 20, you will inherit a legacy of trouble: Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, North Korea for starters. Failure to manage any one of them could mire your presidency and sap your political support—and threaten the country’s future. At the same time, you must not let these inherited problems define your foreign policy. You need to put them in a larger context and create your own vision of how Americans should deal with the world."