In the March/April Issue

As the grim realities of “the troubled European Union and the darkening Arab Spring” become undeniable, Walter Laqueur, one of the deans of foreign policy commentary in America, explores the ways in which wishful thinking and partial reporting of these events, disguised as analysis, has denied and distorted reality—leaving the public unprepared for unpleasant outcomes and policymakers ill equipped to affect them. Sadly, it’s not a new phenomenon, as Laqueur notes. Nor are the ideological themes that underpin the wishful thinking particularly novel. In some sense, Americans have always been innocents abroad. And because none of us are immune to self-delusion, in our rush to justify our own worldviews—and the ideological and political

leanings and loyalties that accompany them—Laqueur’s reading of reactions to recent events in Europe and the Middle East makes for a cautionary tale.

In addition to this call for a more detached and unflinching approach to the world, this issue of World Affairs offers essays on four national leaders who call for close watching in these dangerous and interesting times.

North Korea’s new Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un, who was chosen over two older brothers to rule his late father’s unpredictable and nuclear-armed country, has caused some speculation about whether, because of his Swiss education, he might be disposed to institute slow reforms that might bring his hermit kingdom out of its wretched backwardness. In her excellent piece, Naoko Aoki, who has traveled to Pyongyang eighteen times in recent years as a correspondent for Japan’s Kyodo News, considers this remote possibility as part of her intriguing rumination on what we should (and should not) expect in this mysterious, unsettled, and dangerous country’s political and dynastic transition to come.

Jordan Smith tracks how Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister since 2006, has redefined the way his country sees itself, its role and image abroad, its relationship with its Mother Country, and the international bodies in which it is playing an ever more assertive role. Driven by a worldview that “prioritizes confrontation and support for democracies over traditional Canadian values of neutrality and mediation,” Harper has decisively broken ranks with his predecessors by routinely and harshly criticizing the world’s tyrants and challenging the UN’s effectiveness, all the while taking a leadership role in causes not traditionally high on Canada’s soft-spoken agenda—like extending the country’s presence in Afghanistan, urging NATO action in Libya, doubling its defense budget in a few years, and even promoting Israel’s right to defend itself. There’s plenty of interesting background and insight here for those who are curious about what’s happening and why in Harper’s Ottawa.

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Kissel takes us Down Under, where the pendulum has been swinging in the other direction. Except for a brief recessionary period, Australia enjoyed some twenty years of economic recovery and expansion, spurred by the free-market reforms adopted by successive Labor and Liberal governments, which deregulated industry, liberalized trade, paid down debt, liberalized immigration, privatized national holdings, reformed welfare programs, and so forth. But now, Kissel argues, that long continuity, and Australia’s standing, is being threatened by the policies of Kevin Rudd’s Labor government and the Labor-Green-Independent coalition government that succeeded it, which have been bent on spending sprees, higher taxes, “white elephant projects,” and the like. If the polls are to be believed, be on the lookout for the pendulum to reverse its swing, come next election.

And we have again Vladimir Putin, and the increasingly relevant question: Will he survive? Longtime Russia watcher Alexander Motyl believes that many observers have overestimated the ability of Russia’s oil and gas riches to provide the economic benefits and stability necessary to secure the country’s political leadership in the long term. At the same time, he contends that these “experts” have also underestimated how a centrally controlled government, fraught with cronyism and corruption, also undermines the regime’s system of authority, decisionmaking, and accountability, which, at the end of the day, invites decay, decline, and perhaps crash. As the soft brutality of the Putin regime becomes more and more apparent, we can look forward to that day’s end.

Which brings us to another question raised herein—that of NATO’s relevance and staying power—which has lingered like a bad cold since Communism’s collapse. Karsten Jung has written a probing assessment of how the alliance, with its expanded membership and elastic (if not expanded) mandate, is coping with the challenge of its members’ growing diversity of interests, capabilities, and politics now that there is no overwhelming Soviet threat to compel unity. The Bush era’s ad hoc “coalitions of the willing” approach has become the modus operandi that has allowed NATO to navigate the often contentious terrain that leads to the use of force. But can the alliance survive without a commitment to a larger strategic conception?

There’s more in this issue—why Afghanistan (and the US commitment there) still matters in a region alive with hatred, ill intent, and sharp divides among peoples; why non-Islamists in Egypt need to form a coherent and competitive platform before they lose another election; why American sea power still matters in a region dependent upon open sea-lanes and nervous about China’s rising navy; and why the Sino-Russian gas pipeline is still bogged down and may continue to be in the near future.

As always, we appreciate your thoughts.

— James S. Denton