Foreign Affairs This Week 7/25

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How Hamas Won Israel's Tactical Success and Strategic Failure By Ariel Ilan Roth Israel's tactical achievements against Hamas can't be minimized. But they do not equal a strategic victory. War, as Clausewitz famously taught, is the continuation of politics by other means. Wars are fought to realign politics in a way that benefits the victor and is...

Bibi's First War Why Benjamin Netanyahu Has Never Liked Military Conflict By Hussein Ibish Netanyahu's entire career has been defined by careful calculation, caution, and a steadfast commitment to the status quo. But since the onset of Israel's ongoing war with Hamas, he has found himself in a situation well outside of his comfort zone.

War Comes to Ukraine The Consequences of the Crash in Donetsk By Alexander J. Motyl This week saw a major escalation of Russian military involvement in Ukraine, which, until yesterday, had gone relatively unremarked in Western media. But now, no matter who fired the missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines flight 17, things are set to change. And that is...

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Still Ours to Lead  America, Rising Powers, and the Tension between Rivalry and Restraint Bruce Jones In 2008, Fareed Zakaria announced The Post-American World. In 2012, Ian Bremmer warned It’s Every Nation for Itself. In 2014, it’s time to think again. "An indispensable antidote both to boosterish America-first-ism and to doomy Asia-first-ism. Jones demonstrates that the ‘rise of the rest’ need not be a zero-sum game for the U.S..” –James Traub Buy now: Still Ours to Lead

The Dutch Disaster Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Future of Dutch-Russian Relations By Mitchell A. Orenstein Out to earn a dollar on the Russian natural resource trade, European nations such as the Netherlands have long kept smiling as the Kremlin has continued to humiliate them. But now the airline disaster, combined with Moscow’s attempts to cover up its role in the tragedy, will...

Suicide By Drought How China is Destroying Its Own Water Supply By Sulmaan Khan On the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, one sometimes hears a strange chattering -- an excited buzz that seems to emanate from the earth itself. Anyone who stops to look for the source will quickly realize that the ground is marked by a series of holes, from which small,...

Bombs Away The Case for Phasing Out U.S. Tactical Nukes in Europe By Barry Blechman and Russell Rumbaugh U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe had little military value during the Cold War and they have even less today. Instead of giving these aging weapons a costly upgrade, Washington should begin phasing them out.

Good Guy Gamble What to Expect From Indonesia's Jokowi By Jonah Blank Preliminary tallies suggest that Jokowi won Indonesia's July 9 presidential election, but his competitor, Prabowo, is not guaranteed to go quietly. The stakes could hardly be higher: Since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia has been a showpiece of democracy in Asia. The...

Fear and Boredom in Vienna Letter From the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations By Hooman Majd Vienna's opulent Palais Coburg was originally designed as a palace for Austria’s former Habsburg dynasty. But amid the tense negotiating sessions over the future of Iran's nuclear program, it could sometimes feel more like a prison -- for diplomats and journalists alike.

Foreign Affairs Focus: Alexander Motyl on the Ukraine Crisis By Gideon Rose and Alexander J. Motyl Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs, sits down with Alexander Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers, to discuss the ongoing Ukraine crisis.