The National Interest Online

The discussion section of the Valdai Club took place this year in Yakutia (or in the indigenous language, Sakha) in eastern Siberia, mainly in cruise ships on the river Lena. This was fascinating, but I must confess that there were moments when I found myself repeating Dr. Samuel Johnson's remark about the Giant's Causeway: "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see." Going to see Yakutia involves a six-hour flight and a six-hour time difference from Moscow, with the… more

On the late afternoon of Wednesday April 29, I went to interview a local leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Karachi, and spent a couple of hours at their headquarters. From there, I went on to Zeinab market to look for presents for my family, and spent another couple of hours haggling over textiles and looking for a new suitcase. Then back to my hotel, where I had a shower and a bite to eat, called my wife, and contemplated… more

I hope with all my heart that most of what I am going to write in this article will prove mistaken. President Obama’s appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy for the Middle East peace process, and of Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan (and de facto American broker for the Kashmir issue), are both in themselves very positive moves. The Bush administration’s neglect of these two conflicts was among its more disgraceful foreign-policy omissions. The appointment of such senior, respected and impressive

The most important questions concerning the terrorist attacks in Mumbai are also obvious ones, yet are not asked nearly often enough by Western analysts. They are: What goals did the terrorists hope to achieve by these attacks? And how to what degree did they achieve them? Regrettably, the terrorists so far seem to have achieved at least a qualified success.

In domestic policy, president-elect Obama faces the need for urgent and radical action, above all of course concerning the economy, but also on health coverage and financing social security. In foreign policy, matters are rather different. There, what he does not do will be just as important as what he does. After the hyper-activism of the Bush presidency, there is an urgent need for a long period of caution and restraint.

Military overstretch, financial constraints and cooperation with other powers to deal with the world economic crisis… more

If anyone doubts the increasing importance of finance as a tool of foreign policy, one need look no further than Iceland, a NATO member, which this past week announced that it is in negotiations for a 4 billion euro bailout from Russia. Iceland's prime minister was blunt: "We have not received the kind of support that we were requesting from our friends, so in a situation like that one has to look for new friends."

While denied by the Icelandic government, there have been suggestions that one area… more

In the course of the Valdai conference in Russia from September 7–14 we met with President Dmitri Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Deputy Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn. There was no significant difference between them in what they said about Russian policy and Russian views. Nor have such differences appeared outside the conference.

Of course, it is possible that they exist in private and have so far been kept under wraps by strict discipline; but… more

In a way, Chechnya, which we visited in the course of the Valdai Club discussions in Russia last week, can stand as a more savage version of the Putin era in Russia as a whole: namely the successful restoration of order and progress, by methods which were often extremely ugly, but which may have been the only ones available under the circumstances.

Grozny, which I last saw as an immense heap of rubble, is now a truly impressive sight, with fine modern apartment blocks and… more

There were moments during the week I spent in Russia for the Valdai Discussion Club when I felt as if the world had begun to rotate backward. Chiefly, this was the result of having spent the previous six weeks in Pakistan, half of them based in Peshawar near the frontier with Afghanistan.

During my stay the bloody mayhem in Afghanistan continued unabated, with a French unit cut to pieces near Kabul. President Musharraf of Pakistan was forced to resign and was replaced by Asif Zardari, a… more