Most influential foreign policy articles since 9/11?

June 19, 2009 4:36 PM

What have been the most influential foreign policy articles - in magazines, academic journals, from thinktanks or otherwise since 9/11?
posted by shivohum to Law & Government (10 answers total)

Influencing who? About what? "Foreign policy" is very vague.
posted by B-squared at 5:14 PM on June 19, 2009

Response by poster: I was being deliberately vague :), but I'd say influencing thought leaders (the academy, journalists, the council on foreign relations type places, etc.) and/or political elite, particularly but not exclusively in the US. Foreign policy I'll leave broad.
posted by shivohum at 5:21 PM on June 19, 2009

For better or worse, Ken Pollack's The Threatening Storm in the run-up to the Iraq War. And on the flip-side, Michael Manning's two pieces in the NYRB from early 2004, particularly "Now They Tell Us".
posted by holgate at 5:42 PM on June 19, 2009

Although I don't agree with it, Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations is considered widely influential, as is much of his other work.
posted by BusyBusyBusy at 5:43 PM on June 19, 2009

Benjamin R. Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy was written in 1995 and has proven amazingly prescient.
posted by geekyguy at 6:16 PM on June 19, 2009

"The Pentagon's New Map".
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:19 PM on June 19, 2009

"Japan's Gross National Cool" /should/ have been influential. It really crystalized nicely some things I've thought about the country for 20-odd years now.
posted by @troy at 7:21 PM on June 19, 2009

Both Huntington and Barber are pre-9/11. I work in this field, in one of the places you mentioned, and the question is very difficult to answer without greater context. Do you want the most influential articles about terrorism? Or do you want everything from financial harmonization to cooperation in international organizations to cyber war? FWIW, the work that makes a big splash in policy circles will often not be what makes a splash in academia; they strive toward very different ideals. Policy work tends to be much more normative and prescriptive and less rigorous than academic work. Not that one is better than the other, they're just different.
posted by B-squared at 11:50 AM on June 20, 2009

Walt and Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby (pre-book article) made a pretty big splash when it came out and is still being discussed a few years later.
posted by teishu at 12:00 PM on June 20, 2009

Response by poster: B-squared: Good point. I guess I mean more policy stuff than academic work.
posted by shivohum at 8:20 PM on June 21, 2009