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November 20, 2009
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Andrew Bast

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Andrew Bast has reported from four continents for several publications, including Newsweek, the Village Voice, and the New York Times. In the wake of the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami, he wrote about the rescue effort from the beaches of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Later, he reported on the youth bulge in the Middle East, backlash against political corruption, and the best way to drink tequila from, respectively, Cairo, Quito, and Mexico City. In New York City, where he is now based, he has published poetry about street saxophone players, profiled literary icons, and interviewed cabinet-rank White House officials.

He earned a master's degree in international relations from the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he wrote his master's thesis about the Army Field Manual on Stability Operations, arguing against the idea that soldiers can readily be employed as effective state-builders. Focusing on the concept of failed states, he studied international law, the United Nations, and revolutions, researching case studies on the International Monetary Fund, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan. For a time, he lectured on American foreign policy at Baruch College.

His WPR column, Under the Influence, appeared in this space through most of 2009. You can write to him at andrewcbast ((--at--)) gmail.

Articles written by Andrew Bast

Under the Influence: Tempering Special Operations

By Andrew Bast 19 Jun 2009 | World Politics Review Winning American wars these days is four parts politics and just one part fighting, since contemporary military doctrine  tasks soldiers, on the whole, with state-building. Victory means building from the bottom up, rather than destroying from the top down. Special operations forces, which are playing a greater role in that one part fighting, must adapt to this broader political strategy.

Under the Influence: The New North Korea Equation

By Andrew Bast 12 Jun 2009 | World Politics Review President Barack Obama came into office ready to talk, and on many fronts he has already made good on his promise. Yet, apparently some situations demand a harder line, such as with North Korea and its ambitions to go nuclear. Obama seems to be breaking with the three previous administrations and taking a harder line than many expected.

Under the Influence: The New Shape of the American Idea

By Andrew Bast 05 Jun 2009 | World Politics Review President Barack Obama took to the podium in Egypt yesterday following in the tradition of Wilsonian idealism. Talking to the invited audience at Cairo University, he offered no strict policy proposals. Instead, Obama spent nearly an hour espousing the American ideal, punctuating his speech with citations from the Quran. The obvious question is, Will it work?

Under the Influence: The Dubious Decline Debate

By Andrew Bast 29 May 2009 | World Politics Review In its spring issue, the venerable Washington Quarterly asked what has become a perennial question, and the central theme of "Under the Influence": Is the United States entering an age of decline or renewal? But while everyone agrees on the question, it seems that no one can make up their minds on the answer.

Under the Influence: Control with No Strings Attached

By Andrew Bast 22 May 2009 | World Politics Review For more than half a century, the United States has held the reins of the world's most powerful economic institutions. The ideology underpinning much of its leverage was for a long time known formally as the Washington Consensus. Now, with credibility withering in Washington, not only has capitalism changed in the last two years. So, too, has the economic consensus changed capitals.

Under the Influence: An Internationalist Supreme Court Nominee?

By Andrew Bast 15 May 2009 | World Politics Review Will President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court alter American foreign policy? It's a question not many have bothered asking. Whoever Obama nominates, it seems, their influence on American foreign policy will be nil. Actually, no. The U.S. Supreme Court is far more international in its makeup and conduct than many think.

Under the Influence: Schooled in State-Building

By Andrew Bast 04 May 2009 | World Politics Review The agenda of President Obama's two-day mini-summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leader Asif Ali Zardari at the White House this week will include a pile of challenges now facing South Asia. But the three men would do well to devote another day to formulating a sustainable approach to state-building.

Under the Influence: What If We're Wrong?

By Andrew Bast 27 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review Few took issue with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's bold assertion on Wednesday that the Pakistan-based Taliban pose a "mortal threat" to the United States. Clinton emphasized "the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan," and therefore to the U.S. In the face of such certainty, it might seem naïve to consider the possibility, but what if that sentiment is simply wrong?

Under the Influence: The U.N. is the United States' to Lose

By Andrew Bast 20 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review Considering the U.N.'s origins, the alienation between that body and the United States is quite curious. As the U.S. and Russia hold veto power over all matters at the Security Council, it was little surprise that next to nothing was accomplished over the course of the Cold War. However, today's interconnected global order would seemingly demand exactly an international roundtable on the magnitude of the U.N.

Under the Influence: The Unthinkable in Foreign Policy

By Andrew Bast 13 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review Threats to U.S. security that yesterday seemed inconceivable are today commonplace. From Pearl Harbor to 9/11 to today's cyberthreats, the unimaginable represents the fundamental challenge confronting U.S. national security. A new book suggests how the U.S. can better prepare for it.

Under the Influence: Leading the IMF by Example

By Andrew Bast 06 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review To understand the real meaning of the G-20 meeting, follow the money: Leaders of the world's largest economies agreed to quadruple the funding of the International Monetary Fund to almost $1 trillion. To exert its influence in a more central and more representative IMF, the U.S. will have to lead by example.

WPR Interview: Economist Simon Johnson

By Andrew Bast 05 Apr 2009 | World Politics Review Perhaps the most significant development coming out of last week's G-20 summit meeting is the news that the International Monetary Fund's lending powers will be tripled to some $750 billion. The massive investment raises an immediate question: How is influence shifting within the workings of the Fund? To tease out the nuances of these developments, WPR columnist Andrew Bast spoke with Simon Johnson.

Under the Influence: Going it Alone in Afghanistan

By Andrew Bast 30 Mar 2009 | World Politics Review On Friday, President Barack Obama unveiled the results of his comprehensive and long-awaited policy review of the U.S. war strategy in South and Central Asia. If the new way forward offered few unexpected headlines, it raises the question of how long the U.S. will remain in Afghanistan, and whether it will be there alone.

Under the Influence: Challenging China with Cooperation

By Andrew Bast 23 Mar 2009 | World Politics Review When it comes to the rise of the next superpower, American influence over China seems tenuous at best and withered at worst. It is time for a new conceptual framework for serious strategic thinking about a relationship with China, one based on challenging China with cooperation.

Under the Influence: Late to the PRT

By Andrew Bast 16 Mar 2009 | World Politics Review More and more, trends in American foreign policy can best be expressed using oxymorons: warriors as diplomats, for instance, or soldiers as state-builders. Now, planning for a new approach to Afghanistan places another seemingly discrepant phrase at the heart of a sustainable strategy: expeditionary diplomacy.

Under the Influence: Goodbye Globalization

By Andrew Bast 09 Mar 2009 | World Politics Review Remember the age of globalization, if you can. The world was flat. High finance was king. Swelling economic prosperity had lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Capitalism, in a variety of configurations, stretched from one end of the earth to the other. How quickly that utopia has been shattered. The world is round again.

Under the Influence: Demand and the Mexican Drug War

By Andrew Bast 02 Mar 2009 | World Politics Review The war looks eerily familiar: beheadings, assassinations, and American civilians dead in the crossfire. And it's unfolding not in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but closer to home, threatening to boil over the United States' southern border with Mexico. Three former Latin American heads of state last week declared, "The war on drugs has failed."

Under the Influence: Building Afpakia at the Point of a Gun

By Andrew Bast 23 Feb 2009 | World Politics Review In South Asia, the Obama administration must ask itself which, of foreign policy's dirtiest words, do Americans least like to hear: war or state-building?

Under the Influence: A Yardstick of American Power

By Andrew Bast 16 Feb 2009 | World Politics Review Every week, "Under the Influence" will measure the way U.S. power is fading, as well as flourishing, and then attack the essential question: Why? Call the column a yardstick that measures U.S. influence.