In-Depth Archive

Historic treaty ushers in long-anticipated era of U.S. southward expansion. AUSTIN, Texas — Meeting in the New Texas statehouse on the 195th anniversary of Texas’ declaration of independence from Mexico, official representatives from the Tejas Confederation, the Northern Alliance of Mexican States, and the United States government signed a comprehensive treaty that will immediately “re-admit” the Tejas states of El Norte and Gulfland to the American union, and submit to Congress formal pleas for new statehood on behalf of all five Northern Alliance members — Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. If all Alliance members are ultimately accepted […]

The Berlin Wall was quite literally the prop on which the entire Soviet security structure for Europe rested. When it fell, Moscow’s continuing illusions that Eastern Europe could somehow be maintained as a belt of neutral states separating the Russian heartland from the West collapsed like a house of cards. And yet the edifice had appeared so solid, so permanent. In the euphoria that followed the fall of the Wall — and which was again on display during the 20th anniversary celebrations — we forget that prior to 1989, the division of Europe into two blocs, East and West, was […]

Describing the changes taking place in the world after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Henry Kissinger once declared that the unification of Germany would be more important than the integration of the European Union, the fall of the Soviet Union more important than the unification of Germany, and the rise of India and China more important than the fall of the Soviet Union. He was right. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rise of the Asian superpowers has been the most important factor in world politics. It is also the single trend most responsible for the increasing […]

For nearly three decades, there were few certainties about the global order as starkly tangible as the Berlin Wall. Cutting off East from West both literally and figuratively, it was the most important stitch in the Iron Curtain, and even on the eve of its collapse in the fall of 1989, few could imagine a world without it or the potentially apocalyptic divisions it represented. Yet when the Wall finally fell, eventually taking all of Soviet communism with it, a new set of certainties about the global political and economic order was born. And none has been more pervasive or […]

We are on the verge of repeating a pair of mistakes we made two decades ago, literally across the world from the scene of our errors in 1989. One lesson of the fall of the Berlin Wall was that states, or empires, can be much weaker than they appear. The revelation of Soviet vulnerability caught many American policymakers flat-footed. Another lesson was that careful strategic thinking is necessary for the United States to exploit shifts in the balance of power. While there were some successes in navigating the emergence of a post-communist Russia and independent former Soviet republics, the United […]

On Oct. 1, the People’s Republic of China celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding, most notably with an air show and military parade along Beijing’s Orwellian-sounding Avenue of Eternal Peace. The event showcased China’s arsenal of indigenously made fighter aircraft, tanks and newer-generation Dongfeng missiles, capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets over 11,000 kilometers away. This was hardly the first time an authoritarian government has used a military review to impress its citizens and outside observers. And China has used non-martial events to display its national pride, confidence and strength. In many ways, last year’s Beijing Olympics served […]

Last month, Republicans bashed President Barack Obama for not meeting with the Dalai Lama during his swing through Washington, portraying the president as caving to pressure from Chinese “tyrants” who hold trillions of dollars in U.S. debt and view the Tibetan spiritual leader as Public Enemy No. 1. “You can bet the Chinese are using their influence in ways we do not even know about,” warned Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the Republican co-chair of the Congressional Tibet Caucus. “This goes way beyond the Dalai Lama. The U.S. has permitted China to have a one-way free trade policy for decades, and now […]

China’s fifth generation of leaders is coming of age at a critical juncture in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Slated to assume power in 2012-2013, they will face both opportunities and challenges. Despite the current global economic and financial crisis, most projections of China’s continuing rise have it assuming the No. 2 spot in the international pecking order by that time, with further enhanced economic and political influence, but also heightened expectations and demands for Beijing to take the lead in global and regional affairs. At the same time, domestic issues, from ethnic unrest to growing income […]