Purchase this issue

The Next Big Thing
Why bad times lead to great ideas.

Think Again: The Green Economy
Going green has finally gone mainstream, and politicians from London to Seoul are spending billions on clean technologies they say will create jobs. But unless we are all willing to risk a little more pain, the green revolution could founder before it ever really starts.
By Matthew E. Kahn

Caught in the Middle
For three decades, he has talked to all camps in the fractious Middle East. Then came Davos, and an effort to “moderate” a conversation between irreconcilable sides on the Gaza war. The center not only cannot hold, it no longer exists.
By David Ignatius

The Land of No Smiles
Posing as a European businessman, renowned documentary photographer Tomas van Houtryve gains entry into North Korea, and captures ordinary life in the world’s biggest gulag. But never once does he catch a smile.

Soldiers of Misfortune
U.N. peacekeepers are the fastest-growing military force on the planet, and they carry a world of responsibility on their shoulders. But increasingly, the blue helmets—and the overburdened system that supports them—aren’t up to the task.
By Elizabeth Dickinson

Wasted
The American prohibition on thinking smart in the drug war.
By Moisés Naím

In Other Words

• Mob Rule By Valentina Pasquali
  
• Baltic Ghosts By Nick Bravin
  
• The Early Read on: The Great Recession

• Russia’s bad philosophy By Strobe Talbott
  
• Epiphanies from Amartya Sen
• Faulty towers By Joshua Keating
  
• New coups By Joshua Keating
• Slavery’s long shadow By Joshua Keating
  
• Antisocial networks By Christina Larson
  
• Economics psychs up By Elizabeth Dickinson
• Langley’s hidden hand By Laura Rozen
• The Ottoman revival By Yigal Schleifer
  
• Plus, the FP Quiz

• Flat world hits a bump
  
  Economic historian Harold James says Moisés Naím is too optimistic about the future of globalization, while Karl Moore and David Lewis argue that global trade is nothing new.
• The end of evil?
  Former National Security Council staffer Peter Feaver argues that Niall Ferguson’s “axis of upheaval” won’t replace the old “axis of evil” any time soon.
• Mexico’s state of affairs
  Arturo Surakhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, thinks Sam Quinones’s dire assessment of Mexico is dangerously misleading.
• China’s team players
  Winberg Chai feels that Chinese Communist Party politics are not quite as simple as Cheng Li would have us believe.