Website of David C. Hendrickson
Guide to the Internet
Antiwar.com has a tremendous variety of new stories and editorials every day, with excellent coverage of America's ongoing wars and sources from all round the world. In its opinion columns, the ideological orientation is Old Right and New Left.
RealClearPolitics gathers 25 to 30 opinion pieces a day, mostly from the right but often with important articles from elsewhere on the spectrum.
The following links are to the international affairs page of some major newspapers. The sites differ in the amount of free content and all require registration:
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
The Financial Times.
To follow individual countries, check out the "regions" tab at Human Security Gateway, a Canadian site, or the International Crisis Group
Especially useful for following America's wars are War Report (Iraq and Afghanistan) from the Project on Defense Alternatives, Jim Lobe, Gareth Porter, and Juan Cole's Informed Comment
The Economist is the best among the newsweeklies.
Foreign Policy has breaking world news and links to world newspapers.
Foreign Policy Hangouts: Steve Clemons, TPM Cafe, Laura Rozen, Nikolas Gvosdev, and The Belgravia Dispatch
The internet makes it possible to construct your own editorial page. To sharpen dialectical skills, and maybe even change your mind, it's best to read all across the political spectrum. The list of prominent columnists that follows comes from left, right, and center.
The Best and the Brightest: Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune
Free Spirit of the Old Right: Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com
King of the Neo-Cons: Charles Krauthammer of Washington Post
Most Likely To Make Neo-Cons Froth: Paul Krugman of the New York Times
Second Most Likely: Maureen Dowd of the New York Times
How Others See Us (It Ain’t Pretty): William Pfaff of the International Herald Tribune
Iconoclastic Liberal: Michael Kinsley of the Washington Post
Having Sober Second Thoughts, But Seldom Changing His Mind: George Will of The Washington Post
When Good, Very, Very Good: Pat Buchanan of The American Conservative
Neo-Cons Who Try to Be Reasonable, But Do Not Always Succeed: David Brooks of the New York Times and Robert Kagan of The Washington Post
Sane Liberal: E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post
Freedom Lover: Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian
Fourth-Generation Warfare Guy: William S. Lind
Peace-Mongers: Alan Bock, Doug Bandow, and Ivan Eland
Pure Genius: Tom Englehardt of TomDispatch
Among columnists who make foreign affairs their speciality, I prefer
Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek to
Tom Friedman of the New York Times or
Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post.
I see that I've left out Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. Not to worry. You can find them and many other barkers, mostly on the right, at RealClearPolitics.
Famed commentators from the old days, study of whom would pay great dividends, are H.L. Mencken and Walter Lippmann. Ronald Steel's Walter Lippmann and the American Century is a terrific introduction to Lippmann.
The concerned citizen and aspiring intellectual should become familiar with the following magazines, which range from weeklies to monthlies and run across the political spectrum. You should subscribe to a number of these when you get out of college. Many are dirt cheap and, since most lose money, are a fitting object of your future benevolence. Full content can often be found at the CC Library site (Find Journals).
On the Right,
The Weekly Standard, the flagship journal of the neoconservatives, is edited by Bill Kristol.
National Review, the old standard-bearer of postwar American conservatism, was founded by William F. Buckley in 1955; and
Commentary, indelibly associated with legendary editor Norman Podhoretz, is still a vital outlet for the neocons.
On the Left, ranging from soft to hard, the mainstays are
Two magazines unusual in their ideological orientation are:
TAC is dovish on foreign policy but conservative on social issues. TNR is hawkish on foreign policy but liberal on social issues. If opposites attract, they are an odd but perfect couple--alike in propounding views deemed heretical by their ideological kinsmen.
The two great monthlies, both quite inexpensive through subscription, and always worth reading.
For Highbrows:
New Yorker (This link is to their national security archive).
Energy and economic issues have aroused my strong interest over the last few years. Here are some of the sites I check out regularly.
Energy Bulletin has a roundup of links to energy issues
Nouriel Roubini has excellent coverage of economic affairs (registration required)
Brad Setser is a vital source on the international economy.
Matt Simmons gives the low-down on Peak Oil.
London Banker eyes the world monetary system.
Wall Street Examiner takes a super-skeptical look at “The Street”
Sudden Debt unfolds the dimensions of the debt crisis.
Naked Capitalism has good links and discussions of economic and financial issues.
Since Billmon stopped writing (come back please!), my go-to-guy among the bloggers is Matthew Yglesias
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History?, The National Interest, Summer 1989
Charles Krauthammer, The Unipolar Moment Revisited, The National Interest
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993; ibid, The West: Unique, Not Universal, Foreign Affairs, November/December 1996; ibid, The Lonely Superpower, Foreign Affairs, March/April 1999
Robert Kagan, Power and Weakness, Policy Review, June/July 2002
G. John Ikenberry, America's Imperial Ambition Foreign Affairs, September/October 2002
Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994
Jonathan Schell, The Empire That Rose as it Fell, August 19, 2004; Imperialism Without Empire, August 26, 2004; A Less Super Superpower, March 2, 2005, all at www.tomdispatch.com
Benjamin Barber, Jihad Vs. McWorld, The Atlantic Monthly, March 1992
Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World, American Enterprise Institute, February 10, 2004
Francis Fukuyama, The Neoconservative Moment, The National Interest, Summer 2004
Krauthammer, In Defense of Democratic Realism, The National Interest, Fall 2004
Bill McKibben, The Coming Meltdown, New York Review of Books, January 12, 2006
Bill McKibben, How Close to Catastrophe?, New York Review of Books, November 16, 2006
Journals on World Politics and American Foreign Policy
Think Tanks and Other Useful Sites
Journals on World Politics and American Foreign Policy
The following journals are very useful for dealing with contemporary issues of international politics and American foreign policy. These links are generally to the home page, where you can usually find tables of contents and some full text resources. Full text to most of these journals is available through Find Journals at Tutt Library.
International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs
Think Tanks and Other Useful Sites
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy
Project on Defense Alternatives
United States State Department
American Society of International Law
United Nations Security Council
Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Studies
Mapping the Global Future - 2020 Project