James M. Lindsay discusses the political calculations behind President Obama's State of the Union address.

Abandoning counterinsurgency doctrine after Afghanistan would doom the U.S. military to irrelevance and impotence, writes Christopher Sims and Fernando Luján. Not so, says Bing West; like it or not, the United States will be much less ambitious in future wars.

Selections from the Foreign Affairs archives tracing the ideological battles of the past century and the evolution of the modern order.

Today's troubles are real, but not ideological: they relate more to policies than to principles. The postwar order of mutually supporting liberal democracies with mixed economies solved the central challenge of modernity, reconciling democracy and capitalism. The task now is getting the system back into shape.

Stagnating wages and growing inequality will soon threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood. What is needed is a new populist ideology that offers a realistic path to healthy middle-class societies and robust democracies.

Globalization is widening the gap between what voters demand and what their governments can deliver. Unless the leading democracies can restore their political and economic solvency, the very model they represent may lose its allure.

Intelligent observers of Europe in the 1930s thought its future belonged to communism or fascism and would have ridiculed the notion that decades later the entire continent would be democratic.

Opponents of military action against Iran assume a U.S. military strike would be far more dangerous than simply letting Tehran build a bomb. Not so, argues this former Pentagon defense planner. With a carefully designed strike, Washington could mitigate the costs—or at least bring them down to a bearable level—and spare the region and the world from an unacceptable threat.

The United States gives Pakistan billions of dollars in aid each year. Pakistan returns the favor by harboring terrorists, spreading anti-Americanism, and selling nuclear technology abroad. Washington must tell Islamabad to start cooperating or lose its aid and face outright isolation.

As the United States looks ahead, it faces two central challenges in foreign policy: enlarging the zone of prosperity and democracy in the West while balancing the rise of China and allaying the fears of the United States' Asian allies.

The collapse of the euro is no accident; the seeds of the crisis were planted before the monetary union even began, argues a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Confidence in the dollar and the euro continues to falter, threatening the inter - national monetary system.

China seems to want the yuan to dethrone the dollar as the global reserve currency. But don't expect China's currency to take over anytime soon.

John Lewis Gaddis' magisterial authorized biography of George Kennan tells the story of a brilliant diplomat who helped define postwar U.S. foreign policy. Yet the public triumph was matched with private frustration, and the prickly Kennan never won the influence he craved.

In his new book, the acclaimed psychologist Steven Pinker argues that despite the horrors of the twentieth century, global violence is actually on the decline over the long term.

Three new books look at poverty from the bottom up, painting a vivid portrait of the lives poor people live.

A pair of recent articles in this magazine highlighted two sides of Israel's current dilemma: the country does need to end the occupation, but Israelis also remain deeply skeptical of Palestinian intentions, and with good reason. Only one thing will break the paralysis of the Israeli center: if the Palestinians accept Israel's basic legitimacy.

China's rise is overstated, and its financial problems are massive, argues Derek Scissors. Arvind Subramanian disagrees, claiming that Beijing already calls theshots in the global economy.

Evan A. Feigenbaum argues that China will not simply bail out Pakistan with loans, investment, and aid, as those watching the deterioration of U.S.-Pakistani relations seem to expect. Rather, China will pursue profits, security, and geopolitical advantage regardless of Islamabad's preferences.

Mohamad Bazzi says that unfortunately for him and for Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi betrayed his own revolution, just as the other Arab strongmen of his generation had. His death marks the end of the rule of these old-style nationalist leaders.