Canter Bridge

Foreign Affairs makes no apology for its antiquated typescript, large print, and generally stodgy appearance. It hardly needs to.

It is simply one of the consistently finest sources of foreign policy discussion available from an American (thus foreign policy means USA vis-à-vis the world) point of view. The design folks have correctly discerned that toying with appearances could only interfere with a train that rolls just fine as it is.

FA is often the vehicle of choice for American foreign policy officers who have moved on to think tanks and other private sector roles. For example, see the Richard Holbrooke (he of the Dayton Accords) piece entitled ‘Liberalism and Foreign Policy’ in the most recent (July/August 2006) issue available to this reviewer.

The voice most often heard in FA is decidely that of the Washington establishment, broadly defined. Yet the editors occasionally toss in a dissenting viewpoint like that of Hugo Chávez’ Ambassador to the US (‘A Benign Revolution: In Defense of Hugo Chávez’, July/August 2006) for color.

The writing is well informed and superbly edited. Roundtable discussions on issues of concern are common, as are themed issues. Again from the recent issue, the topic ‘The Rise of India’ provides space for four essays entitled ‘Unshackling the Economy’, ‘India’s Global Strategy’, ‘America’s New Partner?’, and ‘The Kashmir Conundrum’. FA‘s genius lies in that the globe’s foreign policy experts will have digested these contributions with great care, yet the business traveler on her first trip to India can easily do the same on the first flight of her journey. Such is the quality of FA‘s editorial work.

Long-time readers often discern an editorial drift to the right or the left, a perception that may owe as much to the changing currents of international affairs and the constantly moving matrix in which any statement must be written and read as to any real shift in the journal’s political leanings.

Foreign Affairs is a must read for career internationalists, a worthwhile educational tool for those who want to know what America’s brightest (thought not always most in touch with facts on the ground) policy makers are thinking, and a diversion for hobbyists whose curiosity regularly yanks them tornado-like out of Kansas.