Foreign Affairs

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In recent years, Occupy Wall Street hasn’t been the only group worried about how the spoils of economic growth have been distributed. Governments worldwide increasingly share the sentiment: like the pinched middle classes, they feel that corporations are taking too much of the profits for themselves. Here's the OECD and G-20's plan to get them to pay more.

Thanks to a newly proposed pollution rule, the United States is finally on its way toward meeting its Copenhagen emission reduction commitments. The move comes at the perfect time: At the end of next year, global leaders will convene in Paris to conclude the next major round of climate negotiations.

The 1973 coup in Chile is often included in indictments of U.S. covert action during the Cold War, during which the United States, at the direction of a number of presidents, sometimes took actions of questionable wisdom to prevent or reverse the rise of leftists who Washington feared might lead their countries into the Soviet orbit. In truth, the CIA did not plot with the Chilean military to overthrow Allende.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is Moscow’s latest attempt to maintain influence in a post-Soviet state by creating a so-called frozen conflict, in which a splinter territory remains under Russian protection and beyond the control of the central government. But history suggests Russia’s move will backfire and push the rest of Ukraine west.

Putin’s mission in Ukraine -- as with the Olympics and the last-minute diplomatic intervention in Syria last year -- is to remind the world that Russia is back and that it is a greater power than ever. It is entitled to international respect, he believes, and to dominate its neighbors economically and, evidently, militarily.

No sooner had embattled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled office than his old nemesis, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was back on the scene. Her return, which could upset the fragile balance among the three opposition leaders that helped boot Yanukovych, has already sparked concerns that this week marked the end of one president's rule but not the start of something new.

Yanukovych's decision to snub the EU has made his job a lot harder. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have taken to the streets in support of European values, his own political base has lost trust in him, and Russia may soon decide it prefers to work with a less toxic partner. The EU might just come out of all of this a winner.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not a crazy, irrational, or reckless zealot searching for opportunities for aggression, as this sweeping intellectual profile shows. That means there’s room for the United States and Iran to improve ties—if Washington can convince Khamenei it’s not determined to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

U.S. Treasury official Harry Dexter White is best known as one of the leading architects of the Bretton Woods system that shaped the global economy after World War II. But he was also a spy for the Soviet Union, providing secret information and giving advice on economic issues. Why did he do it? Newly uncovered documents show that this champion of postwar global capitalism was actually a passionate believer in the success of the Soviet experiment with socialism.

It’s easy to be pessimistic about the Arab Spring, given the post-revolutionary turmoil the Middle East is now experiencing. But critics forget that it takes time for new democracies to transcend their authoritarian pasts. As the history of political development elsewhere shows, things get better.

Compared with other developed countries, the United States has very low taxes, little income redistribution, and an extraordinarily complex tax code. If it wanted to, the government could raise taxes without crippling growth or productivity. Tax reform is ultimately a political choice, not an economic one—a statement about what sort of society Americans want.

In 64 BC, the great Roman lawyer and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero ran for consul. His younger brother, Quintus, thought Marcus had a chance -- as long as he ran a good campaign. So Quintus wrote a detailed strategy memo laying out just what Marcus needed to do to win. It’s the best guide to electioneering you’ll ever read, presented here with a commentary by the legendary political consultant James Carville.

Most experts think the global recession was caused by a collapse in demand -- and so, in good Keynesian fashion, they want governments to ramp up spending to compensate. But the West’s recent growth was dependent on borrowing. Going even further into debt now won’t help; instead, countries need to address the underlying flaws in their economies.

Unions underwrote the affluence of U.S. workers in the last century. They ensured that manual work paid white-collar wages and gave laborers a voice in politics. But now, unions are declining, and the working and middle classes are paying the price. Reviving labor won’t be easy -- but doing so is critical to preserving America’s economic and social health.

Global health programs now teeter on the edge of disaster. The world economic crisis and the politics of debt reduction are threatening everything from malaria control and AIDS treatment to well-baby programs and health-care worker training efforts. And even if the existing global public health architecture survives this time of parsimony and austerity, it will have been remodeled along the way.

Terrible rulers, sullen populations, a terrorist fringe—the Arabs' exceptionalism was becoming not just a human disaster but a moral one. Then, a frustrated Tunisian fruit vendor summoned his fellows to a new history, and millions heeded his call. The third Arab awakening came in the nick of time, and it may still usher in freedom.

Success in Afghanistan would not be as difficult or expensive as it was for the United States to win wars in Europe or counter the communist threat. Given the risks and the opportunities ahead, an investment in South Asia is worth making.

Over the last three decades, public funding for global health organizations has dried up. Private companies are writing checks to fill the gap, and, accordingly, they are bending the agenda toward their interests. Realigning priorities, however, will mean getting more private firms involved, not less.