First Principles: America and the World

Gadhafi is gone. We're leaving Iraq. The Arab Spring unfolds; Europe implodes; China grows and grows. The new world requires new principles to guide our foreign policy.

• Charles Kupchan: Grand Strategy: The Four Pillars of the Future
• Rosa Brooks: Democracy Promotion: Done Right, A Progressive Cause
• Rachel Kleinfeld: Global Outreach: Speaking to the Awakening World
• Tom Perriello: Humanitarian Intervention: Recognizing When, and Why, It Can Succeed
• Bruce W. Jentleson: Accepting Limits: How to Adapt to a Copernican World

The Roberts Court v. America

Jedediah Purdy: How the Roberts Supreme Court is using the First Amendment to craft a radical, free-market jurisprudence.

Rethinking Debt

Jared Bernstein: Washington refuses to understand that debt can be an essential tool for economic growth. Can we overcome this irrational and destructive fear?

Open-Source Diplomacy

Jonathan Spalter: Instead of hunkering down in the wake of the WikiLeaks fiasco, Foggy Bottom should move toward a less secretive diplomacy.

The Things He Carried

Andrew Exum: Is one soldier’s experience in battle universal or particular? It depends—and it’s what it depends on that’s fascinating.

The Myth of the Middle

Mark Schmitt: Why we should be skeptical about the current mania for a third party that appeals to independents and libertarians.

Secrets and Lies

Tara McKelvey: Secrecy is necessary in the battle against terrorism. But a little transparency about secrecy ought to be possible.

Our Country, Our Critic

Christopher Byrd: When so many of his Jewish intellectual contemporaries hustled over to the right, what kept Alfred Kazin on the left?

Health Reform Without Apology

Lawrence R. Jacobs: The Affordable Care Act is under relentless attack from conservatives. Yet progressives are too ambivalent about defending it.

Editor’s Note

Michael Tomasky: Michael Tomasky introduces Issue #23.

Arguing About Growth

William Galston & Lawrence Mishel: Lifting the economy will require more spending now and fundamental budget reform later. William Galston and Lawrence Mishel continue their exchange on growth and the progressive agenda.

Letters to the Editor

Democracy Readers: Letters from our readers

The Greatest Story Never Told

Michael Tomasky: Our political problem, in a nutshell: The party of government is afraid to defend government. Nothing will really change until that changes.