Generally, Western leaders have reacted favorably to the integrationist push for a "common European home" from first the Soviet Union and then Russia over the past two decades. Yet never in two decades has this strategic agenda of integration been so threatened as it is today. McFaul discusses three factors that have combined to make Russian integration into the West a foreign policy project with very little momentum.

This paper presents empirical evidence on a specific mechanism through which demographic transition affects economic growth. The evidence provides support for the models of demographic transition emphasizing the demand for children. Using a panel of African countries during 1985-2000, I show that the AIDS epidemic effects the total fertility rates positively and the school enrollment rates negatively. These patterns are consistent with the theoretical models that argue the existence of a precautionary demand for children in the face of uncertainty about child survival. Parents, who are faced with a high mortality environment for young adults, choose to have more children and provide each of them with less education, leading a reversal in the fertility transition and a reduction in the aggregate amount of human capital investment. The empirical estimates show that a country that has witnessed the average increase in AIDS incidence for Africa, have 0.8 more births and 30 percentage points less primary school enrollment since 1985. The results imply lower economic growth and welfare for the current and future African generations.

In today's increasingly interconnected world, weak and failed states pose an acute risk to U.S. and global security. Indeed, they present one of the most important foreign policy challenges of the contemporary era. States are most vulnerable to collapse in the time immediately before, during, and after conflict. When chaos prevails, terrorism, narcotics trade, weapons proliferation, and other forms of organized crime can flourish. Left in dire straits, subject to depredation, and denied access to basic services, people become susceptible to the exhortations of demagogues and hatemongers. It was in such circumstances that in 2001 one of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan, became the base for the deadliest attack ever on the U.S. homeland, graphically and tragically illustrating that the problems of other countries often do not affect them alone.

We provide a simple framework relating cultural distance, genetic distance and differences in income per capita. We estimate the model empirically by regressing current income differences between pairs of countries on measures of geographical and genetic distance ("coancestor coefficients"). We find a significant effect of genetic distance on income differences, while geographical distance (i.e., geodesic distance between major cities) is negative and insignificant when genetic distance is controlled for. Differences in latitude across countries help explain income differences even when genetic distance is controlled for, which is consistent with Jared Diamond's hypothesis regarding a Eurasian advantage in development. We uncover similar patterns of coefficients for differences in human capital, institutions, population growth, and investment rates. Finally, we estimate the structural effects of differences in institutions, human capital, population growth, and investment rates on differences in income per capita using our set of geographic and genetic distances as instruments. Overall, our findings support the view that environmental and cultural barriers play an important role in the diffusion of innovations and development across countries.

In the coming years, few if any countries will more preoccupy the foreign policy attention of the United States than Iran. The United States has long lacked a viable and coherent policy toward Iran. Perhaps for the first time since the fall of the Shah's regime in 1979, the United States seems determined to try to forge one. The United States must move swiftly to chart a bold, new course that addresses all three of America's principal national interests with Iran. Our policy should seek to halt the development of an Iranian nuclear bomb, to end the regime's support of terrorist groups, and to help the democratic movement in Iran. Each of these goals is vital, but they are also intertwined. Compared to autocracies, democracies are more transparent about their foreign policy intentions and their military capabilities. Only when we have a government in Iran that is truly accountable to its people and to the rule of law will we be able to achieve a permanent and verifiable halt to that country's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support of international terrorism.