2023
In 2023, headlines continued to reflect Russia’s war in Ukraine—and later in the year, the war in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s attack on Israel. Turkey, Poland, and other countries saw pivotal elections, the BRICS bloc added six new members, and the U.S. presidential election cycle kicked into high gear. The year closed out with a long-awaited meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco.
Foreign Policy’s coverage of these topics drew readers’ attention throughout the year. Here are 10 of 2023’s most read stories, as measured by website traffic among subscribers.
No, the World Is Not Multipolar
By Jo Inge Bekkevold, Sept. 22
“Polarity simply refers to the number of great powers in the international system—and for the world to be multipolar, there have to be three or more such powers,” Jo Inge Bekkevold writes. Is the world approaching multipolarity—or already there? It’s an increasingly popular idea with politicians and business leaders, but according to Bekkevold, the world is nowhere close: “Today, there are only two countries with the economic size, military might, and global leverage to constitute a pole: the United States and China.”
America’s Zero-Sum Economics Doesn’t Add Up
By Adam Posen, Mar. 24
In FP’s Spring 2023 print issue, Adam Posen assessed the Biden administration’s efforts to return manufacturing production to the United States. “Industrial policy—government subsidies and protections to promote domestic capacity in a favorite sector—is nothing new in U.S. or global economic history, and it can be useful,” Posen writes. “But the protection and promotion of U.S.-located manufacturing against foreign competition is not only unnecessary for industrial policy’s success—it will defeat the worthy purpose of it.”
A New Multilateralism
By Gordon Brown, Sept. 11
FP’s Fall 2023 print issue focused on the future of the world’s alliances, from decades-old institutions to newer blocs. In the issue, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown writes that a “fixation on bilateral and regional agreements—at the expense of globally coordinated action—is underplaying the potential of our international institutions.” Brown argues that those multilateral institutions are due for reforms: “Without a new multilateralism, a decade of global disorder seems inevitable.”
The World Won’t Be the Same After the Israel-Hamas War
By Stephen M. Walt, Nov. 8
Regardless of its duration, the war in Gaza will have “significant repercussions around the world,” longtime FP columnist Stephen M. Walt writes. In a November column looking at how the war will affect diplomacy going forward, Walt argues that “the war will interfere with U.S. efforts to spend less time and attention on the Middle East and shift more attention and effort farther east in Asia.” Walt also examines the effects of the conflict in the Middle East on Ukraine.
At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment
By Robbie Gramer, April 30
This spring, Netflix released The Diplomat, a series following a foreign service officer played by Keri Russell. FP reporter Robbie Gramer asked current and former U.S. diplomats what the show got right—and wrong—about the State Department and U.S. foreign-policy making. Shows about the U.S. foreign service are far less common than those about the military or intelligence communities. Some officials say that “there’s a patina of authenticity that gives The Diplomat more legitimacy than your run-of-the-mill Washington political thriller,” Gramer writes.
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The Scrambled Spectrum of U.S. Foreign-Policy Thinking
By Ash Jain, Sept. 27
“On most domestic policy issues, whether political leaders have an R or a D next to their name is often a pretty good guide to their take on any particular issue,” Ash Jain writes. “But when it comes to foreign policy, the normal rules of politics do not apply. Instead, of much greater relevance is where a political leader falls on the foreign-policy ideology spectrum.” Jain places candidates, officials, and former leaders into six groups, based on their thinking about the U.S. role in the world and whether it should further engage or reduce its commitments.
Here’s How Scared of China You Should Be
By Stephen M. Walt, Aug. 7
“A critical issue in current debates on U.S. grand strategy is the priority the country should place on competing with China,” FP columnist Stephen Walt writes. “Is China the greatest geopolitical challenge the United States has ever faced, or a colossus with feet of clay?” Observers are split on China’s trajectory and the scale of resources that the United States should devote to countering China internationally. Walt poses five major questions to provide further clarity for those watching U.S.-China competition.
America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose
By A. Wess Mitchell, Nov. 16
As conflicts continue across the globe, “[t]he worst-case scenario is an escalating war in at least three far-flung theaters,” A. Wess Mitchell writes. According to Mitchell, several factors would work against the United States in such a situation. “Americans and their allies need to start getting their affairs in order now so that they do not find themselves unprepared for a global conflict if it comes,” he writes.
It’s High Time to Prepare for Russia’s Collapse
By Alexander J. Motyl, Jan. 7
In January, examining the collapse of empires and the Soviet Union, Alexander Motyl wrote that if Russia follows suit, “it will have little to do with the Russian elite’s will or Western policies. Bigger structural forces are at work. Putin’s Russia suffers from a slew of mutually reinforcing tensions that have produced a state that is far more fragile than his braggadocio would suggest.”
Lessons for the Next War
By FP contributors, Jan. 5
For the Winter 2023 print issue, Foreign Policy asked 12 experts for their views on topics including failures of deterrence, battlefield strategy, military reform, and the future of technology in war. “The lesson from Russia’s invasion is that deterrence will fail unless the messaging is strong and united before war starts,” former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen writes in the article’s section on alliances.