Want the American troops out of Iraq now? Be careful what you wish for. By Niall Ferguson.

In Latin America these days, democracy isn’t working very well. Indeed, it almost never has. Why? By William Ratliff.

Protests by retired soldiers—coupled with stern internal propaganda campaigns aimed at reinforcing military loyalty and denouncing talk of a "national army"—suggest cracks in the façade of Chinese party-army unity. This article analyzes recent civil-military developments in China, and assesses their implications.

Economic and business stories have dominated Western press attention to China in 2005, perhaps more so than in any previous year. Perceptions of a dynamic "rising China" have burst into American consciousness in an unprecedented fashion. Ironically, however, leadership decision making on economic policy in China seems to be sliding back toward a more bureaucratically dominated and less imaginative pattern. From a policymaking standpoint, there has been little significant innovation during 2005. This article reviews developments in four areas: currency revaluation, share conversion, consolidation of firms, and the new industrial policy for the steel industry. Taken together, the trends in these areas suggest a move toward cautious, incremental, and bureaucrat-dominated policymaking as well as an effort to step up the pace of corporate restructuring.