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 Cover of the September/October 2023 issue ofForeign Affairs | |
| Editor | Daniel Kurtz-Phelan |
|---|---|
| Categories | Political science, foreign affairs, and economics |
| Frequency | Bimonthly |
| Circulation | 195,016 |
| Publisher | Council on Foreign Relations |
| Founded | September 15, 1922; 103 years ago (1922-09-15) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0015-7120 |
Foreign Affairs is an American magazine ofinternational relations andU.S. foreign policy published by theCouncil on Foreign Relations, anonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization andthink tank specializing in U.S.foreign policy andinternational affairs.[1] Founded on 15 September 1922, the print magazine is published every two months, while the website publishes articles daily and anthologies every other month.
Foreign Affairs is considered one of the United States' most influential foreign-policy magazines. It has published many seminal articles, includingGeorge Kennan's "X Article" (1947) andSamuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations" (1993).[2][3]
Leading academics, public officials, and members of the policy community regularly contribute to the magazine. RecentForeign Affairs authors includeRobert O. Keohane,Hillary Clinton,Donald H. Rumsfeld,Ashton Carter,Colin L. Powell,Francis Fukuyama,David Petraeus,Zbigniew Brzezinski,John J. Mearsheimer,Stanley McChrystal,Christopher R. Hill andJoseph Nye.[4]
The Council on Foreign Relations, founded in the summer of 1921, primarily counted diplomats, financiers, scholars, and lawyers among its members. Its founding charter declared its purpose should be to "afford a continuous conference on international questions affecting the United States, by bringing together experts on statecraft, finance, industry, education, and science."[5][6] In its first year, the Council engaged primarily in discourse via meetings and small discussion groups, however, eventually it decided to seek a wider audience and it began publishingForeign Affairs on 15 September 1922 on a quarterly basis.[5][7]
The Council named ProfessorArchibald Cary Coolidge ofHarvard University as the journal's firsteditor. As Coolidge was unwilling to move fromBoston to New York,Hamilton Fish Armstrong, aPrinceton alumnus and a European correspondent of theNew York Evening Post, was appointed managing editor and worked New York, handling the day-to-day mechanics of publishing the journal. Armstrong chose the distinctive light blue color for the cover of the magazine, while his sisters, Margaret and Helen, designed the logo and lettering respectively.[8]
Foreign Affairs is a successor publication of theJournal of International Relations (which ran from 1910 to 1922), which in turn was a successor to theJournal of Race Development (which ran from 1911 to 1919, the title reflecting concerns about race tensions and race "mixing" in a period when empires were beginning to be in question).[9]
The lead article in the first issue ofForeign Affairs was written by the formersecretary of state underTheodore Roosevelt's administration,Elihu Root. The article argued that the United States had become aworld power, and that as such the general population needed to be better informed about international matters.John Foster Dulles, then a financial expert attached to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, who would later becomesecretary of state underDwight D. Eisenhower, also contributed an article to the inaugural issue ofForeign Affairs on Allied debt following World War I.[8]
In 1925,Foreign Affairs published a series of articles, entitled "Worlds of Color",[10] by prominentAfrican American intellectualW. E. B. Du Bois. DuBois, a personal friend of Armstrong, wrote mainly about race issues and imperialism. Although in the early days of publication the journal did not have many female authors, in the late 1930s American journalist forTime magazineDorothy Thompson would contribute articles.[8]
The journal rose to its greatest prominence afterWorld War II whenforeign relations became central toUnited States politics, and the United States became a powerful actor on the global scene. Several extremely important articles were published inForeign Affairs, including the reworking ofGeorge F. Kennan's "Long Telegram", which first publicized the doctrine ofcontainment that would form the basis of AmericanCold War policy.
Louis Halle, a member of the U.S. Policy Planning Staff, also wrote an influential article inForeign Affairs in 1950. His article, "On a Certain Impatience with Latin America", created the anticommunist intellectual framework that justified U.S. policy towards Latin America in the Cold War era. Halle's article described that the encouragement of democracy in postwar Latin America had ended. He demonstrated disgust over Latin America's inability to assume autonomy and to become democratic. His rationalization towards Latin America was later used to justify U.S. efforts to overthrow the left-leaning Guatemalan government.[11]
Eleven U.S.secretaries of state have written essays inForeign Affairs.[citation needed]
Since the end of the Cold War, and especially after the9/11 attacks, the journal's readership has grown significantly. As of April 2021[update],Foreign Affairs's total readership is 303,000 for the print magazine and it has 1.2 million unique visitors per month for the website.[12]
In the Summer 1993 issue,Foreign Affairs publishedSamuel P. Huntington's influential "Clash of Civilizations?" article.[3] In the article, Huntington argued that "the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural."[3]
In the November/December 2003 issue ofForeign Affairs,Kenneth Maxwell wrote a review ofPeter Kornbluh's bookThe Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, which gave rise to a controversy aboutHenry Kissinger's relationship to the regime of Chilean dictatorAugusto Pinochet and toOperation Condor. Maxwell claims that keyCouncil on Foreign Relations members, acting at Kissinger's behest, put pressure onForeign Affairs editorJames Hoge to give the last word in a subsequent exchange about the review toWilliam D. Rogers, a close associate of Kissinger, rather than to Maxwell; this went against establishedForeign Affairs policy.[13]
Then-opposition leader and formerUkrainianPrime MinisterYulia Tymoshenko caused a stir by publishing an article entitled "Containing Russia" in the May–June 2007 issue ofForeign Affairs accusing Russia underVladimir Putin of expansionism and urging the rest of Europe to stand against him. Russianforeign ministerSergei Lavrov wrote an article in response, but he withdrew it, citing "censorship" from theForeign Affairs editorial board. Tymoshenko's party went on to win the 2007 elections and she became Prime Minister once again.[citation needed]
In 2009,Foreign Affairs launched its new website, ForeignAffairs.com, which offers both print content and online-only features.[14]
Beginning with the January/February 2013 issue,Foreign Affairs was redesigned including that the cover would have an image. PerPolitico's story on the redesign: "As part of an effort to expand its appeal beyond the foreign policy establishment, every issue of Foreign Affairs will now feature a photograph on the cover and an extensive interview with a leading newsmaker."[15]
Since its inception,Foreign Affairs has included a long book review section, typically reviewing 50 or more books per issue. The magazine's first editor, Archibald Cary Coolidge, asked his Harvard colleague,William L. Langer, a historian andWorld War I veteran, to run the section. Langer initially had full control over the magazine's book reviews and wrote all the reviews himself. A month before the reviews were due, theForeign Affairs office in New York would ship approximately one hundred books to Langer for review and within two weeks he would return his completed reviews for the next issue.[citation needed]
Beginning with the first issue in 1922,Harry Elmer Barnes authored a reoccurring section titled “Some Recent Books on International Relations”. By 1924, the Foreign Affairs website lists Barnes as Bibliographical Editor.[16]
In the late 1930s, the review section was broken down into several categories. Currently, theForeign Affairs reviews are broken down into long review essays, which are placed at the front of the books section, and the "Recent Books" section, where shorter reviews are featured. The "Recent Books" section is further broken down into the following subject categories.
The majority of the book reviews featured in the "Recent Books" section are reviewed by the same person; however, other reviewers contribute to the "Recent Books" section on occasion.
Foreign Affairs is considered an important forum for debate among academics and policy makers. In 1996, Deputy Secretary of StateStrobe Talbott noted: "Virtually everyone I know in the foreign policy-national security area of the Government is attentive toForeign Affairs."[17]
According to theJournal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2023impact factor of 6.3, ranking it 2nd out of 166 journals in the category "International Relations".[18]
Reviewed By Harry Elmer Barnes Bibliographical Editor
