• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, September 13, 2005

Like most of my fellow countrymen, I exist in a relative vacuum of ignorance when it comes to foreign policy. Yes, I read my New York Times like a good boy, and if pressed, could identify Darfur on a map of Africa (or is it Asia? Gosh, I know it's one of the "A" continents). But when it comes to understanding precisely why my country acts the way it does in extramural affairs, I rely like everybody else on what the Newsweek and Time guys have to say. On the plus side, I've gotten quite adept at regurgitating their lines at cocktail parties, often to great dramatic effect--an impassioned fist-pump here, a skeptical arch of the eyebrow there.

So it was with blithe ignorance that I picked up the 35th anniversary issue of Foreign Policy, the unashamedly wonkish title published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While it doesn't exactly make foreign policy palatable for the unwashed masses, it explores globalism in a way that's neither preachy nor Pollyannish. As such, maybe it's a little surprising that Foreign Policy isn't often mentioned in the same breath as The Economist or The Atlantic Monthly.

Perhaps the mag's blocky design contributes to this. Foreign Policy is what my grandmother would euphemistically call "handsome" (read: all parts are mostly where they're supposed to be), but it lacks much in the way of graphic originality. To be sure, the mag seems to be improving on this front--witness the newly installed "Wide Angle," a photo essay which, in the September/October issue, tracks a diamond from an African mine into the hands of a smarmy big-city salesman. Still, even a decidedly serious publication demands a few additional creative trimmings.

Foreign Policy fares considerably better when one concentrates on its words and the obvious thought that goes into the construction of every article. You won't necessarily agree with the theories the mag puts forward--I found the argument that U.S. corporations have largely supported the Kyoto Protocol rather unconvincing--but you'll likely be awed by the passion and authority with which writers like Stuart Eizenstat and Rubén Kraiem state their cases.

If Foreign Policy comes across as unanimated from a design perspective, the reverse is true for its story selection. Yes, the oft-bandied-about word "globalism" finds its way into most items, but there doesn't appear to be an underlying agenda in its topical mix--a major accomplishment in itself, given the publication's affiliation with the Carnegie Endowment. A story on human trafficking debunks many of its myths, while the mag's annual "Ranking the Rich" evaluation of how 21 countries help or hinder the poor unearths a glut of alternately surprising and damning data. (By the way, those Denmark goody-two-shoes top the list.)

Happily, the backslapping is kept to a minimum in the 35th birthday content. Although a two-page timeline offers little perspective that can't be found in lesser titles, the peering-35-years-into-the-future essays by 16 super-duper-smart folks provide more food for thought than can be found in the collected editorial offerings of most magazines and newspapers. Especially revelatory are the governor of Tokyo's candid statements on the specter of conflict with North Korea and China and the CDC director's take on the possibility of a polio-free planet. Only one of the 16 essays falls flat: BP's strident branding and advertising campaigns notwithstanding, the company's group chief executive wouldn't appear to have the moral authority to pen a hopeful paean about auto emissions.

In a house ad of all places, the Carnegie Endowment states that its goal is "to make tomorrow's world a better place... by shaping the policy debate today," and clearly Foreign Policy is one of its more public forums to that end. Hey, you gotta admire that kind of ambition, even if it's an incredible long shot that the mag will ever replace TV Guide on our chief executive's end table. Foreign Policy may not be essential monthly reading, but it's an ideal companion for those occasions when you want to take your brain out of the garage for a quick spin.