Food for thought…

On this day in 1999… Lou Dobbs was a respected, middle-of-the-road journalist. The prospect of achieving Middle East peace seemed imminent. Beltway pundits believed Al Gore and George W. Bush were centrists who would govern similarly. You could meet your loved ones at their arrival gate. There were more than 2 million Christians living in ...

575031_091229_118-WhySmiling_picnik2.jpg
575031_091229_118-WhySmiling_picnik2.jpg

On this day in 1999...

On this day in 1999…

Lou Dobbs was a respected, middle-of-the-road journalist.

The prospect of achieving Middle East peace seemed imminent.

Beltway pundits believed Al Gore and George W. Bush were centrists who would govern similarly.

You could meet your loved ones at their arrival gate.

There were more than 2 million Christians living in Iraq.

Osama bin Laden was living with his family in a compound in Kandahar.

China’s GDP was $1.4 trillion, half of Germany’s.

Israel still had troops in Lebanon.

Nobody had ever heard of Somali pirates.

Something called Inktomi was the world’s largest search engine.

Everybody was clamoring for the new file-sharing program Napster.

We worried Y2K would bring the global banking infrastructure to its knees.

Illinois State Senator Barack Obama campaigned for a spot in the House of Representatives.

First Lady Hillary Clinton campaigned for a spot in the Senate.

Wasilla, Alaska, Mayor Sarah Palin considered running for state-wide office.

India had fewer than a billion citizens.

Strongman Slobodan Milosevic still ruled in Yugoslavia.

The human genome had not yet been mapped.

The Concorde flew between Paris and New York.

Alan Greenspan was widely heralded as the world’s greatest financial thinker.

Boris Yeltsin was preparing to step down and make way for the young pragmatist Vladimir Putin.

The Dow Jones closed at 11,484. (Today, it’s at 10,545.)

The United States had a record federal budget surplus.

Foreign Policy looked like this.

Annie Lowrey is assistant editor at FP.

More from Foreign Policy

Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.
Residents evacuated from Shebekino and other Russian towns near the border with Ukraine are seen in a temporary shelter in Belgorod, Russia, on June 2.

Russians Are Unraveling Before Our Eyes

A wave of fresh humiliations has the Kremlin struggling to control the narrative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shake hands in Beijing.

A BRICS Currency Could Shake the Dollar’s Dominance

De-dollarization’s moment might finally be here.

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler in an episode of The Diplomat

Is Netflix’s ‘The Diplomat’ Factual or Farcical?

A former U.S. ambassador, an Iran expert, a Libya expert, and a former U.K. Conservative Party advisor weigh in.

An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.
An illustration shows the faces of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted by wavy lines of a fragmented map of Europe and Asia.

The Battle for Eurasia

China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass.