2021: The Year’s Best Stories

A lot happened in 2021. Test your foreign-policy knowledge with our year-end news quiz.

From the White House to Turtle Bay, sanctions have never been more popular. But why are they so hard to make work?

Relations between the world’s two largest economic powers are at historic lows.

From the AUKUS fracas to China’s bullying tactics in Europe, here are some of the top diplomatic spats from the past year that could haunt us in the next.

China’s government wants the country to have one story, and Xi Jinping is at the center of it.

Time to avoid climate change’s worse impacts is running out. What did 2021 change?

After more than a year of fighting, is peace on the horizon—or does wider war loom?

Athletes rebuked competitive norms as COVID-19 became the most normal part of the Tokyo Games.

Skyrocketing inflation, government corruption, and international apathy defined a country in economic free fall.

Sometimes the slights are… slight.

From a semi-fictionalized account of the Netanyahus to a meditation on ancient Rome’s stabbiness, here are the best book and film reviews Foreign Policy published this year.

Germany said goodbye to a generational leader—and hello to an entirely new era.

A stunning military coup in early 2021 kicked off a year of unprecedented change.

This year, voters from Chile to Honduras to Peru elected leftist leaders who promised to ease endemic inequality.

India’s farmers’ protests and COVID-19 catastrophe may have slowed the prime minister’s rise.

Here are some of Foreign Policy’s best deep dives from the past year.

2021 saw a change in Iran’s government and on-again, off-again nuclear talks.

China’s rise, the post-Trump world, and the fall of Kabul were of particular interest to FP readers.

From Belarus’s leader-in-exile to Japan’s newest prime minister, these articles show how personality and policymaking intertwine.

High power prices. Rolling blackouts. Dwindling supplies. And a cascade of economic and political turmoil felt around the world.

In 2021, the biggest vaccination drive in global history affected everything from public health to diplomacy.

FP’s five best podcast episodes of 2021.

A stunning Taliban takeover left Afghanistan—and the world—transformed.

War in Gaza, intercommunal violence, and a new government have not led to any breakthroughs when it comes to peace.

From the U.N.’s diversity problem to the pipeline that turned into a lightning rod, here are our most impactful reads.