to the mouth stable, which is once again finland. the u.s. landed a disappointing 159th on the list this year thanks in large part to d.c. dysfunction. joining us now is the executive editor of "foreign policy." ben, if you look at the past year, we had the government shutdown, we had the edward snowden leaks and boston bombing, all of which are part of the reasons the u.s. lost some of its standing. is 2014 looking any better for us? >> well, let's remember that the u.s. still a very stable state. 159 is actually pretty good. number one is the worst on the rankings. you have to invert that. but 2014 looks to see a lot of the same problems that we saw back in 2013. we have the problem of factionalized elites. we have political dysfunction. there are certain things we see now in the u.s. periphery, whether it's the undocumented migrants and this humanitarian crisis on the southern border. we have a very -- what looks to be a very nasty election coming up in 2014.