Here's a small collection of what I came across today.

First, every day the Newseum, a museum dedicated to Journalism in Washington, DC, publishes the front pages of every major newspaper from every state in the nation, along with some foreign papers. Today, this display drew crowds. You can view it online here: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default.asp (Their page is loading suuuper slowly, presumably because of all the web traffic).

Here are some other front page stories from international newspapers, courtesy of Public Radio International's The World program (pictured above).

The Huffington Post has a slideshow on their homepage with shots of people celebrating from all over the world.

The Council on Foreign Relations, a NY-based think tank, collected some international opinion pieces on the historic election.

So did the New York Times’ “The Caucus” blog:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/reactions-from-around-the-world/

Here's a discussion on PBS’ WorldFocus program about why the world is so enamored with Obama.

Finally, the BBC published an article asking “What does Obama win mean for UK?”

“Kathmandu: They made predictions – some with success and some without – about the end of the country's royal dynasty and the end of the Maoist insurgency. Now Nepal's cosmopolitan astrologers are predicting a victory for Barack Obama.

According to Nepal's leading soothsayers, Republican candidate John McCain's younger opponent will win the November 4 polls, not due to the republican's running mate Sarah Palin but thanks to the democrat's stronger stars.

Santosh Vashisht, who is also the spokesman of the Nepal Astrologers’ Council, says McCain, whose sun sign is Sagittarius, was born under the shadow of the evil Saturn, which would reduce his chances of winning.

Obama, on the other hand, enjoys the blessings of Taurus and Jupiter, which have boosted his prospects of victory…

…While the presidential campaign can ignore the Nepali astrologers, it can't however afford to dismiss the Nepali diaspora residing in the US, whose number is nearly 150,000. In a report from Washington on Monday, Kantipur, Nepal's biggest daily, said Nepalis residing in the US were rooting for Obama, wooed by his pledge for greater education and healthcare funds for the middle and lower middle class.

“Someone like Obama will be able to understand our problems,” said Babu Ghimire, a Nepali resident with two children. “Save a few, the majority of Nepalis in the US belong to the low and middle income groups…”

Nicholas Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs (effectively the #3 position in the Department), penned an opinion piece for Newsweek this week titled “We Should Talk to Our Enemies.” In it, he defends Senator Barack Obama's stance on talking with US enemies, such as Iran. Here's an excerpt: “One of the sharpest and most telling differences on foreign policy between Barack Obama and John McCain is whether the United States should talk to difficult and disreputable leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. In each of the three presidential debates, McCain belittled Obama as naive for arguing that America should be willing to negotiate with such adversaries. In the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin went even further, accusing Obama of “bad judgment that is dangerous,” an ironic charge given her own very modest foreign-policy credentials. Are McCain and Palin correct that America should stonewall its foes? I lived this issue for 27 years as a career diplomat, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations. Maybe that's why I’ve been struggling to find the real wisdom and logic in this Republican assault against Obama. I’ll bet that a poll of senior diplomats who have served presidents from Carter to Bush would reveal an overwhelming majority who agree with the following position: of course we should talk to difficult adversaries‚ when it is in our interest and at a time of our choosing…” He continues: “If we aren't willing to talk to Iran, we may leave ourselves with only one option‚ military action. The next U.S. president will have little chance of securing peace in the Middle East if he doesn't determine Iran's bottom line on the nuclear issue through talks. Similarly, there will be no peace treaty between Syria and Israel if we don't support the talks underway between those countries…” He concludes: “America faces a complex and difficult geopolitical landscape. The next president needs to act more creatively and boldly to defend our interests by revalidating diplomacy as a key weapon in our national arsenal and rebuilding our understaffed and underfunded diplomatic corps. Of course he will need to reserve the right to use force against the most vicious and implacable of our foes. More often than not, however, he will find that dialogue and discussion, talking and listening, are the smarter ways to defend our country, end crises and sometimes even sow the seeds of an ultimate peace.” Burns undoubtedly has the qualifications to come down on this hotly contested issue. I do hope that the next President, whomever he should be, listens to his sage advice. But I can't help but wonder, could it also be an attempt to vie for a certain cabinet-level position in an Obama administration…?

• Sunday's reporting by Colum Lynch, the Washington Post's UN correspondent, is titled “At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win:”

“There are no “Obama 2008″ buttons, banners or T-shirts visible here at U.N. headquarters, but it might be difficult to find a sliver of territory in the United States more enthusiastic over the prospect of the Illinois senator winning the White House.

An informal survey of more than two dozen U.N. staff members and foreign delegates showed that the overwhelming majority would prefer that Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, saying they think that the Democrat would usher in a new agenda of multilateralism after an era marked by Republican disdain for the world body.

Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere.

…”It would be hard to find anybody, I think, at the U.N. who would not believe that Obama would be a considerable improvement over any other alternative,” said William H. Luers, executive director of the United Nations Association. “It's been a bad eight years, and there is a lot of bad feeling over it.”

Conservatives who are skeptical of the United Nations said they are not surprised by the political tilt. “The fact is that most conservatives, most Republicans don't worship at the altar in New York, and I think that aggravates them more than anything else,” said John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “What they want is the bending of the knee, and they’ll get it from an Obama administration.”

• John C. Freed of the International Herald Tribune penned an interesting article exploring why (rather than declaring that, like many others have done) foreign publics, in the case, Western Europeans, favor Senator Barack Obama by such large numbers. In discussing a Harris Interactive poll conducted for the IHT, Freed reports:

“While support for Barack Obama is broad and deep among Europeans, their reasons differ substantially from Americans who support him for president… the main reason [that Americans and Europeans support Obama] is the same: Obama's capacity for change from the policies of President George W. Bush.

But from there the two continents differ. Respondents in the five European countries surveyed are far more likely to cite Obama's personality or his youth, while Americans are more likely to cite his approach to health care and the economy…”

• An American and former diplomat living in Brussels points out in his blog that the Obamania in Europe is due, in some part, to the blood sweat and tears of some democrat expatriates “campaigning” on the Democratic candidate's behalf:

“If the reaction of Belgians to the US presidential campaign is typical of publics throughout Europe and the rest of the world – a recent multi-country poll commissioned by The Guardian and other papers shows that Belgians are among the world's most pro-Obama and anti-Bush – then the United States is enjoying a massive public diplomacy bonanza. For free. Thanks to overseas Americans.For the past several months, but especially in the last weeks leading up to November 4, the services of the Democrats Abroad Belgium (DAB) “Speakers Bureau” have been much in demand. It might sound impressive, but the “bureau” is just a handful of regular American citizens who happen to be conversant in one or more of Belgium's three official languages: Dutch, French, or German. English too: in this international atmosphere, it is often the lingua franca of think tanks, educational institutions, discussion groups and news media following the US election…

…This year, the positive impact of the Obama phenomenon is being multiplied many times over by the kind of citizen public diplomacy us Democrats (and that sole Republican!) are waging on our own dime here in Brussels. If the Democrats led by Obama win – and especially if the election is shown to be fair and square – the beneficiaries will be all Americans, for the world will see that American democracy is not just a PR story.”

• Last week New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opined that Obamania could facilitate the “rebranding” of America. After recounting a conversation he had with a Chinese friend, who reacted incredulously to the news that Obama-a black man–is leading the race for president, he writes:

“We're beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama's political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American "brand" to be less about Guantanamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy's presidency did in the early 1960s.

In his endorsement of Mr. Obama, Colin Powell noted that "the new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we've left with the rest of the world." That's not because we crave admiration, but because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges; you can't fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis.

In his endorsement, Mr. Powell added that an Obama election "will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world." You can already see that. A 22-nation survey by the BBC found that voters abroad preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. McCain in every single country ‚ by four to one over all. Nearly half of those in the BBC poll said that the election of Mr. Obama, an African-American, would "fundamentally change" their perceptions of the United States.

Europe is particularly intoxicated by the possibility of restoring amity with America in an Obama presidency. As The Economist put it: "Across the Continent, Bush hatred has been replaced by Obama-mania…" Finally, it's time to revisit the Economist's “Global Electoral College” map:

It does appear that the only public to strongly favor McCain is Iraq (67% to 33%). Here's an explanation of how this global presidential election works.

“I-VOTE is an exchange initiative of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' International Visitor Leadership Program. I-VOTE will immerse participants in national, state and local election processes by introducing them to election officials, political analysts, citizen activists, students, academics, voters and the candidates themselves for an increased understanding of the U.S. political system.

The Election Fellows will gain insights through professional programs in Washington, DC, and in one of five battleground or swing states: Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, or Ohio. On Election Day, they will observe activities in other communities across the nation. They will reunite November 5 in Boston at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government for a symposium to analyze the outcomes and ramifications of the elections, as well as to share their program experiences and insights.

…In Washington, DC (October 26-29), as part of their orientation to the U.S. political process, the Election Fellows will hear from Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri, former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf, former Democratic Congressman and governor Jim Blanchard, Politico Managing Editor Bill Nichols, CEO of Burson-Marsteller and advisor and polling analyst Mark Penn, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and Founder and CEO of Politics-360 Greg Fawcett. At Gallup's World Poll Conference Center, the Fellows will have an insider's view of the world of political polling from Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport and other experts.”

I look forward to the Nov. 5th symposium, and hearing about their experiences!

But I took particular notice to his advice on what should be the President's number one priority once inaugurated:

“MR. BROKAW: If you were called into the Oval Office on January 21st by the new president, whoever it happens to be, and he said to you, “General Powell, I need from you your recommendation on where I begin. What should be my priorities?” Where would you start?

GEN. POWELL: I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world, and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America's role in the world.

The problems will always be there, and there's going to be a crisis come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now. And so I think what the president has to do is to start using the power of the Oval Office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and to convince the world that America is solid, America is going to move forward, and we’re going to fix our economic problems, we’re going to meet our overseas obligations. But restoring a sense of purpose, a sense of confidence in the American people and, in the international community, in America.

MR. BROKAW: What's not on the screen right now that concerns you that should be more prominent in the minds of the American people and the people running for president?

GEN. POWELL: I think the American people and the gentlemen running for president will have to, early on, focus on education more than we have seen in the campaign so far. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don't finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don't finish high school. We’ve got to work on this, and my, my wife and I are leading a campaign with this purpose.

Also, I think, the new president has to realize that the world looks to America for leadership, and so we have to show leadership on some issues that the world is expecting us to, whether it's energy, global warming and the environment. And I think we have to do a lot more with respect to poverty alleviation and helping the needy people of the world. We need to increase the amount of resources we put into our development programs to help the rest of the world. Because when you help the poorest in the world, you start to move them up an economic and social ladder, and they’re not going to be moving toward violence or terrorism of the kind that we worry about…”

Should General Powell's preferred presidential candidate be elected, I would hope that Mr. President would follow the General's sage advice and ready his public diplomacy team for the challenge that awaits it.

“Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.

“It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda,” said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. “Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”

…Some terrorism experts said the support for McCain could be mere bluster by a group that may have more to fear from a McCain presidency. In any event, the comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages.”

“The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”

Islamist militants have generally had less to say about Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Leaders of the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah expressed a favorable view of Obama during the primary campaign but later rejected the Democrat after he delivered speeches expressing support for Israel….”

Read on here.

The Council on Foreign Relations recently won an Emmy for its video Crisis Guide on Darfur. I’ve gotten through the first two chapters and I can tell you that it is extremely informative. It highlights both the devastation that the civil war has wrought on the Sudanese and also the efforts of the international community to bring peace to the region. The “Historical background” section is narrated by Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the State Department.

Have a look.

First, Jonathan Marcus, a BBC News diplomatic correspondent, reported last week that “US campaign bypasses foreign policy:”

“At the outset of this presidential race it looked as though foreign policy would be one of the dominant issues in the campaign…

Adapting the United States to a fast-changing world, extricating its armed forces from Iraq, and restoring the country's standing in the wake of “the global war on terror” would be sufficient foreign policy challenges for any new president.

Add to this the linked crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Iran's nuclear programme, and the quest for Middle East peace and you have more than enough to keep any administration occupied.

Foreign policy was also expected to play a significant tactical role in this campaign. It is after all one of the big selling points for Republican contender Senator John McCain…

But out on the campaign trail, foreign policy appears to have all but disappeared as an issue in this race. Even Iraq – still one of the thorniest of problems – has fallen from the headlines…”

In the Daily Nation of Kenya last week, the headline read: “Africa mentioned only in passing in all the debates:”

“Africa has been mentioned only fleetingly in the concluded US presidential debates, a reflection of how low the continent rates.

In three debates between Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, as well as one debate between their respective vice presidential running-mates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Africa has been mentioned only in passing as a foreign policy or security issue of concern to the US.

In the final debate between Mr Obama and Mr McCain last Wednesday at the Hofstra University in New York, there was not a single reference or mention of Africa.

In the second debate on October 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, there were some passing references to Africa by both Mr Obama and Mr McCain, the focus mostly being on the situation in Darfur, Sudan, and the issue of US support for any intervention. There were also references to Somalia, the Rwanda genocide.

The first debate on September 26 at the University of Mississippi saw two fleeting mentions, both by Mr Obama, on his Kenyan origins and on Chinese presence in Africa.

According to Prof Walter Mead, a Senior Fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, the dearth of African issues at the debates cannot be interpreted to mean that the continent does not matter.

“In debates the things presidential candidates spend time on what they disagree on,” he says, “that's not a sign that there is no interest in Africa…”

(Obama's third-grade classroom at Public School No. 1. — Michael Sullivan/NPR)

Here's what NPR reports:

“Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, and a place where America's image has been badly tarnished by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Indonesians are keenly interested in the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, and they have a soft spot for Democrat Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood there.

At the school Obama attended in the Menteng district of Jakarta, a security guard named Adang says he is a little tired of the reporters who come expecting to find an Islamic boarding school and evidence of Obama's secret Muslim identity ‚ an image encouraged by some of Obama's political opponents in the United States.

It's not true, says Adang, who goes by one name. He points to Obama's third- and fourth-grade classrooms and says patiently that this is not an Islamic school.

“Yes, we have a mosque,” he says, but at prayer time there are rooms for Christians and Buddhists to pray in, too. Public School No. 1 Menteng is actually among the city's finest, in one of Jakarta's most exclusive neighborhoods and home to many of Indonesia's business and political elite.

Adang says he wants Obama to win next month simply because he's an alumnus. It would be good for the school's image, he says, to be able to say that the president of the U.S. studied here, too…

“…The U.S. is a great superpower,” [Indonesian shopkeeper] Probowo says. “And U.S. policy is felt throughout the world. I like Barack Obama. Not because he lived in Jakarta, but because I believe he can help change America's image, especially in the Muslim world. If John McCain becomes president, I don't see things improving in Iraq or elsewhere. But Obama says he’ll stop the war. And that will be a good thing for everyone.”

Probowo is Muslim, but says he doesn't care that Obama is Christian. Religion isn't relevant, he says, and what matters is how Obama looks at the world and uses his ability to shape America's foreign policy for the better….”

I recommend giving it a listen.

NPR has already reported, and I have already blogged about views of McCain from a certain Asian nation with which he has history. In case you missed it, here it is.

First, here's something I didn't know:
“In a 2007 survey, American undergraduates rated the State Department the fourth-most desirable employer in the country, just behind the private-sector dream team of Google, Disney, and Apple. (The Central Intelligence Agency ranked sixth, after the Peace Corps.) In 2006, more than 17,000 people took the FSOT. Just 10 percent passed the written exam, and a fifth of those made it through the daylong oral assessment that follows. In the end, less than 3 percent of all applicants were offered a job in 2006. That's an acceptance rate significantly lower than that of Harvard Business School.”

The article's author discusses how the test to join the service has been revamped:
“As part of State's recruiting and hiring push, a new FSOT was unveiled last fall. The test and hiring process was designed with expert help from management consultant McKinsey & Compan… When State sat down with McKinsey in 2006 to explore revamping the test, the consultants recommended some major changes. After a year of behind-the-scenes tinkering, the Foreign Service Officer Test was officially relaunched in September 2007. Some parts, like the oral assessment, remain the same. Others are completely different. The four-part written test is now offered exclusively online, multiple times per year in hundreds of different locations around the world. And following McKinsey's advice, for the first time in decades the selection process pays close attention to a candidate's background and résumé.

In looking harder at the "whole candidate," the new test represents a deep philosophical shift State hopes will help attract a broader, more diverse group of Foreign Service officers. The new test is designed to attract "as broad a cross section of America as possible," Marianne Myles, former director of State's Office of Recruitment, Examination and Employment and now the ambassador to Cape Verde, told me. "You don't have to be a political science major. We hire people who run the whole gamut."

The author goes on to describe how his experiences taking the old test in 2002 and the new and improved test this year differed. I as surprised to read this:

“As I clicked through the questions, I was surprised to see a large number‚ probably one sixth of the total‚ read like a pastiche of management-consultant jargon. I clicked through puzzlers about motivating employees, corporate restructuring, and organizational conflict management. A sample captures the feel: "A work group that has high performance norms and low cohesiveness will most likely have which of the following levels of performance: (A) Very high (B) High (C) Moderate (D) Low…”

The author concludes: “As I left the consulate, I couldn't help but wonder at the way the written test was structured. This was the one opportunity the State Department had to really plumb my knowledge of America and the rest of the world, and they spent most of it asking me about things like sentence structure, how to be a better boss, and whether I had experience using a phone.

Later, I asked Myles, the recruiting chief, about the management questions I had encountered. (I interviewed Myles several months after taking the test and didn't inform anyone at the State Department I intended to write about the exam before I took it.) "Foreign Service officers have to have management skills early in their career," she explained. "An entry-level hire could have significant-size staff to deal with in a given embassy."

Yes, but: Setting aside the question of how nailing six or seven multiple-choice questions proves I'm ready to manage employees, should diplomats be selected for their management skills, or for their ability to craft and implement effective foreign policy? Does it make sense to use the same test to hire managers as public diplomacy officers?”

Both Myles and the author have a point. What's your take?

Now may or may not be a good time to mention that Harry Kopp's new A to Z guide to the Foreign Service, Career Diplomacy, has hit bookstores. You can read more about it here: www.careerdiplomacy.com.

The report presents the consensus of 34 American leaders in the fields of foreign policy, national security, politics, business, religion, education, public opinion, psychology, philanthropy, and conflict resolution on how to improve dialogue between the U.S. and the Muslim world. Some of these include former diplomats Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, Dennis Ross, among many other distinguished leaders.

According to the report's authors, “the primary objective of the report is to provide new strategies for reducing tensions with Muslim countries and communities around the world. The core point of the report is that it is possible to meet both U.S. interests and the interests of the vast majority of Muslims around the world who seek peaceful coexistence, by addressing the main sources of tension in new ways.”

From the Executive Summary:

1. Elevate diplomacy as the primary tool for resolving key conflicts involving Muslim countries, engaging both allies and adversaries in dialogue

• Engage with Iran to explore the potential for agreements that could increase regional security, while seeking Iran's full compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation commitments
• Work intensively for immediate de-escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a viable path to a two-state solution, while ensuring the security of Israelis and Palestinians
• Promote broad-based political reconciliation in Iraq, and clarify the long-term U.S. role
• Renew international commitment and cooperation to halt extremists' resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Provide top-level U.S. leadership to resolve regional conflicts and to improve coordination with international partners

2. Support efforts to improve governance and promote civic participation in Muslim countries, and advocate for principles rather than parties in their internal political contests

• Build the capacity of government institutions to deliver services, and of citizens to participate in governance
• Advocate consistently for nonviolence, pluralism and fairness in political contests
• Use U.S. leverage with authoritarian governments to promote reforms in governance
• Assess the value of engagement with political representatives of armed and activist movements case-by-case, based on their principles, behavior, and level of public support
• Support political transitions and the consolidation of reforms in countries at critical "turning points"

3. Help catalyze job-creating growth in Muslim countries to benefit both the U.S. and Muslim countries' economies

• Support policy reforms to secure property rights, facilitate transactions and promote investments
• Partner with governments, multilateral institutions and philanthropies to make education a more powerful engine of employment and entrepreneurship
• Use public-private investment partnerships to reduce risk, promote exports and fund enterprises
• Use trade agreements to reward economic reform and spur investment
• Manage energy interdependence and diversify resources

4. Improve mutual respect and understanding between Americans and Muslims around the world

• Use public diplomacy to reinforce changes in policies and actions
• Dramatically expand cross-cultural education, people-to-people and interfaith exchange
• Promote greater depth and accuracy in news coverage and programming
• Invest in cultural diplomacy through arts and entertainment programs, to deepen mutual understanding and challenge stereotypes
• Involve the Muslim-American community as a bridge

Here's a great documentary video about the present state of U.S.-Muslim relations, and the engagement project on media partner LinkTV.

This is a very important report that couldn't come at a better time in U.S.-Muslim relations. I look forward to following the actions of this group.

Titled “Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future,” the report finds that:

“The State Department, USAID, and related organizations lack the tools to meet today's complex global challenges. It calls for urgent investments in diplomacy and development assistance to rebuild America's foreign affairs capability. The report's recommendations in the four major categories of foreign affairs activity — core diplomacy, public diplomacy, economic assistance, and reconstruction/stabilization — include:

• Greatly expanding public diplomacy activities, especially educational and cultural exchanges to achieve a more positive global attitude toward the United States.

• Transferring authority over selected Security Assistance programs — totaling $785 million annually — to the Department of State from the Department of Defense.

• Significantly increasing funding to permit ambassadors to respond effectively to humanitarian and political emergencies.

• Establishing a robust surge capacity for reconstruction and stabilization efforts under the authority of the Secretary of State.

You can read the full report here, or, if you live in the Washington area, you can attend the report's launch event on October 16th.

“Trickle-Down Global Economics: World Already Saw U.S. Influence as Negative

Around the globe, people are anxiously following the U.S. financial crisis as it evolves into a worldwide meltdown.

People nearly everywhere realize that what happens in the American economy can have a big impact on them.

But even before this fall's financial crisis, a 24-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in March-April 2008 found that many in other countries already felt the U.S. economy was having a negative impact on their own country's economy.

The survey also found that publics around the world were giving their national economies increasingly negative ratings.

With the U.S. receiving at least some of the blame for the world's increasingly dour economic outlook, this adds yet another challenge for America's global image…”

What are the experts saying about the impact of the financial crisis on the U.S. image? The Council on Foreign Relations’ new blog, the CFR Forum has been discussing this very issue. On the blog there is a thriving conversation among some of the most preeminent thinkers in the US. Here's a few entries:

From CFR Fellow Adam Posen:

“I side with those (from Nye to Setser) who say this is not the end of US relative power, and that fiscal constraints will not be hugely binding.

Regarding the latter, what Japan's actions in the 1990s show us is that fiscal policy when properly used can be effective, that running up debt in what is clearly a temporary situation is not automatically inflationary (note that yen also had a sustained major depreciation and Japan had neither rising interest rate nor inflation), and that it is net debt, not gross public debt that matters (see the work of Broda and Weinstein).

What I am much more concerned about is the US having lost the intellectual or "model setting" leadership in the global economic community. This is in large part deserved because we did get sloppy with our regulation and supervision, we were too arrogant to others, and we did too little to submit our own policies to international institutions (even under Clinton, though obviously much worse under Bush)….”

From Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Co-Director GSFI, New America Foundation:

“To Sebastian's original forum question: is there a relationship between the financial turmoil and US power. The answer has to be yes , for both internal and external reasons.

The internal reasons are more obvious: a strong economy is critical to the ability of the US to lead, to fund national security needs, and to generate public support for any truly necessary engagement abroad to protect national security interests. This crisis has a ways to play out with consequences to the US economy ranging from bad to catastrophic (with other countries now facing similar prophesies).

A home-first bias will temper foreign aid programs, just at a time when a cash rich beneficiaries of this decade's wealth transfer out of the US are able to use financial clout for foreign aid programs or even as outright foreign policy tools. Heading deeper into debt (increasing dependence on Chinese, Japanese, Russian reserves) could potentially limit our foreign objectives as well (see Brad's excellent Sovereign Wealth piece).

The external impact of this crisis on US power has yet to play out, but early warning signals are not good. Over the past few years, one could count on Putin to rave about revising the world's financial architecture (US at the center) to benefit the emerging world economic powers. We counted on a rising China buying into a legacy system it benefited from and not rocking the boat. Now we hear from friends and foes that the time to rebuild the entire financial and monetary system of the world has come.

Today we focus on saving the global banking system, but after the dust settles, real questions will emerge about free-market capitalism and the role of the state (not least of which will be because the UST will rival ADIA in assets under management). It would be naïve to write this one off as a bubble born of a perfectly fine free market system , back to business as usual in a year – in the eyes of the rest of the world…”

There is much more to read on this subject in the Forum. I recommend taking a look.

United States Embassy in London, England (Alastair Grant/AP)

The State Department announced last week that it will move its Embassy in London from its charming location on Grovesnor Square across the Thames to a more secure location. The International Herald Tribune reports that:

“The demand for more space, greater security and better energy efficiency have prompted the United States to plan a move from the smart (read: wealthy) Mayfair district to the Nine Elms Opportunity Area in Wandsworth, just south of the River Thames.”
“This has been a long and careful process,” U.S. Ambassador Robert Tuttle said in a statement yesterday. “We looked at all of our options, including renovation of our current building in Grosvenor Square. In the end, we realized that the goal of a modern, secure and environmentally sustainable embassy could best be met by constructing a new facility.”

As the UK daily The Guardian points out:

The US state department spent $15m (£8.5m) last year trying to upgrade security at the Grosvenor Square embassy, erecting high fences and concrete barriers and generally offending the aesthetic sensibilities of the neighbours. But the building remained a relatively easy target for a determined truck-bomber.

It was opened in 1960, at the start of the Kennedy era, and its wide glass expanses reflect a more innocent age. Now they are a security nightmare. Efforts to have all the surrounding roads closed failed due to opposition from the local council. Some local residents, fearing they were living next door to one of the world's most enticing terrorist targets, sold up and moved out.

The new embassy will be on a more spacious site at Wandsworth's Nine Elms “opportunity area” between Battersea power station and the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. Not quite as glamorous an address as Mayfair, where John Adams, America's first envoy to Britain and its second president, set up house in 1785. But as the current ambassador, Robert Tuttle pointed out, the new site will actually be closer to the heart of British government, with views of parliament.”

An article in Time magazine relates some of the current building's historical significance:

“The move marks the end of a storied relationship. Over two centuries, five presidents, four vice presidents and ten secretaries of state have served at Grosvenor Square. In the late 18th century, John Adams, America's first Ambassador to the Court of St. James, opened a diplomatic post there, and in 1938 the Square became home to America's main diplomatic mission to Britain. During WWII, the Square earned the nickname “Little America” when Dwight D. Eisenhower placed his military headquarters on its leafy grounds.

The Embassy's relations with its neighbors began to sour after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Although the State Department started a program of heavily fortifying its embassies against terrorism, some residents saw the Grosvenor Square site as vulnerable. In 2006, a neighborhood association, the Grosvenor Square Safety Group, bought two-page advertisements in The Washington Post and the Times of London that accused the Metropolitan Police and local governments of a moral failure for not closing the two roads adjacent to the embassy. Russian Countess Anca Vidaeff, who lived across from the embassy's side entrance, even held a three-day hunger strike to protest what she claimed was inadequate security. “My property is my pension but I cannot rent or sell my house and my life is in danger,” she told the press.

The result was a $15 million security upgrade that included raised concrete flower beds, six-foot-high blast walls, guard shacks and traffic-blocking structures. Enhanced screening facilities were also introduced to catch suicide bombers. Yet all those physical measures ‚ which must be removed as part of the move ‚ have not entirely resolved the embassy's security challenges.”

The Canadian national daily, “The Globe and Mail” had some harsh words for the decision to move the embassy. From an editorial titled “Siege Diplomacy,” published today:
“The announcement last week that the United States will relocate its London embassy from Grosvenor Square, in the heart of the British capital, to an out-of-the-way spot south of the River Thames may be good news for property developers, but should concern almost everyone else.

The London move is the latest and most dramatic example of a worrying trend toward vastly scaling down American public diplomacy abroad, abandoning embassies that were once beacons of American culture and openness in favour of walled suburban fortresses. (Canada, meanwhile, has shuttered missions in key cities including Milan, Osaka and St. Petersburg).

The United States is on an embassy-building spree, having constructed 56 new diplomatic facilities abroad in the past several years, with dozens more on the way. Almost all such structures are now set back at least 30 metres from the street, often surrounded by high fences and designed according to a charmless standardized template. The highest-profile U.S. embassy to open recently, in Berlin, was pilloried as a hideous “lump” in the German press, despite years of wrangling over its design.

It is all a far cry from the last great era of American construction in foreign capitals, after the Second World War, when a confident country hired some of its best architects to present itself to the world. They produced a series of spectacular structures, generally in the glassy International Style and almost always in prominent places. They included libraries and other facilities designed to share American culture with the locals….

Bunkered and isolated embassies are hardly the best advertisement for Washington's role in the world, and will remain a lasting hangover of the George W. Bush's prickly attitude toward much of the planet long after he leaves the White House.

The U.S. has, admittedly, come by its new preferences for embassy design honestly. The bombings in 1998 of its missions in Kenya and Tanzania horrified American diplomats, and made obvious the continuing risks to their safety in many countries.

But there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Security concerns can be addressed within attractive and accessible structures, and Washington should think long and hard about what a new generation of embassies that ignore this fact will say to the world about the United States….”

Public Radio International's “The World” program hosted a US historian, Thomas Naftali, for a discussion about the embassy's move. Naftali calls the decision a shame, and that it sends an unfortunate signal. He said: “The embassy should be our front door, a way for foreigners to get to know us… when our embassy is not as public our presence is not felt as much. What it comes down to is this: is an embassy a front door or a front line?”
What are your thoughts on the move? What might the implications of the move be for the conduct of U.S. diplomacy?