Foreign Policy Blogs

U.S. Foreign Policy

Quick Clip on World Views of Presidential Candidates

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://jp.youtube.com/v/JDiI0OMlpiE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Kim Ghattas, the BBC's US correspondent, recently reported on global views of the presidential candidates, though before Obama's recent leap across the primary finish line. But the reporting is still relevant. Ghattas underscores that anticipation for a change in administration on the part of the global public has already caused attitudes toward the […]

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World Views of Obama: Part I

Senator Obama's clinching the Democratic nomination for President made headlines not only in the US, but around the world. It's fair to say that in most parts of the world the reaction is overwhelmingly positive. But the world is a complicated place, so for the next couple of blog posts we’ll try to capture different reactions to […]

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The "Bounce"

The "Bounce"

We have speculated before — along with many others — about Obama's impact on foreign attitudes toward the United States. But with the Democratic nomination now safely in his hands, this is no longer an academic question. As many foreigners as Americans seem to have celebrated the milestone that Obama's victory represents, encouraged by worldwide […]

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Former Official: State Department Culture an Impediment to Arms Control

Andy Semmel of the Paternship for a Secure America gives some suggestions on how the U.S. Government could ramp up its global efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. His suggestions are entirely focused on improvements that could be made at the State Department. This is not surprising, considering Semmel served for more […]

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A League of Our Own?

Senator John McCain's major speech on May 15th , in which he outlined what he "would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as President" in 2013, made international headlines. Most of the international news reports focused on McCain's vision of Iraq in 2013. For example, two weeks ago the Guardian […]

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A Fine Mess

In the interest of improving America's image, someone should have banned coverage of Saturday's meeting of the Democrats’ Rules and Bylaws Committee in Washington. There were insults, snide remarks, grandstanding and pettifoggery during the six-hour meeting — and that was just the participants. The hundreds of partisan onlookers behaved much worse, yelling taunts and threats […]

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US Absent at Signing of Cluster Bomb Treaty

US Absent at Signing of Cluster Bomb Treaty

The Washington Post reports: “More than 100 countries reached agreement Wednesday to ban cluster bombs, controversial weapons that human rights groups deplore but that the United States, which did not join the ban, calls an integral, legitimate part of its arsenal. …Advocates of the ban said they hope the agreement, which was supported by rich […]

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Europeans, Weary of US, Vote Obama

The conservative-leaning London newsdaily the Daily Telegraph commissioned a poll on Europeans’ preferences for the next US president. The poll of 6,200 people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, finds that, across all countries polled, Senator Obama received 52 percent of the popular vote, while Senator McCain received 15 percent. Senator Clinton was not included in the […]

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"The Pentagon as Diplomat"

Frida Berrigan, a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, authored a scathing endictment of the military buildup that occurred during George W. Bush's presidency. In the section called "The Pentagon as Diplomat," Berrigan argues: ” the White House's foreign policy agenda has increasingly been directed through the military. With a military budget […]

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The Selling of the President, Revisited

In the "gotcha" spirit of our current politics, CNN is rudely replaying the archival footage of Scott McClellan dismissing Richard Clarke's tell-all book, written after Clarke left the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. "Why didn't he tell the President these things when he was in the White House, rather than waiting until he […]

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Battle of the Caricatures

This blog is dedicated to relating how the US Presidential candidates view the world and are viewed by it. Washington Post Editorial Page Editor and columnist Fried Hiatt penned compared the worlviews of Senators McCain and Obama by pulling back the curtains on the recent row over Obama's policy of taking with US enemies. In […]

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State Department: DOD's Charity Case?

Ron Nessen, a journalist in residence at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, reported on what he calls a “rare event” in Washington.  His article, titled “A Defense Secretary Says Something Nice About a Secretary of State,” relates the remaks  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made at a recent Brookings Board of Trustees meeting. “Verbal battles, turf fights, and policy […]

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British Foreign Secretary on UK-US Relations

British Foreign Secretary on UK-US Relations

(Secretary Rice and Secretary Milliband in Silicon Valley) Britain's Foreign Secretary David Milliband continued his US tour last week by conducting an interview with Public Radio International's “The World” program. You can listen to the interview here. On the controversial issue about whether Iran–and every country on earth–has the right to develop nuclear power for […]

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An Asian Perspective on US Diplomacy

Senator Obama's policy of negotiating with our enemies has come under fire recently from both Senator McCain as well as from Senator Clinton. Philip Fernando the former editor of a Sri Lankan paper, the Sunday Observer, weighs in on the issue in a piece published yesterday by the Asian Tribune. Here's an excerpt: “Obama has seized […]

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Reviewing the Candidates' PD Strategies

Steven Barnes, Assistant Dean of Public Affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School authored an op-ed for the International Herald Tribune yesterday. It discusses what is yet known of the three presidential candidates’ public diplomacy strategies. Here's a summary from Barnes’ piece. Senator Obama: In an interview with the San Fransisco Chronicle in February (listen to it […]

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