“To work with all our heart and all of our might to make sure that America is secure, that our interests are promoted and our values are respected.” – Former Secretary of State Clinton If only former Secretary of State Clinton had remained true to the words she uttered so many times during her […]
Each week, the editors at Foreign Policy Blogs put together a selection of long-form articles on foreign affairs. Check out this week’s selection with the best of Foreign Policy Blogs and with Michael E. O’Hanlon on Hillary Clinton, Mitchell Prothero on Lebanese media, Robert F. Worth on spy novelist Gérard de Villiers, and more!
On February 1, U.S. Embassy in Ankara – in a calm, residential and business neighborhood — was bombed. At the time of writing this, police statements indicate that it is believed to be a suicide attack and the attacker(s) detonated the bomb inside the security checkpoint bunker, killing at least one security guard. Growing up […]
Today marks the start of the East Asia Summit, an annual forum where the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their counterparts from eight other nations, including China and the U.S., meet to discuss security and economic concerns. One issue which may take center stage concerns conflicting claims over the […]
U.S. President Barack Obama is returning to Asia for his first overseas trip since winning re-election. He will attend, for the second consecutive year, the East Asia Summit which is viewed by the U.S. as the emerging eminent multilateral forum for regional leaders from 17 other states to discuss salient strategic and security issues. The […]
Do women leaders matter for women? Not at the national level suggests Nicholas Kristof in a recent New York Times article focused on a specific woman leader he doesn’t care for very much. According to him, she’s bad for everyone in her country, but especially for the women. Kristof points out that, “metrics like girls’ education […]
If you would like to work for the State Department, you can now consider going to cooking school and then joining the American Chef Corps, launched on Friday. According to the Washington Post, …more than 80 chefs are being inducted into the first American Chef Corps. These food experts could help the State Department prepare […]
This week, the State Department held a “virtual ribbon cutting” for a new initiative, Leaders Engaged in New Democracies (LEND). LEND will help leaders in fledgling democracies connect with leaders who have experienced democratic transition in their own countries. As Voice of America reports, the initiative will facilitate conversations between leaders “by leveraging voice, video and […]
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted (255 to 67) to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his refusal to hand over thousands of documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee more than a year ago. The documents, believes Darrell Issa (R-Calif), who heads the Committee, are pivotal to understanding the […]
I am pleased to announce that this week in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially released the 12th annual Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report. The report was openly released on June 19th in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State. The event was open by invite to key government officials, leading anti-trafficking leaders and […]
The international relations history buffs among you probably know the story of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s quip about the French Revolution: when someone asked him about the revolution on one of President Nixon’s trips to China in the early 1970s, he said that it was “too soon to say.” Last year, a former foreign […]
“Those guys didn’t think I would do it. I told you I was going to do it!” That’s what internet-savvy President Obama said in New York City several months ago after belting out a few lines from Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” He’s sung at the Apollo and the White House, slow jammed the news, and nominated […]
It was a simple statement from the State Department, almost lost in the daily flurry of transcripts, very public reactions and carefully nuanced policy papers aimed at high profile flash points in the world. The statement was from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton congratulating the people of Algeria on their elections in mid-May. The […]
Do you follow celebrity news? I have to admit that it’s not something I keep up with. I’m not one to care all that much about celebrities or their occasional forays into foreign policy. I know there are people who base their foreign policy views on the well-informed opinions of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, George […]
This article, appeared on the Political Reflections Magazine, vol.3, n.2, is the second part of my review of FPA’s Great Decisions episode on the Arab Spring: The first part, providing a general overview of the debate can be found here. ********************************** As the uncertainty of the Arab Spring continues, the debate on the future of […]