The news media lit up late Thursday on news that North Korea threatened to use preemptive nuclear warfare against the United States and canceled its non-aggression pact with South Korea. The regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, equipped with nuclear capabilities, seems less interested in peace and …
In 2012 Iran was one of the key topics in American presidential debates. Its nuclear program and foreign policy subjected the country to harsh U.S.-led international sanctions that have wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy, so far impacting mostly the lives of ordinary Iranians without a change in Iran’s strategic …
After a panel discussion at New York University shortly before November’s election, General Wesley Clark (ret.) was kind enough to answer some questions regarding the national security dimension of America’s energy situation. This piece originally appeared in the Kensington Review.
Q: What security threats bother you most when it …
The year was 1967 , ten years after the United States and Imperial Iran signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement as part of America’s Atoms for Peace program. At the time Iran debuted its first nuclear facility in Tehran, a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor, supplied by the United States and …
Thanks to the hard work of several of our bloggers, Foreign Policy Association’s election guide and candidate selector is up!
Focusing on the foreign policy views of incumbent President Barack Obama and the opposition challenger, Mitt Romney, the Foreign Policy Association’s bloggers provide readers with background and …
Russia oversees the world’s largest fleet of nuclear icebreakers, and it will soon add the largest one yet to its tally. Rosatom, which currently manages Russia’s fleet of new icebreakers through its subsidiary, Atomflot, has just signed a contract with the St.Petersburg-based shipbuilding company Baltisky Zavod to construct …
As I mentioned in my previous post, Putin’s administration is busy readying the Northern Sea Route for increased maritime traffic. In order to maintain control over the shipping lane, Russia will need a first-class navy and naval bases. Plans are underway to equip the navy with eight new …
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has announced his decision to restart two nuclear reactors in western Japan. As I noted in this blog a month ago, all of Japan’s nuclear reactors are offline. Before the Fukushima meltdown, 30% of the nation’s electricity came from uranium fission …
Political liberalism emphasizes the effectiveness of diplomacy and cooperation to solve international problems. Under the principle of liberalism, countries’ interactions to solve shared problems can result in mutually beneficial resolutions. Contrastingly, liberalism’s counterpart, political realism, emphasizes the maintenance and use of power in a country’s domestic and international agendas. Stressing …
Today, Iran and the 5+1 group of permanent UN Security Council members (plus Germany) will sit down in Baghdad to discuss the terms of Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Danaiifar, explained that merely hosting the talks demonstrated a historic chapter in the history of Iraq. But what does …
For the first time since 1970, not a single electron on the Japanese power grid comes from fission reactors. On Saturday, May 5, 2012, engineers began inserting control rods to bring the fission process to an end at the third and final Tomari reactor. Until last year’s earthquake, tsunami and …
The US-South Africa bilateral relationship over the past eighteen months has been a diplomatic minefield. Issues include everything from military equipment and nuclear energy/weapons to oil, communication companies and the global north versus the global south.
The most recent, and the most serious issue regarding US-SA relations is Iran.
According to a …
I recall having a hard time remembering all the Southern islands of Iran for exams during school years. I remember the name of “Abu Mousa” from those years. I had never thought about this island ever since. When I read the news about President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Abu Mousa, I …
Iran today is well-positioned to leverage the Arab world’s difficult political transition to religious-based politics and influence this transition to suit its geopolitical interests.
After a 15-month hiatus marked by mutual distrust and reciprocal accusations of insincerity to negotiate, on April 14 Istanbul hosted a new round of negotiations between Iran and …
The following is a guest appearance by Lawrence J. Korb, a Senior Fellow at American Progress. Mr. Korb is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Mr. Korb was also assistant secretary of defense during the administration of President Reagan. The …
