The snafu over Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade’s employment of household servant Sangeeta Richard has subsided. But the incident raises a strategic issue, which goes beyond the question of whether the U.S. treats India, in the words of the Economist, like a domestic servant. There is a tension between developed American freedom and the views of freedom that […]
In around 350 days’ time, the year 2015 will begin. But, erm, shouldn’t we rather still be remarking that we’ve just celebrated the start of 2014? The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have a target achievement date of 2015. Which is next year. Once you consider it’s been over 4,800 days since world leaders adopted the […]
The struggle to establish and maintain stable democracies continues the world over. As I have said many times before, no one ever said democracy is easy or simple, but it provides the best opportunities for freedom and prosperity (also see Churchill’s view of democracy in my “about the author” script). But as of now, how […]
East Africa is on the verge of personifying an energy transformation. New advances in natural gas, wind, geothermal, solar power and potentially oil are emerging to feed the hungry markets, while large hydro will continue to expand as well. Ethiopia, a country of 92 million and 7+ percent economic growth, has been a driver in […]
Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University who’s also a columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He recently wrote that efforts by the Obama Administration to reach a deal with the Rouhani Administration in Iran and bring the Iranian nuclear crisis closer to a closure are met […]
Three days before Obama’s highly anticipated speech on Friday, January 17, and amidst further revelations of the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers, former Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court officials are raising a ruckus. Judge John D. Bates—former presiding judge of the FISC and current director of the Administrative Office of the United States Court—has raised a number […]
The First Drop of Water in a Probable Waterfall: Global expansion of cancer surveillance is an urgent concern that should be prominent on the global health and development agendas, and should be added to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). I’m sanguine that the unprecedented momentum given to chronic diseases since the United Nations 2011 High […]
My last post noted how the blockbuster memoir by Robert M. Gates reinforces the points many observers have made about the defects of the Obama administration’s national security process. The revelations also bolster my own argument that President Obama and his team share a good deal of the responsibility for the ongoing crisis in relations between Washington and Hamid Karzai’s government […]
The January-February issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, which is published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), presents a special package on the new “Up-and-Coming Markets” in the global economy. The six markets featured in this special issue are Mexico, South Kroea, Poland, Turkey, Philippines, and the Mekong region. The latter is a region in […]
Last December, Hawaii’s Big Island passed a bill prohibiting biotech companies from operating on the island and restricting farmers from growing new genetically modified crops. The island does not currently have any operating biotech companies, but approximately three-quarters of the 30 million pounds of papayas harvested there are genetically modified according to The New York Times. […]
With the passing of another year comes the need to look ahead at the issues that will increasingly define the world we live in. Every year since 1945 the international community marks World Food Day, serving as a reminder of the importance of food security in a world where 1 in 8 go hungry. With […]
From botched attacks to UAV landings to Jeff Bezos’ fleet, drones have made headlines in 2013. Here are some of the most important 2013 events in the UAV world. X-47B carrier landing The X-47B, Northrop Grumman’s unmanned aerial combat vehicle (UCAV) designed for carrier-based operations, made headlines earlier this year as it became the first unmanned […]
The waning days of 2013 is a time of reflection on the most significant events of the year. It’s also a time to take a look at the most significant, controversial, and attention-grabbing books of the year. This year at the FPA, I picked the books in four categories: U.S. foreign policy, U.S.-Iranian relations, international […]
As regular readers know, the United States and five other countries (P5+1) concluded an interim nuclear agreement (the Joint Plan of Action) with Iran, setting the conditions that will hold during negotiations on a final agreement concerning the Iranian nuclear program and the international economic sanctions imposed on that country and also outlining some aspects […]
On Dec. 11, 2013, a U.S. drone strike mistakenly struck a wedding convoy in an isolated region of Yemen, taking out five suspected Al Qaeda militants along with a dozen civilians in the process. The Obama administration’s “new” drone policy—announced by the president on May 23, 2013, in a speech at National Defense University—promised more […]