The conventional wisdom about America’s global standing wants to have it both ways. The narrative about last month’s fiscal melodrama in Washington emphasizes how wildly dysfunctional domestic politics are quickening the country’s strategic decline and how China is emerging as the beneficiary. Yet at the same time the outrage over U.S. global surveillance efforts has […]
Bhola is a small island district in the south of Bangladesh situated softly on the edge of Bay of Bengal and home to nearly two million people. Few years ago on Al Jazeera, a documentary on climate change was aired which was titled, “Bhola: Ground Zero of Climate Change.” The basic message was that the […]
Aid, donations and relief supplies are making their way to the parts of the Philippines most affected by the recent disaster. A conference held earlier this week in London and attended by high-level representatives of governments, U.N. agencies and NGOs, wasn’t directly focused on responding to the “relief gridlock” and misery riddling the lives of many […]
High frequency trading (HFT) of securities has become a high-profile target on both sides of the Atlantic in recent weeks. On September 2, Italy began imposing a tax of 0.02 percent on many order changes and cancellations that occur within 0.5 seconds of the original order. Later that month, the managers of the world’s largest […]
The management flaws now coming to light in the implementation of the president’s signature domestic achievement have long been evident in the foreign policy realm. As I argue in a new essay on Fair Observer’s website, the White House’s policymaking machinery is overly insular, centralized and politicized. Dana Milbank, the Washington Post columnist who is generally supportive of Mr. […]
Sadly, the adage “the more things change the more they stay the same” is perfectly to describe struggles in keeping strong democracy in Asia. Upon returning from hiatus, I started looking for story ideas and ran across some “updates” to items I had covered earlier this year. But in reality not much is different in […]
“With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions — about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.” —- President Obama (May, 2013) “The biggest, meanest, most advanced destroyer ever operated by the U.S Navy is about to hit the water […]
Singapore is the easiest place in the world for small- and medium-sized domestic companies to do business, with Hong Kong and New Zealand trailing immediately behind, and Malaysia and South Korea rounding out the Asia-Pacific region’s representation in the top 10, according to a World Bank study released late last month. The institution’s “Doing […]
You may have heard of the U.N., but have you ever heard of UNRISD? Perhaps not – as a research institute they aren’t going to grab as many headlines as the WHO, UNESCO or the Security Council. Yet the work they do is just as valuable, the latest example being a new program exploring when […]
Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will tackle a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. Tackling climate change has unearthed a […]
In his journey to the White House, Barack Obama made much hay railing against his predecessor’s supposedly go-it-alone mindset and penchant for foreign policy unilateralism. With memories still fresh of the spectacular rupture between Washington and its traditional European allies over the Iraq war, Obama’s claim to be the “anti-Bush” garnered him a euphoric welcome […]
Bjorn Lomborg is Director of Copenhagen Consensus Center and author, most recently, of How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place. Copenhagen Consensus Center brings together many of the world’s top economists, including Nobel Laureates, to set priorities for the world. Dr. Lomborg is among TIME Magazine‘s 100 most influential people in the […]
Hosted by Sarwar Kashmeri, the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions podcast series will headline issues together with the leaders whose decisions today will mold the foreign policy of tomorrow. Each podcast will deal with a different Great Decisions topic in the 2014 series, a list of which can be found here. Our first podcast will […]
The cover photo of George Kennan on the paperback edition of John Lewis Gaddis’ biography shows a man of ease and erudition – an approachable professor. By contrast, the initial hardcover edition shows an expressionless man in hat and overcoat, stoic and still as a bronze statue. Gaddis writes a life of Kennan that illuminates […]
Photo Credit: blog.lib.umn.edu The International AIDS Conference- a biennial event that is the largest gathering of HIV professionals across the globe- will be convening again this July, 2014 in Melbourne, Australia. The theme to this year’s conference? “Stepping Up the Pace”, which seems to already convey a time appropriate message of non-complacency. Indeed, we are […]