“Kennan believed that language helped make policy and that vague, expansive language would lead to vague, expansive policy,” writes author Nicholas Thompson in a 2012 Foreign Affairs article about Cold War strategist George Kennan. As the humanitarian situation in Syria gets even worse, as questions over the use of chemical weapons loom larger, and as the […]
Here’s a little quiz to start you off with: In which profession do women make up less than 2% of the global workforce? I’ll give you a clue and exclude religious callings, firefighters and clowns from your choice of possible answers. (Hint: The title of this post might be a little bit of a giveaway!) […]
The rapidly escalating conflict in Syria is raising the collective volume of voices asking, “What can and should President Obama do in Syria?” The reality is that Syria’s future is inextricably tied to the future stability of the entire MENA region. Today, I turn to Cassie Chesley, Chair of the Coalition for a Democratic Syria […]
“It’s all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, ‘Huh? What?’ You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.” In the summer of 1975, the budding auteur, Steven Spielberg, created a virtual panic at America’s beaches with ingeniously crafted screen images of a certain Great White Fish. The top […]
The recent terrorist attacks that took place in Mogadishu and Boston were not just intended to kill and mutilate many civilians, but to create widespread terror, disarray, and insecurity that would last far beyond the initial shock of these bloody events. It goes without saying — anyone who takes part of such acts of indiscriminate […]
A defining moment for Mr. Obama’s foreign policy legacy is fast approaching From the Levant and the Persian Gulf to the Korean peninsula, events in recent weeks have offered a clinic in the difficulty of enforcing red lines on rogue regimes and their weapons of mass destruction, as well as how U.S. credibility suffers when […]
On Wednesday, April 17, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, a case that developed over years and became highly anticipated by the international human rights community. The case itself had been before the Court twice and had the potential to address many unanswered questions regarding the jurisdictional scope […]
Earlier this month, two prominent figures in the defense community – Retired Gen. David Petraeus and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post promoting reforms to the energy, manufacturing and IT sectors, among others, that they argue would ensure a bright American future. It is not too surprising that […]
I’ve been reading an awesome book about Winston Churchill called The Last Lion by William Manchester and Paul Reid. One of the many things in the book that jumped out at me was a quote from a speech Churchill gave in Nov. 1942 after British forces defeated Rommel and his German troops at El Alamein. […]
April 5 symbolized a significant date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), as it marked 1,000 days remaining to Dec. 31, 2015, the agreed upon date to reach its targets. The MDGs encompass eight targets that span the spectrum of human development from eradicating poverty to promoting sustainable development, health, education, and economic and social […]
In addition to being Earth Day, yesterday was the end of the State Department’s 45-day comment period on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project. Among the 800,000 comments is a letter to State from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA is not particularly happy with the analysis State has done, and this gives the environmental […]
Every day across the globe millions of children are abused and neglected. These innocent children are the victims of forced labor, sex trafficking and exploitation, physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse, malnutrition, neglect, and used as child soldiers. The impacts of child abuse do not come to an end when the child is taken from their […]
News reporting on India, more specifically news regarding women in India, has recently been somewhat unsettling. Horrific cases of sexual abuse, some fatal, have made their way from the Indian media to a global stage. In terms of raising awareness, the impact has been powerful. Yet tarring all of India with the same brush would […]
Bostonians are stunned by the marathon “pressure cooker bombings” that killed three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injured hundreds of others — spectators and participants — with the kinds of battlefield injuries we’ve only read about until now in reports about Afghanistan and Iraq — shrapnel injuries, amputations, burns and disfigurements that one NPR […]
In what is often being labeled the “Korean Crisis” or “Korean Missile Crisis” the latest outward displays of military prowess by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have prompted concerted international efforts on not only strategies of military containment, but of human rights inquiry. Comprehensive investigation into the domestic human rights record of the […]