The further backward you can look, the further forward you can see. – Winston Churchill One of my pet peeves is a friend or acquaintance coming up to me and saying: “Gail, where have you been? I haven’t seen you around for a long time.” I know I’m being cranky, but what annoys me is […]
With the ISIS forces entering the outer region of Baghdad, the move towards Iraq’s capital lead to a lot of equipment being captured by those forces. This new and advanced equipment will likely play an important role in future battles. It is important to look at some of the tanks and artillery that might become […]
Just days after Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) militants attacked the Karachi airport, the U.S. ended its hiatus on drone strikes in Pakistan. Approximately 16 died in the strikes, according to Pakistan’s English-language newspaper Dawn. Both strikes targeted locations in North Warziristan. For the past several months, Pakistan has been drone-strike free, leaving the U.S. to focus most of its targeted […]
President Barack Obama’s West Point commencement address last week was not an announcement of a new direction in American foreign policy — it was a defense of the policy path already chosen. The most significant takeaway from the speech — if not its biggest headline — was the president’s commitment to international institutions. Obama reminded his audience […]
When President Obama took to the stage to address West Point’s Class of 2014 on Wednesday morning, the leader of the free world sought to lay out a vision for a post-Iraq and post-Afghanistan American foreign policy. In doing so, he also looked to address his domestic and international critics — those who have pointed […]
The indictment of five Chinese military hackers by a grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania illustrates the increasing importance of cyberspace in the great power relationship between the United States and China. It also shows that four years of talking about cyber-espionage, including at the presidential level, have lead to nowhere. All […]
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. The Great Decisions podcasts can also be found […]
A Brazilian cybersecurity conference conveyed more than 800 experts to exchange ideas on the future of the Internet. EWI’s Senior Vice President Bruce McConnell attended the NETmundial meeting in São Paulo and comments in this post on its significance: Just weeks before the World Cup, the Brazilian government hosted 800 people in São Paulo at […]
On Thursday, President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia made a surprise stop at the “uncanny valley” in Japan. Obama, an avid basketball player, picked up a new sport when he played soccer with Honda’s humanoid ASIMO at Tokyo’s Miraikan science museum. ASIMO, a four-foot, three inches tall robot who weighs in at roughly 119 pounds […]
The Economist released an interesting chart on global military spending this week showing the increased spending on military assets by countries that have been considered in the past to not be pro-Western or an ally of the United States or EU. The largest spending boom was made by China. China has openly shown the People’s […]
The Colorado town of Deer Trail that made headlines months ago by proposing issuing hunting licenses to shoot down drones may have tossed out its “unique” anti-surveillance initiative in early April. However, Deer Trail’s rejection of “drone hunting” hasn’t stopped Montana state Senator and U.S. House candidate Matt Rosendale from shooting drones as a tool […]
Washington, D.C. area auto service shop G&C Auto Service previewed its new parts delivery system today, April 1, 2014. And here’s why we’re writing about it on a foreign policy blog: It’s a drone, specifically a DJI Phantom. According to owner Gregg Caldwell, it started with an Amazon Prime account. Soon, G&C were official “testers” for […]
When discussing the Pacific region, a frequently mentioned concern on the part of Department of Defense and other government officials is China’s lack of transparency about its military modernization. During a presentation given at the AFCEA West Conference last month Captain Jim Fanell, head of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet Intelligence Staff, remarked , “he didn’t know […]
On March 12, Congressman Adam B. Schiff’s op-ed “Let the Military Run Drone Warfare” ran in the New York Times, pushing an agenda that’s been on the lips of a number of wonks and politicians ever since Obama’s May 2013 “drone speech”: Transfer the U.S. drone program from the Central Intelligence Agency to Joint Special […]
Young eyes pull upward, searching for the man buried beneath thick matted grass. A soldier stands encircled by a small crowd draped in a sniper’s woodland ghillie suit, a disguise useless against the dusty soil of Horse Guards Parade. But that’s the point. For on a brisk London day last October, among parachuters and fly-overs, […]