“Events, dear boy, events.” British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s response when asked what he most feared is one of the most popular quotes among foreign policy scholars. How and whether to respond to the ongoing violence in Syria is now the barometer of President Obama’s foreign policy posture. Is it isolationist or interventionist? The […]
This weekend’s meeting in the California desert between a re-elected President Obama and his new Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will likely leave a large imprint on one of the world’s most important relationships in the years to come. Though the six-plus hours of meetings spread over two days will be unscripted, one important topic of […]
During the Bosnia conflict, reporters in Sarajevo kept quiet about at least two great stories. We did so with an unwritten rule of realizing that sometimes silence is more important than scoops. The first was most of U.S. knew ABOUT the existence of a tunnel from Sarajevo to beyond the lines that had the city […]
Across the world, internet users remain concerned — probably increasingly so — about what it might mean to lose control over their personal information online. In the United States, these fears may translate into efforts to make personal data more secure and even less permanent, through efforts such as the Do Not Track movement and […]
In a 2010 study, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff identified a 90 percent debt/GDP threshold as a “red line” national economies crossed only at the cost of impeding their growth. That study garnered a great deal of attention among debt hawks. More has been written about the impact of recent academic work discrediting Reinhart/Rogoff’s core conclusion […]
A post last month argued that President Obama was fast approaching a defining moment for his foreign policy in view of the mounting evidence that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria used sarin, a lethal nerve gas, in violation of Mr. Obama’s numerous warnings not to do so. The day of reckoning has now arrived […]
Last Wednesday was a day of extremes for the former Secretary of State, who was in Beverly Hills to pick up a public service award from a private foreign policy organization. There her tenure at the State Department was lauded as activists from a group called “Ready for Hillary 2016” gathered nearby to round out the […]
The internet went dark in Syria last week. Although media reports blamed the outage on a fault in optical fiber cables many in the tech community were skeptical. After all, it’s not the first time Syria shut down the internet in an attempt to prevent protestors from using social media to coordinate and share with […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
According to a new Gallup survey, more than two-thirds of the U.S. public has a positive impression of India, a score that even edges out Israel’s traditionally high favorability rating. This is the latest indicator of how decisively American perceptions about the country have changed. Not too long ago, India was regarded as the very […]
Tom Donilon, the U.S. national security advisor, was at the Asia Society in New York last week to talk (transcript here; video here) about the Obama administration’s effort to shift Washington’s strategic focus away from the military quagmires of the Greater Middle East to the dynamism of Asia – a region where, as the president […]
“When force is necessary, we will continue to do so in a way that reflects our values and strengthens our legitimacy, and we will seek broad international support, working with such institutions as NATO and the U.N. Security Council.” — President Obama (2010 National Security Strategy) Is it time for the international community to […]
By Sarwar Kashmeri “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role,” former Secretary of State Dean Acheson presciently observed in his 1962 speech at the U.S. Military Academy/West Point. It is the epigram with which David Hannay, the former British diplomat, and one of Britain’s most distinguished foreign service veterans, introduces […]