Earlier this week, NATO’s Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, warned that European countries’ cuts in defense budgets risk the “gradual decline” of Europe. NATO’s engagement in Libya has exposed weaknesses in the alliance, particularly regarding who contributes to operations and how much. As Europe leaps to implement austerity measures, defense budgets are the first on […]
The New York Times recently ran an article on the band Native Deen, which took a State Department sponsored tour of several countries and recently released their latest album. When they were first asked to participate in the first tour they had qualms: “We had a debate in the community,” said Abdul-Malik Ahmad, one […]
Two weeks ago the European Union announced that it intends to provide $14.5 million in emergency food aid to North Korea. According to the statement released by the EU, after visiting North Korea in June, monitors judged the situation to be: “Increasingly desperate and extreme measures are being taken by the hard-hit North Koreans, including […]
Good old American know-how. Yankee ingenuity. Can-do spirit. You know the phrases, you know the attitude and values they represent, it’s something deep in the core of the American character. But, is it possible that this American character trait can be lost over time? This question was prompted by two things. First, as you know, […]
You are probably familiar with the ongoing drama surrounding the U.S. debt and efforts in Congress to raise the debt ceiling. This is an important issue, to be sure, one that has profound implications for U.S. domestic policy as well as foreign policy. This op-ed from The Guardian offers a view from “across the pond” […]
In case you missed it, the U.S., along with the European Union and Mexico, won an important ruling at the World Trade Organization earlier this week. The parties had lodged complaints against China, whom they accused of unfairly restricting exportation of a variety of key raw materials commonly found in a wide range of manufactured […]
As you may have heard, the space shuttle Atlantis will launch tomorrow for the last time. This launch will conclude the shuttle program and quite possibly, the U.S. manned space program, at least in the way we have come to think about it. If NASA is ending the shuttle program you would think that a […]
I hope that you had a great Independence Day holiday weekend. I’ve been thinking about what kind of patriotic post I could write that would be interesting and different from the usual 4th of July posts I’ve made in year’s past. When I saw this report from Voice of America, I knew I’d found my […]
The FPA Blogs Network has a new design. As you can see, there is a new look, a new layout, a new grouping of blogs by theme, a more user friendly comment system, a most popular posts widget, better sharing/social networking tools, and the design team in New York has been working on many behind-the-scenes […]
As the Greek parliament voted today (amid public riots) on the austerity bill required for continued bailout money from the EU, President Obama held a press conference in which he chided American legislators for vacationing while the U.S. faces a similar debt crisis. The deficit talks in Washington are almost entirely discussed in the context […]
The U.S. Department of State is quickly establishing itself as the most forward leaning U.S. public organization to embrace the use of technology to usher in a new era of open government. The latest example that Secretary Clinton is committed to helping other nations to press the ‘reset’ button on how they share information and interact […]
Last week, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale delivered the opening remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations’ forum entitled, “Strengthening U.S. Engagement with the World: A Review of U.S. Public Diplomacy.” Her brief speech addressed the State Department’s broad goals for the future of public diplomacy in policy making. The […]
President Obama addressed the nation last night and put forward his plan to draw-down U.S. forces in Afghanistan starting with 10,000 troops this year. As you may have expected, his plans have been met with criticism, with some members of his base saying it’s not enough and members of the GOP opposition saying it’s too […]
It’s been an interesting week in which President Obama defended the U.S. role in Libya against critics in Congress. It’s an odd development and many people find it hard to wrap their brains around the idea of a Democrat president who had campaigned against the wars and pledged to bring our troops home now defending […]
On this anniversary of the D-Day invasion that set the allies on course to victory in WWII I wanted to write a few words to commemorate the day but this day is now almost over and my draft is rather meager. After all, so many words have already been written about D-Day, what can I […]