For the past three days I participated in USAID’s online dialogue about various international development topics. Called “Global Pulse 2010, “ USAID has the following to say about it: …a 3-day, online collaboration event, that will bring together individual socially-engaged participants and organizations from around the world. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is […]
I’d like to follow up on my recent post regarding the new arms control treaty announced last week. As you know, the treaty will have to be approved by the U.S. Senate and given the current environment in Washington, that may prove difficult. This report in The Washington Post notes that the Senate could begin […]
The March 1st issue of Newsweek magazine has a good article outlining how climate science has become a bruised, intensely politicized issue that is negatively impacting public support for environmental causes. “The battle between “alarmists” and “deniers” has taken a huge toll, not just on [scientists]. It has also damaged the credibility of climate science […]
Along the gradient of power, there’s a possible mix of “soft” and “hard” varieties. The public diplomacy originating at the U.S. State Department is commonly associated with the “soft” power of peaceful persuasion and cultural appeal; the foreign information efforts at the Pentagon are often in the service of some tangible “hard” power goal. The […]
With the health care debate kicked forward, various post mortems are speculating whether the bill passing makes a cap-and-trade legislation more or less likely. On the one hand, Obama’s win on contentious health reforms may have boosted the momentum to now pass what is comparatively easy. From the gang at Climate Progress: “If progressives can […]
In the continuing effort to reset relations with Russia, the Obama Administration is near agreement on a major arms control treaty to reduce long-range nuclear weapons. As this report from The Washington Post notes, the treaty is a follow-up to the expired 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and will decrease nuclear armaments but not […]
After noting the U.S. response to the Haiti earthquake on this blog, I thought it would be good to follow-up and note that the U.S. response is continuing, even as Haiti no longer dominates the headlines. This report in The Washington Post describes the visit to Haiti yesterday by former Presidents Clinton and Bush: Former […]
As a follow-up to the last post on U.S. Middle East peace efforts, I wanted to mention this week’s meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at which Secretary Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu will speak. I was especially curious to see how Secretary Clinton would describe U.S. efforts and the “crisis” in […]
You may recall the diplomatic storm that raged last week when Vice-President Biden visited Israel and was greeted by news of a new construction project in East Jerusalem. Biden and the Obama team reacted as if this was an unprecedented provocation by Israel and a dire threat to Mideast peace. As The New York Times […]
Though I tend to stick to climate related topics, new-to-me OECD foreign aid data (via William Easterly’s blog) seemed particularly relevant to draw attention to here. Below is a graph showing all U.S. aid, by recipient, from 2004-2008. It’s like an ugly joke, rendered useless by illegible font and an unapparent color scheme. But with […]
Secretary of State Clinton addressed the Seventh Annual U.S. Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, yesterday. This report in the Washington Post notes that it was seen as a follow-up to President Obama’s Cairo speech and promised renewed efforts to maintain the momentum generated by that speech: In what aides billed as a sequel to […]
Readers of this space know there’s been a recent flurry of public activity by those who set the course of U.S. communications efforts with foreign publics. This week’s unusual Congressional hearing on the State Department’s public diplomacy programs featured not only the current ranking official for public diplomacy, Under Secretary Judith McHale, talking about her […]
World War II was an epic conflict that touched the lives of nearly every citizen in every country involved. In the U.S., the war meant sacrifice and hardship for those on the homefront, as entire sectors of industry and commerce were transformed to aid the war effort. Women were “drafted” into the economy as never […]
Nuclear war is unthinkable, so conventional wisdom holds, but nuclear terror and blackmail are all too easy to imagine. As we drift farther into the nuclear age, it is increasingly clear that the proliferation of the capacity to cause mass destruction is but one part of the danger the world faces. The other is the […]
The Bush Administration used to say that the U.S. was bringing democracy to Iraq and hoping to inspire a democratic wave throughout the Middle East. Let’s agree to accept this uncritically and move forward to ask the following question: Has the recent national election in Iraq inspired the region and emboldened democracy movements? In this […]