Foreign Policy Blogs

Uncategorized

How to Effectively Network To the Job of Your Dreams

How to Effectively Network To the Job of Your Dreams

  Effective Networking If you are like most job seekers these days, you have likely spent hours and hours searching the internet for organizations with job openings that match your skills and experience. If you’re lucky, those searches eventually uncover a job posting perfect for you. You then spend even more time assembling an application […]

read more

The FPA’s Must Reads (August 2-9)

The FPA’s Must Reads (August 2-9)

Soldiers of Misfortune By Colum Lynch Foreign Policy David Bax, a former military engineer, came to Somalia to teach American-backed peacekeeping forces to avoid al-Shabab’s bombs. He’s stirred up controversy in his effort to save a crew of relief workers from an attack by militants in Mogadishu. Instead of receiving an award, his U.N. career […]

read more

Some Good News (Seriously) About U.S. – Russian Relations

Some Good News (Seriously) About U.S. – Russian Relations

Trying to say something upbeat about U.S.- Russian relations this week entails the same risks as going to a wake intent on offering words that will cheer up the deceased’s widow. The observation that, “At least you won’t have to put up with his snoring anymore” may be accurate enough, but in the grand scheme […]

read more

Talking ‘Smart Power’ With Admiral Stavridis

Talking ‘Smart Power’ With Admiral Stavridis

Retired Admiral James Stavridis talks “smart power,” Latin America, and Snowden With one-liners like, “We are excellent at launching Tomahawk missiles; we need to get better at launching ideas,” it is not hard to appreciate why The New York Times labeled recently retired Admiral James Stavridis a “Renaissance admiral.” Labels like “innovator” and “thought leader” may be overused, […]

read more

What “Extending a Hand to the Poor” Too Often Really Means

What “Extending a Hand to the Poor” Too Often Really Means

  The Irish playwright Brendan Behan once opined that, “I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn’t make it worse.” Behan was hardly an unbiased commentator, having misspent his youth in activities that assured a mutual antipathy between the literary giant and the law enforcement community, but the findings of Transparency […]

read more

John Kerry reels them in

John Kerry reels them in

  Secretary of State John Kerry has the Israelis and Palestinians talking again. In the context of all that is happening in the Middle East, that qualifies as a positive. Kerry does not give up. That has been well documented before. While many see the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a morass, Kerry believes the United States […]

read more

The FPA’s Must Reads (7/25-8/1)

The FPA’s Must Reads (7/25-8/1)

Weekly updates on the best long form reads and blog posts from ForeignPolicyBlogs.com’s editorial team.

read more

A War of Words on Syria

A War of Words on Syria

The language of war could swell volumes with what would at once be the most depressing and coldly technical glossaries of chaos ever scribed.  The intersection of political calculation and unrelenting violence is formed by an endless stream of words.  Open-air condemnations and closed-door strategizing.  Shouts and whispers, threats and rumors.  Uncapped fury and profound […]

read more

Aid for Trade’s Positive Impact Must Reach Local Markets to be Effective

Aid for Trade’s Positive Impact Must Reach Local Markets to be Effective

  After receiving and reviewing an advanced copy of the Organization of Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2013 report Aid for Trade at a Glance: Connecting to Value Chains, I am intrigued by the ongoing process of replacing a portion of direct foreign aid with viable bi- and multi-lateral trade agreements that help in economic development, especially […]

read more

Thinking of Syria as Two States

Thinking of Syria as Two States

  Recent developments in Syria’s civil war point to the solidification of two distinct geographical areas. With rebels tightening their hold in the east and north and the regime making gains in the center, Syria is beginning to look like two neighboring states, dealing with two different circumstances.  Syria’s civil war has continually been fought […]

read more

United States and Vietnam Announce New Comprehensive Partnership

United States and Vietnam Announce New Comprehensive Partnership

President Barack Obama hosted Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang at the White House for the first bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Acknowledging the “extraordinarily complex history between the United States and Vietnam” President Obama and President Truong announced the establishment of a new Comprehensive Partnership between the two countries, with the end goal of […]

read more

The FPA’s Must Reads (July 19-26)

The FPA’s Must Reads (July 19-26)

Weekly updates on the best long form reads and blog posts from ForeignPolicyBlogs.com’s editorial team.

read more

Needed: A Hippocratic Oath for U.S. Foreign Policy

Needed: A Hippocratic Oath for U.S. Foreign Policy

By Sarwar Kashmeri “First do no harm” — is the famous dictum drilled into newly minted doctors as they begin to practice medicine. The phrase is at the heart of the Hippocratic Oath. It reminds doctors that when treating a patient they must consider the possibility that in a medical emergency doing nothing might be the […]

read more

The General’s Pretext

The General’s Pretext

The General’s Pretext Unless it is averted by transcendental intervention or by the collective effort of those who possess the political or economic capacity to influence the Egyptian Army, the stage in Egypt is set for bloody massacres, or worse, a civil war. The excerpts below would underline a thinly-veiled pretext. Today, July 24, 2013, […]

read more

Chong Chon Gang and North Korea’s Arms-Refurbishing Trade

Chong Chon Gang and North Korea’s Arms-Refurbishing Trade

  Sometimes you look at it, and it seems a fairly straight-forward, if somewhat bizarre, story. Then again, it bears a hint of mystery. A North Korean dry-cargo merchant vessel, MV Chong Chon Gang, traveling from Cuba to the Panama Canal, was boarded by Panamanian military personnel on suspicion that it was carrying contraband narcotics. […]

read more