“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 other nations to participate in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Weekly updates on the best long form reads and blog posts from ForeignPolicyBlogs.com’s editorial team.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Weekly updates on the best long form reads and blog posts from ForeignPolicyBlogs.com’s editorial team.
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 […]
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, […]