Four Americans were hijacked at sea and killed by Somali pirates this week. The U.S. responded to the yacht hijacking by sending a fleet of ships, including the U.S.S. Enterprise, to shadow the pirates and negotiate for the hostages. The ships had been in the region monitoring the growing pirate threat along with other allied […]
What if the U.S. decided to create a think tank dedicated to peace and then invited scholars and practitioners to conduct research and start projects aimed at promoting peace and conflict resolution? That would be a good thing, right? Born out of the dark times of the Cold War, the U.S. Institute of Peace has […]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that the U.S. State Department plans to spend $25 million this year on initiatives designed to protect bloggers and help them get around curbs like the Great Firewall of China. She also added, “Those who clamp down on internet freedom may be able to hold back the full […]
Years ago President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a State of the Union address in which he articulated four basic freedoms that people all over the world should have: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want; and, freedom from fear. Now, after witnessing the world’s first political revolution inspired and organized with […]
I’ve been enthralled with watching the demonstrators in Cairo, it’s been amazing. According to most reports and analysis that I’m familiar with, the demonstrators are standing up for their humans rights, for democratic rights, and standing against oppression and corruption. The revolt has been inspired by lack of jobs and by the frustration of an […]
Among all the articles about the Middle East over the past two weeks, these three jumped out at me as being highly relevant for U.S. global engagement strategy. 1. Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned by Liz Sly in the Washington Post. The old ways won’t work anymore and if the U.S. seeks to […]
It’s been interesting watching the evolution of the U.S. role in dealing with the crisis in Egypt. It’s clear that the U.S. was taken by surprise by the pace of events. Sure, Tunisia was a warning, but Egypt is not Tunisia and few expected revolution in Egypt. At the outset, the Obama team took a […]
NOTE: This post was co-authored by guest blogger, Robert R. Gosende. Mr. Gosende is a retired Foreign Service Officer who now serves as the John W. Ryan Fellow in International Education at the University at Albany. He was President Clinton’s Special Envoy for Somalia in 1992. —————————————————————————————————————————————— In case you weren’t paying attention before, the […]
I have to admit that I feel very conflicted about this week’s State of the Union speech by President Obama. On the one hand, I was greatly impressed with the inspirational and uplifting tone of the speech. The White House went to great pains in advance of the speech to signal that it would be […]
To be fair, the White House was clear that President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday would not be focused on foreign policy, and so the basically-perfunctory treatment of international issues during the speech was not much of a surprise. Obama is clearly more focused on domestic policy than foreign affairs, but in […]
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust Why do American foreign policy decision makers and diplomats continue to misjudge the political character of Latin America and the Caribbean? Our understanding (really our misunderstanding) of the socio-political landscape of this region traps us into supporting […]
Today we marked the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. I have to admit to certain amount of awe at that period of history called Camelot. From this more cynical present I find it amazing that there was a time not so long ago in our past in which idealism was […]
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