Shawn Brimley at Democracy Arsenal argues that America is suffering from strategic myopia and strategic amnesia, afflictions that blind us to the time-tested tools and strategies we have successfully used in the past to chart a winning foreign policy. Is there a danger that Iraq and the War on Terrorism are distracting the U.S. from […]
Amid the many reports of foreign audiences going ga-ga for Obama, one foreign policy expert issues a strong warning against thinking that a President Obama will solve the US’ global image problem, or make public diplomacy any easier. John Brown, a 20-year veteran of the US Foreign Service and currently a senior fellow at the University of Southern […]
If you are a member of Senator McCain or Senator Obama's cadre of campaign advisers, a former US Ambassador, or even a mere foreign policy expert, you are one busy guy/gal right now. Washington is brimming with events with titles like "US Foreign Policy in the Next Presidential Administration: What Will Go Down?" or "President […]
Continuing with the theme of the last post, here is a video of North Korea destroying a water cooling tower at a nuclear facility as part of the recent nuclear disclosure agreement with the U.S. and the other six-party countries. U.S. State Department officials and IAEA representatives were invited to observe the event. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/qe20Q1SPzew” […]
It is natural, at a time of low approval ratings for the United States overseas, to ask again whether it made sense in 1999 to dismantle the U.S. Information Agency and move parts of it into the State Department. As Melinda points out in her post (below), John McCain has weighed in on the subject, […]
I have mentioned before on this blog the newly-released Pew Global Attitudes Project's global poll on views of the United States. Now they have produced this handy interactive map that overlays not only views of the US but also nations’ views of the US Presidential Candidates. Above is a picture of the map. To enjoy […]
After months of multilateral negotiations with the U.S. and other countries, North Korea today publicly detailed the extent of their long secret nuclear program and President Bush quickly reciprocated by removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism (Washington Post – North Korea Details Nuclear Program): President Bush today lifted some […]
I’d like to begin this blog about the U.S. Role by using this first post to look back to a time when the U.S. aided a former enemy and helped lay the foundation for the post-WWII era in world affairs (International Herald Tribune – Germany remember Berlin airlift on 60th anniversary): Germany on Thursday […]
(Secretary Rice at a press conference in June in Lebanon, courtesy of the State Department) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations’ International Affairs Fellows Conference last week. An edited video of her remarks can be viewed here. The thrust of Rice's speech centered on the “elements of continuity” thatthe Bush administration's […]
(Hindu God Hanuman) The BBC reports today that a group of Indians are planning to present a statue of the revered Indian monkey God, Hanuman, to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. According to the report: “The group decided to order the idol after they read a magazine report saying that Mr Obama carried a good luck […]
Senator John McCain has stated that if he were elected President, he would re-establish the US Information Agency as an independent office. The merging of the US Information Agency into the State Department is a sore subject for many public diplomacy watchers. The efficacy of the merge, which took place under the Clinton administration, to is hotly […]
On Thursday night the House of Representatives passed a vast supplemental spending bill (HR 2642), which would provide $161.8 billion in war funding, an expanded veterans' education benefit, an extension of unemployment insurance and money to deal with flooding in the Midwest. The bill now goes to the Senate for approval, where Democratic leaders have […]
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