There has been a lot of speculation lately about the impact of the Crimean Crisis on the situations in Syria and Iran. The current negotiations regarding these countries involve cooperation between Russia, the United States, and other countries now directly and indirectly involved on opposites sides of the Crimean question. Naturally, that bodes ill for […]
First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to China with her mother and daughters has been a big soft-power success for the United States. Praised for her style and warmth by ordinary Chinese citizens, Ms. Obama was likewise well-received by Chinese media. The First Lady’s seven-day visit at the invitation of her Chinese counterpart Peng Liyuan has […]
No matter how divided Washington may be when it comes to foreign policy, one aspect proved to forge agreement throughout the 2014 winter: The U.S. should promote free trade, particularly with the European Union, countries along the Pacific Rim and GCC nations. A critical aspect of trade promotion that I’ve seen unfold in my own […]
Our favorite long reads and blog posts from the past week.
Vladimir Putin’s encroachments on Ukraine have drawn Western investment and trade sanctions in response. U.S. sanctions are levied against certain Russian individuals, and serve reasonable diplomatic notice of our opposition. However, we should not look to trade and other economic sanctions as a long term answer to Putin’s aggression. First, it is clear […]
On March 5, China announced that it was increasing its defense budget for 2014 by 12.2 percent over the 2013 level, to $131 billion. Analysts and diplomats greeted the news with complaints that Beijing’s disclosures about its military spending are unduly opaque and often low-ball the actual defense budget by not including many weapons programs. […]
If the 20th century was about an ideological fight between market-economy versus Communism, the 21st could very much be about liberal democracy versus imperialism. This could be the very lesson of Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Power politics is – even though it has never disappeared – now a reality that the EU and the U.S. […]
Our five favorite longreads and blog posts from the past week.
As the Ukrainian crisis escalates, President Barack Obama has been busy making the diplomatic rounds trying to build support against the unilateral attempts by Crimea to break away from the new government in Ukraine. President Obama said the United States is examining a series of economic and diplomatic steps to “isolate Russia,” and he called […]
On Tuesday, March 11, the Peace Index project run by the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute published the results of their latest poll. The poll indicates that the majority of the Israeli public distrusts and remains skeptical about the motives and considerations of U.S. […]
Need some reading for the weekend? Check out our editorial staff’s favorite five long reads and blog posts.
Earlier this week, Israel seized a Gaza-bound ship carrying advanced Iranian weapons made in Syria. The story broke while Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was in the United States to meet with President Barack Obama and to address the annual AIPAC conference. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took to Twitter to deny the story: https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/441470473579155456 […]
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