While President-Elect Obama is busy planning his transition, the foreign policy challenges he will face are not waiting for his inauguration. Russia welcomed his election with an announcement that they will station missiles on Russia's western border to counter the U.S. missile defense system (WaPo editorial here), sparking fears of a new arms race. And as this AP report notes, that is only one of the many challenges facing the new president.
In my e-mail this morning I found the latest newsletter from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace promoting their comprehensive series of reports examining the foreign policy challenges facing the next president:
Next January, the new U.S. President will be confronted with the longest list of severe challenges any president has faced in decades. Prioritizing among them will be even more important than usual. In its new series, “Foreign Policy for the Next President”, the Carnegie Endowment's experts endeavor to do just that. They separate good ideas from dead ends and go beyond widely agreed goals to how to achieve them.
Topics in the series include nuclear weapons, dealing with Iran, engaging Pakistan, the rise of Asia, the League of Democracies idea, Mideast peace, and climate change.
