Section: Foreign Policy (USA)
Smoking Putin Out of His Cave
To arm or not to arm, that is the question. With battles raging in eastern Ukraine, it should be abundantly clear that the euro-Atlantic community is involved in the most serious conflict since the end of the Cold War — less bloody, so far, but more dangerous than the Balkan wars. Absent a true breakthrough in the Angela Merkel-Francois Hollande...
Syriza Rolls the Dice
The coming out party for Greece’s new government didn’t go off as planned. Freshly appointed Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who was sworn in just two weeks ago, bombed in London, Berlin, and Brussels. He’d arrived with a plan for Europe to give Greece a three-month holiday, during which it would abrogate the terms of the...
USA Today Publishes Map of Ukraine Without Crimea
While the Western world refuses to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, one of its largest newspapers just did. On Tuesday, the front page of USA Today displayed a map of Ukraine that does not include the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized last year and voted to formally annex in March. A spokesperson for the newspaper giant did not...
Putin’s Kalashnikov Diplomacy Gets a Win in Egypt
Just when you thought Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t possibly do more to resemble a comic book villain, he goes and outdoes himself. The Russian leader was in Cairo Tuesday for meetings with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and presented the former general with a modest gift: A Kalashnikov assault rifle. The gift...
FP’s Situation Report: Intel hearings stay public; U.S. still putting peace before guns in Ukraine; Former Guantánamo Bay detainee killed in Afghanistan; and much more from around the world.
By David Francis with Sabine Muscat Intelligence hearings stay public. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has long disliked public hearings on intelligence. He’s changed his tune with Republicans in control of the Senate and plans to hold his first open hearing next week. FP’s John Hudson: “It’s unclear...
Obama’s Foreign Policy Summed Up in One Quote
Six years into his presidency, Barack Obama’s foreign policy has gone by many names. He’s talked of hitting “singles and doubles,” an aide said he believed in “leading from behind,” and he’s been accused of boiling down his overarching goal to resisting that which smells bad. Obama’s critics see a president adrift, lacking...
Democracy Lab Weekly Brief, February 9, 2015
To keep up with Democracy Lab in real time, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Mohamed Eljarh explains why Libya’s reversal of a law that purged Qadaffi-era officials from politics may be a step forward. James Kirchik argues that German Chancellor Angela Merkel must do more to help Ukraine — including supplying it with arms. Christian Caryl...
Why Arming Kiev Is a Really, Really Bad Idea
Should the United States start arming Ukraine, so it can better resist and maybe even defeat the Russian-backed rebels in its eastern provinces? A lot of seasoned American diplomats and foreign policy experts seem to think so; a task force assembled by the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs...
Patience Isn’t Always a Virtue
The White House released its long-overdue National Security Strategy (NSS) on Friday. Criticisms of the administration’s leadership failures have clearly gotten under the White House’s skin, because this is a document drowning in the term leadership. So we will “lead with purpose,” “lead with strength,” “lead by example,” etc. The...
FP’s Situation Report: Iraqi troops prepare to confront the Islamic State in urban areas; Iran and U.S. say now or never on nuclear deal; China inflates internal terror threats; and much more from around the world.
By David Francis with Sabine Muscat Iraqi troops are taking the Islamic State fight to Sunni strongholds. Iraq’s military has found success in small villages and mostly sparsely populated places across the nation’s north. American military advisers now prepare to take on the tall task of trying to win back urban areas. The Washington...
