The ability to recognise and respond to threats just over the horizon is justifiably considered part of the collective job description of US defence planners and members of Congress. However, all too often US defence planning falls short of anticipating strategic trends, let alone crafting clear and comprehensive policies to address them.
The congressional debate over whether to support President Barack Obama's call for military action against Syria will revolve around the issue of "U.S. credibility," but here's the sobering fact: U.S. credibility around the world has already taken a huge hit due to White House actions of recent weeks.
You may have missed it, but on Aug. 14 Russia fired an economic shot across the bow of Ukraine. On that day, Russia’s customs office ordered intensive checks on all Ukrainian goods entering Russia, effectively imposing a de facto ban. This could have ended up costing Ukraine as much as $2.5 billion in lost trade by the end of the year.
Today, the U.S. and Moscow share few common interests
The fate of controversial National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was recently granted asylum by the Kremlin, is of little importance. His case, however, shines a revealing spotlight on the true state of U.S.-Russian relations, and on the sorry state of American policy toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Among long-time observers of Middle East politics, the sorry state of Israeli hasbara, as the country's foreign image-building is called in Hebrew, is something akin to the stuff of legend. Time and again over the years, Israeli messaging — on everything from its strategic intentions, to relations with the Palestinians, to foreign policy toward the Arab world — has fallen flat or received a cold shoulder from unsympathetic international audiences. This has been the case despite consistent, heavy investments from the Israeli government in the use of television, radio, print media and the Internet to win hearts and minds.