On the surface, Russia seems to be a nation on the march. Last week, Russia's larger-than-life president, Vladimir Putin, strong-armed the United States into accepting his plan for dealing with Syria's chemical weapons. There are signs Putin is preparing to expand Russia's role in Iran and its nuclear program, which successive American administrations have failed to shut down.
India has launched a bold initiative to bolster its influence throughout Southeast and Central Asia. The Indian government is investing significant capital in Iran’s Chabahar free-trade zone and the surrounding infrastructure to secure its economic interests throughout the region, reduce Pakistan’s sphere of influence and compete with China. While this policy seems attractive in the short term, this course of action is fraught with unanticipated dangers. Investing in Chabahar not only allows Iran’s rogue regime to fill its coffers with the hard currency it needs to repress its people and facilitate terrorism, but may also harm India’s strategic relationship with one of its most important allies, the United States
Whatever happened to the war on terror? Unless you've been paying close attention, you could be forgiven for thinking that America's struggle against radical Islam is largely a thing of the past.
Barack Obama owes Vladimir Putin. Big time. That's the only conclusion one can draw from the president's nationally televised address on Syria on Tuesday evening. In it, Obama talked tough, highlighting the need to hold the Assad regime to account for its atrocities. But he also made clear that plans for U.S. military action have been deferred, perhaps even tabled, pending the results of Russia's plan to place Syria's chemical weapons under international control — a proposal that Damascus has hastily accepted.
As the White House considers taking military action against Syria for its use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians, the president has turned to Congress to authorize airstrikes. Lawmakers weighing their decision on the most consequential policy vote since the 2002 authorization for war in Iraq should encourage the President to also consider using an additional tool to force the Syrian regime to change course: stepping up economic warfare against Syrian banks and institutions that do business with them.
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.
In 2012, amid the ongoing ferment of the so-called “Arab Spring,” officials throughout the Israeli government were expressing deep concern about their country's strategic position, and the potential for conflict on a multitude of fronts. Today, by contrast, Israel's security establishment can best be described as cautiously optimistic about its geopolitical situation, and with good reason.
Last summer, when the so-called “Arab Spring” was in full bloom, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey was riding high.
In his quest for a pure autocracy, Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government have improved upon Joseph Stalin's epic achievements.
In the March 23, 1983, address that formally unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), President Ronald Reagan famously outlined a vision that challenged the “balance of terror” that governed relations between the U.S. and USSR. Reagan proposed an alternative to continuing to live with the imminent threat of thermonuclear war: the development and deployment of defensive capabilities able to eliminate nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
German chancellor Merkel has proclaimed that Europe needs to find “redemption” from its economic sins through austerity. In Greece another round of austerity measures could push the already fragile economy toward collapse and the public toward desperate alternatives.
Late last month, the State Department submitted its long-awaited report to Congress on Iran's activities in Latin America. That study, mandated as part of the Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act signed into law by President Obama last year, was designed to provide an in-depth look at Iran's growing operations south of the U.S. border and to present a strategy to confront its growing influence.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), which began operating in 2002, is charged with focusing on "the most serious crimes of concern to the international community," listed in particular as "the crime of genocide," "crimes against humanity," "war crimes," and "the crime of aggression."
What is Russia up to in the Western Hemisphere? That's a question increasingly on the minds of Latin America watchers, who have noticed signs that Moscow is again setting up shop south of the U.S. border.
The Snowden and Manning cases invert the principle laid down by the late James “Scotty” Reston of the New York Times, who noted that “the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.”
If you're reading the American press, you might think that the protests in Turkey have died down. Nothing could be further from the truth. Stranger still, if you are reading the Turkish press, you might conclude that you are in Egypt, because that seems to be the only topic of conversation.
Largely unnoticed among the acrimonious back-and-forth over Syria at the recent Group of Eight summit in Fermenagh, Ireland, the United States and Russia took a small but meaningful step forward in cyberspace. On the sidelines of the summit, the two nations signed a pact filled with “confidence-building measures” designed to prevent miscalculations and unwarranted escalations in the event of a cyberconflict.
June 30 marked the last day in office for Tara Sonenshine, the now-former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. Although Sonenshine tendered her resignation back in April, the Obama administration has yet to nominate her replacement. For months now, the public diplomacy community has dreaded the leadership crisis that this high-level vacancy will create for U.S. soft power efforts abroad.
Is Egypt on the cusp of counterrevolution? Over the weekend, Egyptians took to the streets en masse throughout the country to protest the decline and political disorder that have come to define the rule of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.
History, it is said, doesn't repeat itself, but occasionally it does rhyme. So it is with Western policy toward Iran, which is on the verge of returning to the costly rhythm of the past.
The Egyptian government is, quite literally, running out of gas.
So says the country's petroleum minister, who estimates that Egypt is on track to deplete key strategic energy reserves in the very near future. In a recent interview with Turkey's Anadolu News Agency, Petroleum Minister Sherif Haddara disclosed that the country's stocks of three strategic fuels -- diesel, butane and petrol --might run out by month's end, if not sooner, unless the government receives an infusion of cash from foreign donors.
The United States and Europe are failing to use a tool already in their possession that would deliver a knockout blow to Iran's nuclear program. It isn't a new piece of computer malware or a bomb. The group that would accomplish the mission isn't the Pentagon or the European Union—it's the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift.
Iranians closed the page on the tumultuous eight-year tenure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when they went to the polls on June 14 to pick a new president. In a national election marked by tremendous fervor and massive turnout (some 75 percent of Iran’s roughly 50 million eligible voters are estimated to have participated), the victor was Hasan Rowhani, a soft-spoken cleric widely billed as a “moderate” among Iran’s field of presidential contenders.
Media coverage of the June 7-8 "shirt sleeves" summit between President Obama and new Chinese president Xi Jinping in Rancho Mirage, California has largely focused on the two issues that dominated the official agenda. The first was China's extensive intellectual property theft and hacking activities in cyberspace. The second was the threat posed by the regime of reckless "young leader" Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
Chinese Senior Col. Zhou Bo made headlines at the annual Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, held from May 31 to June 2, when he announced that Chinese ships have been conducting reconnaissance operations in America’s Exclusive Economic Zone. It wasn’t exactly a surprise: Buried in its 2013 Report on Chinese Military Power was a statement by the Pentagon that Chinese ships had begun conducting “naval activities” around Guam and Hawaii. What may have been surprising though, was the response of Adm. Samuel Locklear, the head of U.S. Pacific Command: “They are [conducting exercises in our EEZ], and we encourage their ability to do that.” Why would the United States want the Chinese navy patrolling the waters off Hawaii?
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey's acknowledgment this week that Iran "is a threat to U.S. national security in many ways," and not just in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, is both welcome and timely.
In highlighting Iran's nuclear pursuit, U.S. policymakers and pundits have cast insufficient light on Tehran's other activities in the region and beyond that dog U.S. security interests and make its potential nuclear capacity so frightening.
Opponents of U.S. nuclear modernization are operating under a slew of false assumptions. That is the message of Major General Garrett Harencak, the top nuclear advisor to the U.S. Air Force's Chief of Staff, who spoke recently to a hundred top military and civilian experts at a seminar in Washington. And it is one that is worth heeding.
Last week, Argentine state prosecutor Alberto Nisman dropped a bombshell when he issued his long-awaited indictment in the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israel Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. The 502-page report pins the blame for the attack -- which killed 85 and wounded hundreds more in what experts call Latin America's 9/11 -- squarely on the Islamic Republic of Iran. In doing so, it provides a timely reminder that Iran's radical regime is active in the Western Hemisphere and that its presence here is far broader than is commonly understood.
ISTANBUL – By now, the media coverage of the upheaval in Turkey has been extensive, but certain points have been insufficiently emphasized.
I suspect that I’m like many of you. I want to believe Israeli-Palestinian peace is coming, that the two sides will soon agree to borders, Palestinian terrorists will stop launching rockets from Gaza, and ultra-right Israelis will abandon dreams of absorbing the West Bank into a “Greater Israel.”
Of all the variables that dictate the fate of nations, demography might just be the most decisive. The pace of populations—how they grow, change and decline—helps shape a country’s political outlook, its internal makeup, and its place in the world. It can also provide useful insights into a nation’s foreign policy priorities.
President Obama's counter-terrorism strategy, which he unveiled last week in a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, is less off-base than incomplete, reflecting his effort to limit the scope of the problem and the requirements of the response in ways that will prove inadequate to the challenge.
In January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a speech on U.S. East Asia policy at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Acheson spoke about the American "defensive perimeter" on the far Pacific Rim, from the Aleutians to the Philippines. Unfortunately, he left South Korea outside of his red line.
In his 2010 book, The Strong Horse, Lee Smith counseled that, in the Middle East, what matters in shaping the loyalty of the masses is which "strong horse" - whether a person or a country - can impose its will on others.
The title refers to the celebratory remark by Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse."
This week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Washington for a much publicized state visit. The Turkish leader won't simply be making a courtesy call, however. His U.S. mission is largely aimed at achieving one purpose: goading the Obama administration into taking greater action on Syria.
Ever since last month’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, speculation has abounded as to what led the perpetrators — suspected to be ethnic Chechens 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar — to carry out the most significant act of terrorism on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. By all accounts, both were largely homegrown radicals who received inspiration, and perhaps even dangerous instruction, from jihadist elements in the United States and abroad. The roots of the Tsarnaevs’ militancy can be traced back at least in part to Russia’s own troubled “war on terrorism” — a struggle that Moscow, more than two decades after the Soviet collapse, is in real danger of losing.
Israel's military strikes in Syria leave the interested observer with admiration over Jerusalem's steadfastness, disgust over Washington's continued dithering, and worry over the long-term global implications.
To be sure, Syria is both a humanitarian horror and a geopolitical mess and, at this point, no one's got a clean, easy, fool-proof way to stop the slaughter and ensure that, after Bashar al-Assad falls, the nation won't become an even more dangerous safe haven for anti-Western terrorists.
Although most observers tend to treat them as separate phenomena, there is an intimate connection between North Korea's recent nuclear and long-range missile tests and China's growing push to control the vast oil and gas resources in the South China Sea and the associated sea lanes through which trillions of dollars in commerce travel.
Amid all the media focus on China’s maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, the world nearly forgot that China still hosts the world’s largest outstanding land border dispute with the world’s largest democracy, India.
For better or worse, governments tend to be defined by their handling of foreign crises. Weather one well, and you project an image of strong, principled leadership, much like the way Margaret Thatcher's government managed its dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Dither or delay, and you telegraph an air of provocative weakness. (Think Jimmy Carter and Iran.)
President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, recently set a September date for bilateral discussions. The goal is to mend ties between the U.S. and Russia, badly frayed by the recent passage of tit–for–tat human rights sanctions, and attempt to put the administration's "reset" of relations with the Kremlin back on track. The White House has already suggested disarmament, Iran, North Korea and Syria as the main topics for the talks.
The civil war in Syria is over two years old with no end in sight. As matters stand, the future holds either continued bloody stalemate or a successor regime dominated by anti-Western radicals. The time has come to force a more favorable decision.
These days, American policy toward the Middle East tends to be dominated by two regional crises.
The first is the long-running showdown with Iran over its nuclear program. Despite mounting Western financial pressure, the Islamic republic shows no signs of changing course. To the contrary, Iran’s leaders have defiantly tightened their fiscal belts and redoubled their efforts to cross the nuclear Rubicon. Meanwhile, negotiations between Tehran and the West have concluded predictably, without any tangible progress on bringing the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions to heel.
The apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ends a five day reign of terror in the Boston area. Taking him alive allows authorities the opportunity to find answers to critical questions surrounding the deadly April 15 Boston marathon bombing. Most important of this is, why did Dzhokhar and his brother Tamarlan allegedly do it?
Western thinking about freedom and democracy is marked by a set of optimistic assertions, which include the following:
First, the global advance of freedom and democracy marches ever-onward. Second, economic and political freedoms in a particular nation walk hand in hand, each reinforcing the other. Third, the more a society (particularly its middle class) enjoys economic growth and the higher living standards that normally come with it, the more citizens will push for greater political freedom.
Secretary of State John Kerry made news recently by referring to the venue of the latest nuclear talks with Iran as the fictional country of "Kyrzakhstan." That off-the-cuff comment was a telling indicator of the general lack of concern for Central Asia that prevails in official Washington.