Publications

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.