...ssed curiosity and excitement about Obama’s election, the hemisphere seemed primed to embrace change. But now, over halfway through Obama’s term, little progress has been made. To date, this administration has failed to renew diplomacy in the Americas because of its lack of sustained attention and its utter incoherence. The bulk of Obama’s references to Latin America have been generalities. His National Security Strategy, published in May 2010, m...
Illustration by Kaela Chambers Antarctica is home to more than emperor penguins and a few dozen humans with science citizenship barricaded in small hermetic bases. It is also host to an estimated 200 billion barrels of hydrocarbons, alongside large quantities of gold, silver, uranium, and many other rare metals underneath a pristine ice cap still virgin of commercial exploitation. Securing a territory with such a rich underground, in whole or i...
...populations for reconciliation, Armenian President Serzh Sargsian and Turkish Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan sought to normalize relations as a quick-fix to other pressing domestic political and economic concerns. Little public diplomacy was conducted in either Turkey or Armenia to eliminate the long-standing prejudices each population had about its neighbor. This enmity made it impossible for the leaders to simply establish ties first and settle c...
...st-independence narrative has taught observers anything, it is that the holier-than-thou approach of non-alignment is doomed to fail because it is a policy at loggerheads with geopolitical realities. The very nature of global diplomacy calls for negotiating deals and alliances of convenience to achieve external objectives and guarantee territorial security. A vague fear of cozying up to larger foreign powers has always made India’s foreign policy...
...er recovered their pre-2001 levels as, although invasive practices have abated, people still fear scrutiny. All this suggests that the U.S. must be prepared to engage with Islam to engage with Somalia, but must recognize that diplomacy with Islam cannot be treated as diplomacy with a monolithic entity, nor can it always be addressed in the same way as political diplomacy. Perhaps it is time that the U.S. consider training religion attachés in emb...
...lity and violence in Libya has dampened Turkey’s spirit. Instead its recent courage in picking up the weakening reins of Western efforts in the Middle East has ultimately strengthened Turkey’s political clout in international diplomacy—especially as it flexes new muscles in politically unstable Libya. The North African state is caught in an ongoing, violent civil war between rebels—the Transitional National Council based in Benghazi—seeking to ov...
...estions ultimately unanswered, further highlighting the irresolvable of this issue. On the sunny side, in this panel, as in endless public statements from governments on all sides of the conflict, all parties agreed that only diplomacy and international agreements could resolve the conflict over the South China Sea. Although it may take decades (or even centuries) to untangle the interwoven claims and settle old disputes, the commitment to diplom...
...tacle to peace, or fruitfully include it into the very peace process itself.The Palestinian public must be made to believe that violence from these fringe groups is not the way forward. They must be able to see action through diplomacy. This strategy wouldn’t be easy or popular, but it could potentially fundamentally reshape the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and open up new avenues for peace. Furthermore, regional figures like Mohamm...
...enormous mark on the region; the need for Americans to learn Arabic is undeniable. The question, then, is not whether American students should take Arabic, but rather how to approach the language. Defense of the country, the diplomacy of the country, the intelligence to defense our country, and the education of our people. Around the same time that Laura Weinberg reported her story, President Bush received a pamphlet from the Iraq Study Group th...
...s named the U.N.’s special envoy for North Africa’s Sahel. The rationale behind the move was to get a relatively high profile politician to raise awareness. (Never mind that Prodi is an economist by training and has almost no diplomacy experience.) What’s more, France this week announced an ultimatum of sorts – a plan for military intervention must be drafted in the next month. Pretty unimpressive, but at least steps are being taken, right? Wrong...
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