Nuclear Issues

Stephen Walt writes that most people in the developed world are no less safe today than they were a year ago. What he fears is the steady erosion of existing institutions and norms inside the societies that are still relatively safe and fairly tranquil.

Dr. Ian Bremmer, expert in political risk and founder of the Eurasia Group, gave a seminar sponsored by the the Future of Diplomacy Project on Thursday, November 9 at the Harvard Kennedy School, titled “Managing Risk in an Unstable World."

"The Obama Administration is on the way to becoming the peacemaking presidency, after having been handed down two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and having been urged to start two others (Syria and Iran). The way the President handled these challenges should ease the way for Hillary Clinton in 2016, should she decide to run."

"...Obama did not back away from rhetorical expressions of transformational goals regarding such issues as climate change or nuclear weapons, in practice his pragmatism was reminiscent of more incremental presidential leaders like Dwight Eisenhower or George H. W. Bush."

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

"International history has witnessed trends toward and away from the amalgamation of disparate political units—in Europe and elsewhere...."

Observing the second anniversary of Al Qaeda's assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, administration spokesmen sought to highlight progress in the war on terrorism to support President Bush's claim that we're getting safer every day. But if one stands back and asks whether Americans are actually safer from terrorist attacks than we were 12 months ago, a serious answer requires a net assessment. Our safety is a function not only of what our government does, but also of changes in our adversaries' capabilities and motivation.

Conference Report on the challenges of preventive diplomacy and preventive defense in South Asia.

"The most important book by any ex-Clinton official."



-Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times (April 16, 1999)