Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs today announced the launch of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, an effort to help reinvigorate a continental bond that has anchored global order, provided peace and stability, and fueled economic expansion for seven decades.

The bipolar world that framed international relations for nearly half a century may have fallen alongside the Berlin Wall, but the aftermath was far from the “End of History” as Francis Fukuyama posited at the time. While the breakup of the Soviet Bloc and subsequent economic and political reforms significantly altered the geo-political landscape, many of the institutions created during the Cold War still persist today, none so obvious as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Next year will mark 70 years since the founding of NATO, and if the end of the Cold War marked a major shift in the organization’s mission, escalating tensions with Russia in recent years seem to be moving it back towards its initial purpose.

Facebook and others were designed to evade the long arm of the law. For years, Facebook actively eluded U.S. laws, including the 1996 Communications Decency Act and the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, neither of which anticipated the advent of social media. It has kept regulators at bay in part because of their lack of technical sophistication to understand its evolution into an algorithm-based, data-harvesting system.

Every day there’s a new headline on how digital networks are leaning into the domain of statecraft and global politics. When he was head of the CIA, Mike Pompeo said that Russia would be back to interfere in the 2018 US midterm elections. Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar use Facebook to direct genocide against the Rohingya. A Saudi billionaire buys a controlling interest in the digital interventionist collaborative, the Hacker Network, with intent unknown. In a single, global internet-minute, 900,000 people log in to Facebook; 4.1 million YouTube videos are watched; 452,000 tweets encircle the globe, and $751,522 is spent—all in just the span of 60 seconds. What hierarchically organized bureaucracy can keep up with all of that interconnectivity?

We are witnessing a break in the values that define the Western alliance. The past year was disorienting for Europeans. They were unable to assess how reliable statements made by the US administration were, for example its commitment to NATO.

As the clock ticks down to the United Kingdom’s Brexit, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook considers the EU’s future and the delicate balance of 21st-century statecraft, including EU-US relations as well as negotiation practice, international conflict mitigation and the impact of technology and communication on diplomatic and non-governmental actors. Hosted by the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth

US-Präsident Trumps Rede zur Lage der Nation sei "ausgrenzend, spaltend" gewesen, sagte die Politikwissenschaftlerin Cathryn Clüver im Dlf. Viele Richter und Kongressmitglieder blieben ihr fern. Überall "waren Seitenhiebe gegen große Teile Amerikas, zu spüren, zu sehen und zu fühlen".

Three questions for four participants of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum’s “Digital Diplomacy Project: Power, Innovation and Order in a Networked World,” which was held in Tallinn, Estonia, from November 5-7, 2017.

William Drozdiak, former Foreign Editor for the Washington Post, talks with Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project about Europe's current fissures and risks.

Robin Wright, columnist for The New Yorker, discusses global Jihadism and the Middle East at a Future of Diplomacy Project conversation, moderated by Faculty Director R. Nicholas Burns.