Diplomacy and International Politics

During the Trump administration, the usual ways of conducting diplomacy have been upended. Many positions in the State Department have never been filled, and meetings with foreign leaders such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have been undertaken with little advance planning. What effect are these changes having now, and how will they affect ongoing relationships between the United States and its allies and adversaries?

In this book review, Nicholas Burns writes that “Gorbachev: His Life and Times” by William Taubman is "a fascinating, perceptive, and compelling account of the life of a brilliant, driven, but flawed leader who remains to this day, in the Amherst College professor’s eyes, a 'tragic hero.'" 

The fall of Aleppo is a human catastrophe. It’s also a demonstration of the perils of choosing the middle course in a military conflict. Sometimes it’s possible to talk and fight at the same time. But in Syria, the U.S. decision to pursue a dual-track, halfway approach made the mayhem worse.

American Secretaries of State Project honoree Henry A. Kissinger looks back on George C. Marshall's groundbreaking 1947 Harvard Commencement speech and its enduring importance for American foreign policy.