Diplomacy and International Politics

"The power shortage is a symptom of the inability or refusal of key actors to govern the territory."

Former State Department Undersecretary Nicholas Burns on the potential impact of President Trump's immigration ban.

Farah Pandith argues that Donald Trump's anti-Muslim statements have costly consequences that will erode US credibility abroad.

"The unprecedented combination of political chaos, cross-cutting military confrontations, and strategic contradictions in northern Syria reached a record-setting point two days ago. That was when Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, and the Department of Defense (DoD) said, 'we call on all armed actors to stand down and take appropriate measures to deconflict and open channels of communication.'"

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

Senior Fellow of the Future of Diplomacy Project, David Ignatius examines the Navy’s energy diet that began seven years ago with an edict from newly appointed Secretary Ray Mabus, who issued five goals for radically changing how the Navy bought and consumed fuel.

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

Trump's polarizing rhetoric on this issue may be the best thing the Islamic State has going for it, according to some leading U.S. and foreign counterterrorism experts. The group's self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq is imploding. Its Syrian capital of Raqqah is surrounded and besieged; the gap in the Turkish-Syrian border that allowed the free flow of foreign fighters is finally being closed; Sunni tribal sheikhs who until recently had cooperated with the Islamic State are switching sides. The group's narrative is collapsing -- with one exception. David Ignatius, Senior Fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project examines how the Presidential candidate is already effecting US foreign policy.

The Orlando massacre is a hideous reminder to Americans that homophobia is an integral part of Islamic extremism. It is important to establish why a man like Omar Mateen could be motivated to murder 49 people in a gay nightclub while he proclaimed his support for Islamic State and then pray to Allah. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Fellow of the Future of Diplomacy Project examines the connection between homophobia and the Islamic religion.

"The challenge of identifying and containing IS members in Europe or elsewhere who may be planning terror attacks is much more difficult today than was the (ongoing) counter-terrorism fight against Al-Qaeda during the past quarter century, for two main reasons. Deteriorating economic and political conditions in dozens of countries expands the pool of recruits, and, thousands of European recruits who have been thoroughly trained, indoctrinated, and given battlefield experience in the “Islamic State” return home with greater capabilities than earlier waves of terrorists..."