Diplomacy and International Politics

In his September 5, 2018 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Value of the NATO Alliance to the United States.

New sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council on September 11 in response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test are “not significant enough,” according to R. Nicholas Burns, an Atlantic Council board member who served as undersecretary of state for political affairs in the George W. Bush administration.

Sanctions must be part of a “patient long-term strategy” that includes deterrence, working closely with allies, and negotiations, said Burns, laying out the United States’ options for dealing with the North Korean crisis.  

On June 28, Nicholas Burns testified before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in European elections. He called President Trump's response to Russia's cyber attacks on the U.S. democratic system both "dismaying and objectionable." He says it's the "president's duty to be skeptical of Russia and that his refusal to take action is "a dereliction of his basic duty to defend the country."

It was just one year ago that then-President Obama, seeking a modus vivendi with Tehran, said that America’s Gulf allies need to “share the Middle East” with the Iranians. That view of the Middle East was decisively repudiated this week, with Trump clearly aligning the United States with the majority of the Sunni Arab world, and Israel, against Iran.

On the eve of the Warsaw NATO Summit, Professor Burns and his Co-Chair of a recent Atlantic Council report on NATO, General Jim Jones, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They described the current situation in Europe—including Putin's widespread aggression, a weakening European Union, the tsunami of instability from the Middle East and uncertain western leadership—as the greatest threat to peace since the end of the Cold War. 



They advocated strong measures in response including the permanent stationing of NATO forces in Poland, the Baltic States, the Black Sea and the Arctic.  We also advocated that the U.S. and EU maintain sanctions on Russia for its illegal division of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

"As 2015 comes to a close, the annual numbers of migrants smuggled to Greece and Italy and asylum claims lodged in Germany have passed a million, as well as the number of additional displacements produced this year by the conflict in Syria. Moreover, Europe’s Mediterranean shore has now the unchallenged title of the world’s most lethal border. Not only this. The migrant crisis is also putting to the test some of Europe’s most fundamental values, from the freedom of circulation within its territories, to international protection beyond..."

Dr. Derek Reveron, professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Navy War College, testified before the Armed Services Committee on October 21, 2015.

Testimony of Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns
Goodman Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations
Harvard Kennedy School
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC
July 14, 2015