Diplomacy and International Politics

The essence of global politics today, said career diplomat and Harvard professor Nicholas Burns in a speech at Bates College, is that no country can go it alone.

Issues like climate change, public health crises, the threat of chemical and nuclear weapons, and cyber attacks are transnational problems requiring transnational solutions. But while a global mindset is more necessary than ever, the United States’ highest leaders are drawing back from the world.

“We’re led by the first president since the 1920s who doesn’t believe that the United States has a fundamental responsibility to help the world be knit together, to be the first responders, to cope with the big problems and the small problems,” Burns said to a Bates audience on March 29.

For the first time during the Syrian civil war, the US has shot down a Syrian aircraft. In response, Russia has threatened to target any aircraft, including US aircraft, that fly west of the Euphrates River.

Nicholas Burns, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, joins MSNBC to discuss if President Trump’s strategy of governing by chaos can succeed on a world stage.

North Korea is warning of a pre-emptive strike after Sec. of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. could pursue military action over North Korea’s growing nuclear program.

An audio recording from Robert S. Ford, former US Ambassador to Syria (2011-2014) and Algeria (2006-2008). He is currently a resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. and teaches at Johns Hopkins University on Middle East politics.

On October 29, 2014 at MEI, Ambassador Ford reflected on his 4½ years working for the U.S. Mission in Iraq and 3 years working on Syria, in a talk moderated by Kennedy School professor and former State Department colleague Nicholas Burns.