Diplomacy and International Politics

What role does diplomacy play in the modern world order, and what are the characteristics of a good diplomat? Which countries are the great powers today, and which will lead in 2050? Does NATO have a role in helping manage the political, economic, and military challenges facing the United States? And why is morale reportedly at a low ebb in the State Department? In this episode, former ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, the Goodman Family professor of the practice of diplomacy and international relations at Harvard Kennedy School, answers these questions and more, based on his long career in government service.

Even if his administration ends on January 20, 2021 Donald Trump will have created a destructive legacy in foreign and domestic policy the depth of which is unrivalled in modern American history. In three short years, the president has done profound damage to the country’s international credibility and its capacity for moral suasion – key ingredients of the soft power that made it the anchor of liberal western world order of which it was the chief architect 70 years ago. The trauma of the Trump administration’s assault on postwar order will resonate beyond the (first) four years of any Democratic administration and will deepen dramatically, should he be re-elected in November.

Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship and the Future of Diplomacy Project, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook speaks to WDR 5 on micro-multilateralism and the impact of urban diplomacy global diplomacy, particularly on climate change.

For decades, the Munich Security Conference served as a powerful symbol of the strength of the Western alliance. The 2020 installment offered a testament to its accelerating decline.

Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook speaks to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung at the Munich Security Conference about the future of transatlantic relations and whether there needs to be a transatlantic security community.

NATO is neither “brain dead” nor in crisis.  Rather, the alliance is at a turning point much like others it has faced before in its seventy-year history.  Change is central to the story of how NATO has endured. 

Europe’s momentum in developing a clear-eyed approach toward China has stalled. In March 2019, the European Commission issued a white paper naming China a systemic rival and economic competitor. That publication marked a fundamental shift in how far European institutions were willing to go in raising the challenges China poses to Europe’s openness and prosperity.

Speech by French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, at the Harvard Kennedy School on January 28, 2020.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns speaks to CNN's Anderson Cooper about the possible surveillance of Ambassador Yovanovitch.

The digital revolution arrived late at the heart of ministries of foreign affairs across the Western world. Ministries latched on to social media around the time of Tahrir Square and Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution, beguiled by a vision of the technology engendering a networked evolution toward more liberal societies.