Diplomacy and International Politics

With little public fanfare, U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s new center for combating electronic attacks against the United States, has launched operations to deter and disrupt Russians who have been interfering with the U.S. political system.

Will protests at home hurt French President Macron's efforts to be seen as a leader of the West? Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns digs in.

For a decade now the Halifax International Security Forum has been a place to discuss the major external threats facing Western democracies and how to counter them.  One of the main themes coming out of this year's gathering of military, political and academic leaders is the biggest threat to democracy is coming from within.

"In the democratic world, many of our strongest and largest democracies are in some type of crisis," says former U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns, who now teaches at the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Nicholas Burns, the former US Ambassador to NATO, says President Trump is in denial and he is not protecting Americans from the vast Russian conspiracy to undermine Americans elections and democracy.

Nicholas Burns talks with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell about claims by a Russian oligarch jailed by President Putin that Putin is paranoid and the future of Russia's leader. 

Nicholas Burns talks to CNN's New Day about Trump's undisclosed second meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G-20 meeting. "You have to show Putin where he can't go. And President Trump has not done that."

Ambassador Burns says it was "unwise" for Trump to question Russian meddling during a joint news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda in Poland on Thursday. Burns states that in doing so, Trump was "out of step with his own political party" and failed to defend the United States.

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."

Former US Ambassador to NATO and Bush administration State Department official Nicholas Burns accused President Donald Trump of a "dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country" for his apparent disinterest in Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election.