Diplomacy and International Politics

A long-awaited US probe on Russian election meddling has divided Washington but on one point virtually all US policymakers are clear -- there will be no reconciliation with Moscow.

As Europeans observe how the divisions of American domestic politics translate themselves into foreign policy, they see two very different realities.

This battle between past and future is the hidden drama within the gargantuan $750 billion fiscal 2020 defense budget proposal. Nearly everyone favors high-tech weapons to combat great-power adversaries in the new millennium, in principle. But meanwhile, the military-industrial-congressional complex, as John McCain termed it, keeps pumping vast sums to sustain legacy weapons systems.

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Chair Nicholas Burns is joined by Congressman Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), representative of the fourth congressional district of Massachusetts, for a conversation about convincing American voters that foreign policy matters. 

The State Department broke its silence on Thursday, holding its first public press briefing of 2019. The number of briefings at the agency have plummeted since the Trump administration came into office, plunging from what was a near-daily occurrence in past administrations to a sporadically scheduled event that regular watchers say offers a truncated and less substantive version of past practice.

Normal hard bargaining would transform the wall into some kind of physical barrier to be erected in key places; a compromise on money and other border security measures; and a reopened government. But these are not normal times. The wall is becoming a proxy for who’s right and wrong, who’s tougher, who will back down.

In his latest article for Metro U.N., Karl Kaiser, Senior Associate with the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, shares his view on the impact of increased migration and refugee movements on Europe.