Diplomacy and International Politics

Trump administration claims of progress in talks with the Taliban have sparked fears even among the president's allies that his impatience with the war in Afghanistan will lead him to withdraw troops too soon, leaving the country at risk of returning to the same volatile condition that prompted the invasion in the first place.

"...[B]y far the worst argument for intervening in Syria is the suggestion that greater U.S. involvement is necessary to preserve U.S. credibility, to maintain its reputation as a distinctly moral great power, or to preserve the respect of allies and adversaries alike. The historical record shows that not intervening in humanitarian tragedies has had little impact on America's standing in the past, and the same is true today."

"The unprecedented combination of political chaos, cross-cutting military confrontations, and strategic contradictions in northern Syria reached a record-setting point two days ago. That was when Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, and the Department of Defense (DoD) said, 'we call on all armed actors to stand down and take appropriate measures to deconflict and open channels of communication.'"

"The failed military coup in Turkey and the country’s many links with key regional actors in Syria, Russia, Iran, and NATO clarify how difficult it has become to achieve political solutions to individual conflicts, because local, national, regional, and global interests of any single party do not line up nicely in a coherent and clear balance sheet of desirables and undesirables..."

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

U.S. Special Operations forces working with a widening array of partners are slowly tightening their squeeze on Islamic State fighters in eastern Syria — moving toward an eventual assault on the jihadists’ self-declared capital of Raqqa.

"The difference between the sensible and superficial approaches to tackling the scourge of terrorism and other forms of violent extremism by groups such as “Islamic State” (ISIS) was as clear as possible last week, in two efforts by the US government and the United Nations secretary general, Ban-Ki moon. For all those puzzled people around the world who ask what we must do to defeat ISIS and others like it, I suggest taking half an hour to read and really ponder the proposals offered by the UN secretary-general..."

"The main problem is that foreign military actions tend to achieve exactly the opposite of the intended goals. Military assaults against terror groups, resistance movements, and just plain old civilian demonstrators or non-violent rebels — whether carried out by local governments or foreign powers, or both — tend to harden and expand the resolve of those who challenge the states in question..."

At the center of President Obama’s strategy for dealing with the Islamic State is an empty space. It’s supposed be filled by a “Sunni ground force,” but after more than a year of effort, it’s still not there. Unless this gap is filled, Obama’s plan won’t work.