Future of Diplomacy Project

Ambassador Nicholas Burns shares his perspective and details implications on the recent Saudi Oil Attack and Israel's high-stakes elections.

The battle to replace ousted US national security adviser John Bolton has already begun, as three more aides at the National Security Council resigned their positions on Wednesday.

Recent Israeli strikes inside Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are a sudden escalation due to gains made by Iranian proxies, coupled with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign for re-election in September. And despite Hezbollah and Israel publicly acknowledging that they have no intention of a new war, fears have increased that tit for tats could spiral out of control.

After the G7 Summit, President Trump is now saying he would be open to a meeting with Iran if the circumstances were correct and they were "good players." He also claimed China wants a trade deal very badly and talks were "elevated" last night. Plus the president became salesman-in-chief when asked about next year's G7 summit - which he wants to host at his resort in Doral, Florida. NBC's Kelly O’Donnell, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, former Commerce Secretary and former U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke, and former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nick Burns join Andrea Mitchell to discuss.

The increasing number of political appointments at the United States Department of State is causing a “diplomatic disarmament” some former employees claim

Thirty years ago this week, on August 23, 1989, more than 2 million citizens of the Baltic republics of the U.S.S.R. engineered one of the most dramatic and successful mass protests in Soviet history.

President Trump has canceled a planned trip to Denmark because Danish leadership refused to discuss selling Greenland. In Denmark, Trump's decision was seen as "doubly offensive" considering he had reportedly pushed for a grand welcome from the longtime U.S. ally. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on Copenhagen's reaction and why climate change is putting Greenland in the spotlight.

Donald Trump’s preposterous fixation with buying Greenland, initially treated as a distraction by American media and a joke by the Danish government, became less amusing Tuesday night when the president declared that he would be canceling his planned diplomatic trip to Denmark in retaliation. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had told the White House, that Greenland, an autonomous territory in the Arctic, wasn’t Denmark’s to sell.

Dr. Robert Danin spoke with Laura Trevelyan on BBC World News America about developments in U.S. - Israeli relations on August 15, 2019.

The Aspen conversation wasn’t a call to arms against China, but rather a call to prudent national security policy.