Middle East & North Africa

45 Items

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Victoria Sarno Jordan

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Defender of World Order or Trump Mouthpiece? Pompeo Is Tested by North Korea, Iran and U.S. Allies

| Feb. 24, 2019

In the eyes of Mike Pompeo, the day was shaping up to be one of his most commanding displays of diplomacy since becoming secretary of state. Months of planning had finally yielded a meeting among reluctant European officials, Arab leaders and the Israeli prime minister to strategize over confronting Iran.

Great Decisions Cover

Foreign Policy Association

Journal Article - Foreign Policy Association

The State of the State Department and American Diplomacy

| Jan. 03, 2019

During the Trump administration, the usual ways of conducting diplomacy have been upended. Many positions in the State Department have never been filled, and meetings with foreign leaders such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have been undertaken with little advance planning. What effect are these changes having now, and how will they affect ongoing relationships between the United States and its allies and adversaries?

Anti-Trump protest in London in summer 2018

Loco Steve/ Flickr

Analysis & Opinions

Donald Trump

| Dec. 11, 2018

Some Presidents have plans to change the world. They execute their strategies step by step and are judged by how far they get. Donald Trump came to the presidency by surprise and has attended to its responsibilities erratically. And yet, just as he rewrote the rules of politics in 2016 and remade the presidency in 2017, Trump left his mark on the planet this year.

President George H.W. Bush

Associated Press

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Once Upon a Time, U.S. Foreign Policy Worked

| Dec. 02, 2018

George H.W. Bush's administration was evidence of what the establishment was capable of. I worked on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during the last two years of the late President George H.W. Bush’s administration. It was my first job in government and an extraordinary period in world history. As I came on board at Foggy Bottom, Bush had just facilitated Germany’s unification. The international coalition that he’d mobilized was in the process of evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. In a few months’ time, Bush would help manage the peaceful unraveling of the Soviet Union and the launch of historic peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors via the Madrid process.

Panel discussion at Halifax International Security Forum 2018

Halifax International Security Forum

Analysis & Opinions

Future Tense - Our World in Ten

| Nov. 19, 2018

This year’s Halifax International Security Forum paid respect to the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, but in its final plenary session, Future Tense: Our World in Ten, the attention shifted to the future. How will the issues discussed throughout this year’s Forum play out over the next decade? Will democratic states be able to defend their values and institutions from growing threats like great power politics and cyber-warfare? This diverse set of panelists spoke confidently and optimistically about the resilience of democracies to withstand this challenge.

Nicholas Burns speaks at Bates College on March 29

Theophil Syslo/Bates College

News - Bates College

Former NATO Ambassador: Global Leadership is More Important Than Ever

| Mar. 30, 2018

The essence of global politics today, said career diplomat and Harvard professor Nicholas Burns in a speech at Bates College, is that no country can go it alone.

Issues like climate change, public health crises, the threat of chemical and nuclear weapons, and cyber attacks are transnational problems requiring transnational solutions. But while a global mindset is more necessary than ever, the United States’ highest leaders are drawing back from the world.

“We’re led by the first president since the 1920s who doesn’t believe that the United States has a fundamental responsibility to help the world be knit together, to be the first responders, to cope with the big problems and the small problems,” Burns said to a Bates audience on March 29.