Middle East & North Africa

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.

President Donald Trump, convinced that he alone can break stalemates with adversarial counterparts on trade and security, will put his theory to the test in Argentina this week. Global markets and foreign capitals are eyeing him anxiously.

The outcry over arms sales, Khashoggi and Yemen is building – but will anyone at the summit in Argentina stand up to MBS? Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s scheduled appearance at the G20 summit next week in Buenos Aires presents world leaders with a moment of truth they would rather avoid.

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.

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Chair Nicholas Burns is joined by Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20), for a special edition podcast episode on President Trump's incoherent foreign policy.

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.

Fmr. Amb. Nicholas Burns joins Morning Joe to discuss the naming of John Bolton as the new national security adviser. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also joins the conversation.