International Relations

20 Items

Donald Trump

AP/Evan Vucci

Analysis & Opinions - Institut Montaigne

The Fall of American Primacy? Interview with Stephen Walt

    Author:
  • Soli Özel
| June 12, 2019

To discuss the future of the world order, America's relations with Europe, the status of Russia, and a Realist's assessment of the China challenge, Soli Özel, Institut Montaigne's Visiting Fellow in international relations, met Professor Stephen Walt in March in his office at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

The Future of Politics Report

Credit Suisse Research Institute

Report Chapter

An Outlook on Global Politics 2018

| Jan. 23, 2018

Nicholas Burns, Professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former US Under Secretary of State, looks at what lies ahead for global politics as well as current geopolitical risks. “The world is experiencing the most profound leadership transition in a generation,” states Burns, who adds that 2018 promises to be a year of significant challenge to global stability and peace.  


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks while submitting his next year's budget bill in an open session of parliament in Tehran

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Who's Afraid of a Balance of Power?

| Dec. 08, 2017

"...[I]nstead of looking for ways to encourage splits and schisms among extremists, the United States often acts and speaks in ways that drive them closer together. To take an obvious example, although there may be some modest ideological common ground between Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and the Sadr movement in Iraq, each of these groups has its own interests and agendas, and their collaboration is best understood as a strategic alliance rather than as a cohesive or unified ideological front. Launching a full-court press against them — as Saudi Arabia and Israel would like us to do — will merely give all of our adversaries even more reason to help each other."

The Republican Palace in Baghdad, Iraq, 22 Feb. 2010. The palace served as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the Green Zone developed around it.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Don't Knock Offshore Balancing Until You've Tried It

| December 8, 2016

"Offshore balancing has not failed in the Middle East because it hasn't been U.S. strategy for almost a generation. The United States did act like an offshore balancer from 1945 to about 1990: It had vital interests in the region and wanted to prevent any state (including the Soviet Union) from controlling the Gulf. But it pursued this goal first by relying on Great Britain (until 1967) and then by turning to local allies like the shah of Iran. After the shah fell in 1979, the United States created the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) so it could affect the balance of power swiftly and directly and thus deter a possible Soviet foray into the Gulf. But it didn't park the RDF in the Gulf or elsewhere in the region; instead, it kept it offshore and over the horizon and didn't use it until Iraq seized Kuwait in August 1990."

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, taken Sept. 23, 2016, a destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defense main center after airstrikes in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

The Great Myth About U.S. Intervention in Syria

| October 24, 2016

"...[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."

News

Podcast: "Can the United States 'Manage' the Middle East? Should it Try?" with Stephen M. Walt

| May 5, 2015

An audio recording from Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

On April 29, 2015 at MEI, Prof. Stephen Walt assessed U.S. policy and interests in the Middle East, arguing that scaled back involvement might yield better results for the U.S. and the region.

Secretary of State John Kerry testifies about a congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the Islamic State, the violent jihadist group that has seized parts of Syria and Iraq, during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Commi

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

More Simplistic Nonsense from the United States Government

| December 10, 2014

"It is exasperating to listen to American officials pontificate about events in the Middle East and offer reasonable sounding proposals to resolve the area’s problems, when those same officials and the entire political power structure they represent refuse to acknowledge that they have played a major role in creating or expanding those problems. This is why it is astounding to watch the United States now lead the military assault against the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) by using the same techniques that contributed in a major way to the birth and growth of the militant Islamist ideology that forms the core of ISIS and its criminal deeds."

House Foreign Affairs Committee Holds Hearing Threat Of ISIS on December 2, 2014

Getty Images

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Obama's Dangerous Embrace of War

| November 29, 2014

"One of the surprising aspects of following U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from within the United States, as I have done for several months now on an extended visit, is the peculiar gap between ordinary citizens’ sentiments and the fact that the United States is actively militarily engaged in several countries in the region. This dangerous trend means that the American president — it does not matter which party he is from, because they both act similarly irresponsibly abroad — can continue to use the country’s enormous capabilities to wage war around the world at will."