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U.S. Must Rethink Egyptian Foreign Aid Strategy
Tweet Share on Facebook October 9, 2012 CommentLawrence J. Haas, former communications director for Vice President Al Gore, is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Sound the Trumpet: The United States and Human Rights Promotion (just out from Rowman & Littlefield).
As the world evolves, presenting new challenges to U.S. national security, the patterns of U.S. foreign aid should evolve with it.
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Mitt Romney's Third Attempt at a Foreign Policy Vision
Tweet Share on Facebook October 8, 2012 CommentHeather Hurlburt is the executive director of the National Security Network in Washington, D.C. Heather previously served in the Clinton administration as speechwriter to the president, and as speechwriter and policy planning staff for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher. Follow her on Twitter at @NatSecHeather.
It is a safe bet that Mitt Romney’s national security speech today will feature a deep bow in the direction of Gen. George C. Marshall. It is an equally safe bet that Romney’s latest effort to tack back to the middle will fail to recognize the nuanced blend of diplomacy and strength that Marshall’s life represents.
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The Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Coming Economic Storm
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2012 CommentAndrew S. Natsios is an executive professor at the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A and M University, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and the author of Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know. Natsios served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and as President George W. Bush's Special Envoy to Sudan.
Much of the news out of Egypt since the "Arab Spring" uprising has focused on the Muslim Brotherhood and its role in the collapse of the Mubarak government; and later its victory in the parliamentary elections in 2011 and slender win in the presidential election in 2012. That Egyptian narrative is gradually changing to one much more complicated and less visible focused on Egypt's economic crisis which will unfold slowly, but may then engulf the country like a title wave over the next few years. That title wave could drive Egypt to a much more violent second revolution.
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Romney Understands That a Strong Military Underpins a Strong Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook October 5, 2012 CommentMackenzie Eaglen is a Resident Fellow at the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Some of the first words and some of the last words to come up in this week's presidential debate were about military spending. President Barack Obama repeatedly hit Mitt Romney for supposedly wanting to spend $2 trillion in new defense dollars; money, he asserted, that the armed forces haven't asked for and Romney hasn't explained how he would spend.
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Mitt Romney's Foreign Policy Opportunity
Tweet Share on Facebook October 4, 2012 CommentRobert Nolan is an editor at the Foreign Policy Association and producer of the Great Decisions in Foreign Policy series on PBS. You can follow him on Twitter at @robert_nolan.
In a presidential race that's supposed to be all about the U.S. economy, foreign policy issues sure seem to be creeping into the campaign as of late, near daily. Worldwide anti-American protests, attacks on embassies across the Middle East and North Africa and the assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Libya make it hard for Americans—and campaign planners—to ignore global affairs, even in a moment of intense economic anxiety. Yesterday's news that the conflict in Syria has spilled over into Turkey, a strong U.S. ally and NATO member, will demand a response from both campaigns.
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The Iranian Regime Is In Trouble
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2012 CommentAlireza Nader, coauthor of Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry, is a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.
Today's protests in Tehran over the economic crisis spell serious trouble for the Islamic Republic. The devaluation of Iran's currency, the rial, by as much as 40 percent in the last few days has made it very difficult for the average Iranian to afford everyday food stuffs. It is no surprise that protests have broken out in Tehran's central bazaar and its surrounding streets. The bazaar is a critical pillar of support for the Iranian regime. The loss of confidence among Iran's merchant and business classes could shake the foundations of the Islamic Republic.
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Americans Shouldn't Die at Hands of Afghan Troops
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2012 CommentMichael P. Noonan is the Director of the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The problem of green on blue attacks in Afghanistan—attacks by Afghan security forces (green forces) on U.S. and allied troops (blue forces)—are reaching strategically epidemic proportions. Worse still, this "surge" of green on blue attacks is happening precisely when President Barack Obama's troop surge that sent 33,000 additional troops from 2009 until this past summer has ended. The frustration, justifiably, has reached a boiling point, particularly as this past week marked the 2,000th American death in Afghanistan. As Marine Corps General John Allen, the International Security Assistance Force Commander, told Lara Logan on 60 Minutes this past week:
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Mitt Romney and Barack Obama Can't Ignore Foreign Policy
Tweet Share on Facebook October 3, 2012 CommentRobert Zarate is policy director and Evan Moore is a policy analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative in Washington, D.C.
For months, the conventional wisdom has been that foreign policy won't matter in the 2012 election. On the right, many GOP strategists counseled that every moment Mitt Romney talked about foreign policy was a lost opportunity to discuss the economy, jobs, and other domestic concerns. On the left, President Barack Obama appeared to embrace the political pablum by saying, "It's time to do some nation-building right here at home," during the Democratic National Convention.
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Is Iran Attacking U.S. Banks?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 2, 2012 CommentRichard Harrison is research fellow and program officer at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.
Late last month, many Americans experienced difficulties accessing their digital bank accounts and the Web sites of their financial institutions. The culprit wasn't a simple computer glitch, but a series of coordinated cyberattacks aimed at the U.S. financial sector.
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The International Community Must Aid Libya
Tweet Share on Facebook October 2, 2012 CommentKarim Mezran is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Eric Knecht is a research fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center.
Over the past few weeks, a series of developments in Libya suggests that the country may be reaching a turning point in its protracted security crisis. Although various leaders have vehemently and repeatedly called for disbanding rebel militias for much of the last year, the Libyan people and its government have lately come together—and not without some unfortunate violence—to strip rogue militias of their legitimacy and jumpstart the building of a credible national army and police force. The process is far from completed, and the Libyan government is in dire need of assistance, but the latest developments offer some encouragement.
