Why Bush should go to the Olympics
Critics have deplored President Bush’s announcement over the weekend of his intent to attend the Beijing Olympics because of China’s poor human rights record and unfulfilled promises to the International Olympic Committee to liberalize before the Games. This is a wrong-headed view. The President should attend the opening ceremonies in August, and have a great time rooting for American athletes.
The Cold War and Chinese Foreign Policy
In October 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) replaced the Republic of China (ROC) after the Chinese Communists won a nationwide victory in the civil war and drove the Nationalist government to Taiwan. A Communist China, comprising a quarter of the world’s population, had inevitably extended the Cold War to East Asia. The PRC’s foreign policy during the Cold War went through several distinctive stages.
President Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy: Change We Can Believe In?
The election of America’s first African-American president would excite enormous expectation in Europe, and, at least temporarily, reverse much of the hostility to US foreign policy which has been generated over the last six or so years. But how much change should we expect from Obama’s foreign policy?
Is Iran Next? The Importance of Geopolitics
In many ways geopolitics is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be thought about; it’s the taken for granted arrangement of things that provides the context for policy making. Except that what it most obvious in how we understand the world isn’t necessarily the only way things can be understood. Given dominant geopolitical specifications in the White House then, what are the prospects for an attack on Iran?
A Sorry State of Affairs
Last year, the U.S. House International Relations Committee voted to approve a resolution describing Turkey’s mass killing of Armenians as a genocide. The move sparked a furor from people concerned that pressuring Turkey was politically unwise, raising the question of whether or not it makes sense for national governments to be in the business of pressuring other countries to acknowledge human rights abuses.
Bolivia’s New International Stage
The December 2005 election of Evo Morales as the president of Bolivia captivated international attention. Not surprisingly, it was greeted (by supporters and critics alike) as part of the region-wide shift to the left. Morales has worked to realign Bolivia away from its earlier Washington orbit and closer to anti-American bona fides like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. But he’s playing a dangerous game.
U.S. Policy Toward Latin America: Is Mild the New Bold?
In May 2008, U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama released a set of prescriptions for U.S. policy toward Latin America. Senator Obama has no Latin America-related experience, and so we would not expect either profundity or much challenge to the status quo. However, his proposals sparked a debate that sums up the depths to which the U.S.-Latin American relationship under the Bush Administration has fallen.
French Foreign Policy under Sarkozy
The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has certainly brought a change in the style of French foreign policy, but has it altered the substance? The answer, I will argue, is a qualified yes, not least because it is characteristic of the new French president to blend style and substance until the two become indistinguishable.
What to do about Russia? The German view
The European states and the United States are increasingly having to consider what policy they should adopt towards Russia. Aggression abroad, suppression of freedom at home, intimidation of all opposition, murder, corruption and anti-Semitism have given rise to increasing alarm. Germany is struggling to reconcile the political, military and economic issues raised by its powerful neighbour to the east.
The Civilian Surge: Liberal Foreign Policy, Intervention and the Internet
British foreign policy under the stewardship of David Miliband has maintained its universalist outlook but shifted its agenda from a distinctly top-down approach to a grassroots drive for what Miliband has called a ‘Civilian Surge’. This subtle shift is in part brought about by Miliband’s progressive liberal ideology but also by his interest in and support for new technology. But for all his enthusiastic rhetoric, is Miliband’s drive for a bottom-up approach to foreign policy the right one?
