U.S. Foreign Policy Archive

U.S. officials established several key objectives for Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ week-long visit to East Asia earlier this month. It now appears that, at least with respect to China, the trip failed to achieve its key goals. During his Nov. 4-6 stay in Beijing, Gates held a 90-minute conference with Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan, a shorter meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, and additional sessions with other Chinese officials and journalists. Although Gates had visited China before, this was his first official trip since becoming Secretary of Defense last November. One of Gates’ major objectives was to induce the […]

WASHINGTON — Some 40 foreign ministers and other senior officials are being bussed to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Tuesday for a day’s discussion on the conflict that has dominated events in the Middle East since 1948. Each speaker will initially have five minutes (President Bush will have a few more) to spell out his or her proposals for establishing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Rome isn’t the only place that wasn’t built in a day. Neither will a peaceful Middle East, with Israel and Palestine existing side by side. But the United States, organizer of […]

At long last the invitations have gone out. The Annapolis meeting will take place after all, and it will happen this Tuesday. I suspect Miss Manners might have objected to sending invitations just a few days before the event, especially considering most of the guests will have to travel many thousands of miles to get to the bash. But then, Miss Manners never had to set the table for a gathering of Arab and Israeli adversaries. Of all the questions surrounding this much-maligned non-conference, the most critical is: Will it disappoint? Will it disappoint Palestinians so much that they turn […]

Trying to understand Russia through the prism of the British and American news media these days can be a real headache. On one hand, if you read the business pages of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times lately, you will learn that Russia is now one of the world’s leading emerging markets, and the Russian economy has grown at an average annual rate of 7 percent since 2000. On the other hand, if you turn to the international headlines or the editorial pages, you will read that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been busy crushing democracy and […]

A significant anniversary passed on Oct. 31 that received little attention — the passage of the National Security Act of 1947. Sixty years ago last month, in the aftermath of a catastrophic global war, the United States reorganized its instruments of statecraft for the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union — a war that the newly created instruments eventually helped in winning. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency. At a time of profound change in the international system, President Truman and his advisors recognized that […]

WASHINGTON — Across the world, “America may be less well regarded today than at any time in its history,” according to a report issued last week by a bipartisan group of politicians and foreign policy experts. But “it is not too late to reverse these trends, even in the Arab and Muslim World,” the report found. The “Commission on Smart Power” that penned the report was convened by the Center for Strategic International Studies, a non-partisan think tank. Titled “A Smarter, More Secure America,” the report calls on the next U.S. President to embrace three foreign policy themes to guide […]