United States Archive

On March 30, President Barack Obama hosted the fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit, where global leaders convene in an effort to secure nuclear materials and prevent nuclear terrorism. Along with Obama’s vision articulated in a 2009 speech in Prague of a world without nuclear weapons, the summits provide an important marker for assessing Obama’s record on reducing the security risks posed by nuclear weapons and material. The following articles are free to nonsubscribers until April 14. A Mixed Record on Nonproliferation Why Obama’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Commitments Fell ShortIt appears that with the exception of the Iran nuclear deal, President […]

During his recent visit to Buenos Aires, President Barack Obama enthusiastically embraced Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, who took office last December promising to overhaul the country’s economy, politics and foreign policy, including its endemic anti-Americanism. Obama appeared eager to endorse Macri’s new approach, and while thousands protested the visit, Obama made a statement that expressed surprisingly lofty ambitions for the new administration in Buenos Aires. “Argentina,” Obama declared, “is re-assuming its traditional leadership role in the region and around the world.” The notion of Argentina becoming a regional leader will strike some as awkward. Latin Americans frequently decry what […]

When it comes to foreign policy and the U.S. presidential campaign, everything seems to have turned upside down this year. Neoconservative, Republican hawks, from Max Boot to Bill Kristol, are apoplectic over the rise of Donald Trump, particularly his lack of ardor for military intervention, his supposed opposition to the Iraq War, and his calls for the U.S to pull back from its global security responsibilities. Some, like Boot, have gone so far as to say they won’t vote for the GOP frontrunner, while others have suggested that Trump’s focus on burden-sharing and having U.S. allies take on more global […]

This week, President Barack Obama and 50 world leaders will convene for the fourth and final time to discuss how to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. This last gathering of the biannual Nuclear Security Summits comes at a particularly poignant moment, given what we know now about the Brussels terrorists’ interest in targeting nuclear facilities. For better or worse, the summits represent a more ad hoc approach to securing nuclear materials in particular, and advancing global cooperation on transnational threats in general. Since 2010, the Obama administration has organized four summits on nuclear security. Driven […]

With yet another European city touched by the scourge of jihadi terrorism, the focus of the U.S. presidential campaign quickly turned to the best way to protect America from the same threat. Not surprisingly, the responses of the Democratic and Republican frontrunners could not be more different. Hillary Clinton warned that “terrorists seek to undermine the democratic values that are the foundation of our alliance and our way of life.” She sounded resolute in arguing that “they will never succeed.” The response of Donald Trump, on the other hand, suggests that the terrorists already have. Calling the Brussels attack “just […]

Barack Obama took office in 2009 to great expectations, both at home and worldwide. His background and worldview, as expressed in his books, speeches and campaign rhetoric, seemed well-suited to the task of repairing America’s deeply damaged image in the aftermath of the Iraq War and the global financial crisis. With the country’s unipolar moment clearly waning, America would need to exercise a different kind of leadership, using its power in humbler and more consensual ways. Obama seemed like the right person for the job. Some pundits suggested he even had the potential to be a transformational president in terms […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, South Africa’s rapprochement with Nigeria and U.S.-Cuba ties. For the Report, Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute joins us to talk about China’s ongoing military reforms. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: Punitive Saudi Moves in Lebanon Isolate Sunnis, Benefiting Hezbollah Middle East’s Sectarian Tensions Play Out in Sudan-Iran Relations Limited Détente: The Challenges to Repairing South Africa-Nigeria Ties Down Havana Way: The Promise of Obama’s Cuba Visit PLA Military Reforms: Defense Power With Chinese Characteristics […]

President Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba on March 21-22 marks a pivotal moment in the unfolding process of normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations. In the 15 months since Obama and Raul Castro declared the end of the cold war in the Caribbean on Dec. 17, 2014, there has been just enough progress to justify the historic presidential visit. But much remains to be done. By underscoring the commitment of both presidents to prioritize better relations in the time they have left in office, the trip should energize their government bureaucracies to accelerate the pace of change. After a slow start—it took six […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin dropped a bombshell this week, announcing that he was pulling his military forces out of Syria less than six months after his equally surprising decision to send them there in the first place. While it remains to be seen whether Putin will carry through on his promise, security experts are busily scrambling to figure out his motives. Did he attain what he intended, or is he simply washing his hands of a lost cause? There is agreement, though, on one thing: Putin’s move caught Washington by surprise and at least seemed to once again keep him […]

For as long as Barack Obama has been president, his Republican critics have regularly accused him of being some sort of political radical. After reading the mammoth foreign policy profile of Obama by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, I’m prepared to admit they are correct. Obama is a foreign policy radical, just not just for the reasons they think. What is perhaps most striking about Goldberg’s article and the interviews with Obama included in it is how distinctly Obama stands outside the foreign policy mainstream, and how willing he is to question the most prized of foreign policy sacred cows. […]

The American foreign policy community is abuzz over the remarkable essay by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on President Barack Obama’s legacy. The article provides ample evidence that Obama is a fine conceptual thinker with great insight into the evolution of international politics away from America’s “unipolar moment.” His successors may try to reverse or slow down the trends Obama identifies, but in the long run, they will find themselves following his path. As the remaining months of his presidency reach the single digits, Obama has offered us the first draft of his foreign policy legacy. In a wonderfully rich article […]

In last week’s column, I discussed two of the four enduring challenges that American strategists face: unrealistic expectations and a ponderous system for strategy formulation. This week’s column will take a look at the other two: the American public’s deep belief in “silver bullets,” and impatience. The American public’s trust in the idea of “silver bullets,” or the existence of a single solution to a complex problem, reflects the ingrained optimism of the American national culture. As children Americans are told that they “can be anything they want” if they try hard enough. While this kind of optimism is demonstrably […]

North Korea’s recent provocations—a nuclear test in January and a missile test, under the guise of a peaceful satellite launch, a month later—have pressed the United States, along with its key regional allies, South Korea and Japan, into recalibrating Washington’s failed policy of so-called strategic patience with Pyongyang. Concerns about North Korea’s aggressive behavior coupled with ineffective responses thus far have prompted Washington, Seoul and Tokyo to stress that there can be no more maintenance of the status-quo when it comes to deterrence. In addition to seeking new and more-robust sanctions at the United Nations Security Council, one of the […]

Seven years ago, as he prepared to take office, Barack Obama made it clear that when it came to the issue of torture, his inclination was “to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Obama clearly believed that torture had taken place under the Bush administration; he declared unequivocally in January 2009 that “waterboarding is torture.” But Obama decided that opening up questions about the practices the Bush administration had authorized could do more harm than good, and would be a distraction from his larger political agenda. To a large degree, he was right. It’s highly unlikely that prosecuting Bush […]

Over the past year, the Obama administration has rapidly repaired diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba. Last month, in the latest of many agreements, Washington and Havana signed a deal restoring commercial flights between the two countries for the first time in more than 50 years, just as the White House approved construction of the first U.S. factory in Cuba since the 1960 embargo. The outreach is an attempt, according to President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, to ensure that the U.S.-Cuba rapprochement is nearly irreversible by the time Obama leaves office. To further cement ties, Obama […]

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles for lethal purposes has generated passionate debates about how this not-so-new technology has changed the rules of war, creating a demand for new global norms. On the domestic front, drone technology raises difficult public policy issues related to commerce, ethics, air safety and good government. The Obama administration’s recent decision to release its policy guidance for drone use will help temper public misgivings, but the debate will continue. Last week, the Obama administration indicated that it will release the policy guidance used by U.S. national security agencies for use of unmanned aerial vehicles in […]

America’s role in the global security system, first forged in World War II and solidified during the Cold War, is changing. After decades in which the United States was relied upon to manage regional security, other nations are now concluding that they can get by without deferring to Washington. At the same time, America’s adversaries, whether Russia and China or nonstate enemies like al-Qaida and the self-declared Islamic State, have found ways to avoid American strengths and capitalize on American weaknesses. Internally, Americans are less willing to defend far away places at the expense of domestic needs. They increasingly ask […]