Soft Power

In a recent Washington Post column Max Boot hoped America one day would have an “unapologetic atheist” president. After all,…

Dr. Hellyer is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the RH Centre for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in DC and Senior Associate Fellow in International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Helping nations in need often serves America’s most important interests while burnishing America’s highest ideals.

The downward trend in foreign aid spending by the US government is not a function of the American people losing interest in foreign aid. After all, it has never been popular. More likely, it’s a function of presidents no longer defending foreign aid, explaining it, or connecting it to the national interest.

Recent passage of the BUILD Act, which aims to “facilitate market-based private sector development and inclusive economic growth in less developed countries,” presents an ideal opportunity to discuss the thorny issue of foreign aid.

Before the World Cup even began, soccer had become political and Russia was at the center of it.

HBO’s The Final Year traverses the globe, from Africa to the Arctic, Havana to Hanoi, but it is in Syria where the cockfight personified by Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes climaxes. Indeed, President Obama claims that “on no other issue was there such a split” between them.

Russia, Syria, and Iran have successfully defied US interests in the Middle East. It will take significant and aggressive measures to separate these allies.

Among the cast of historic figures fighting communism in the Cold War, there were two, one at the Vatican and another at the White House, who uniquely stood out and stood together