Foreign Policy

The Obama administration is making some adjustments to its foreign policy approach, but not enough to deal with the challenges we face.

In the evolving determination of American interests, is Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi a repackaged pharaoh, or a miracle of God’s favor?

On April 2 at Providence’s “Islam, the Middle East, and Christian Engagement with the Middle East” event in Middleburg, Virginia, Chris Seiple spoke about how Americans and Christians could use soft power to engage with various communities.

Obama and Bush demonstrate the dangers of overly aggressive and overly passive foreign policies, but they share something in common: a deeply moral vision of America’s role in the world.

Can anyone imagine Truman or Eisenhower, Johnson or Reagan responding in a similar manner if Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev complimented them? Did they praise Moscow for blockading Berlin, for crushing Hungary, for snuffing out the Prague Spring, for smothering Poland, for being strong, for killing terrorists, for keeping restive peoples in line?

Despite a posture of inquiry, Jeffrey Goldberg’s journalistic empathy dissolves into rank advocacy: journalism as echo chamber. Here is what access to ultimate political power can breed: something that rings false from beginning to end, something much closer to propaganda than truth-seeking.

If America wants to constrain tyranny and prevent anarchy in ways that are both just and sustainable, it must resist the temptation of empire and embrace again a vision of international collaborative peacekeeping.

Terry Ascott’s solution for the Middle East tramples over one of the region’s most sacred cows: Redraw the map.

Ian Bremmer’s Superpower gives a good critique about America’s incoherent foreign policy and is a good introduction to different foreign policy choices.