John Gershman is a Clinical Associate Professor of Public Service, Associate Director of NYU’s Global MPH Program, and Director of Undergraduate Programs at Wagner. Previously he was the Director of the Global Affairs Program at the International Relations Center and the Co-Director of Foreign Policy In Focus.
The fall of the Soviet Union handed the U.S. a unique opportunity, as the surviving superpower, to lead the world toward a period of greater cooperation and conflict resolution through the use of diplomacy, global organization, and international law. This great opportunity is being squandered, as the world becomes a more dangerous place.
As many members of Congress and President George W. Bush’s administration argue that it’s unacceptable to leave Iraq as a failed state, it becomes clearer every day that U.S. operations and policies are fueling violence and instability.
The Ukraine should seriously consider the option of working with all parties involved in its current crisis–including the European Union, Russia, and the United States–in taking possible steps toward its nonviolent dismemberment in a manner acceptable to its variegated population.
Except for the lack of congressional resistance, the situation in the Israeli-occupied territories mirrors that of apartheid South Africa. Palestinians are being forced, either by choice or fate, to agree to “acceptable” candidates for elections to offices that will have only as much power as the Israeli government, underwritten by the Bush administration, grants.
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 it has become a commonplace that religious extremism, particularly of the Muslim kind, lies at the heart of the problems that seemingly condemn the Muslim majority world to political and social backwardness, economic stagnation, and cultural oppressiveness.
Jubilant over President George W. Bush maintaining his position for another four years, neoconservatives who played a leading role in shaping the radical trajectory of U.S. foreign policy after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks appear increasingly divided on key issues and uncertain of their position in Bush’s second term.
The United States has long been the number one military, diplomatic, and economic backer of the world’s most repressive regimes in the world, a pattern that has only been strengthened under the Bush administration.
As evidenced by George Bush’s second inaugural speech, the administration seems not to have shifted either its thinking or how it expresses its policies.
Under President Clinton, it became U.S. policy to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system “as soon as technologically feasible.”
With the nomination of Karen Hughes as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, the United States has the potential to embark on a new and more effective phase in its communication with the international community, particularly with the Arab and Islamic world.
Nepal’s 14-year-old experiment in constitutional monarchy suffered a major assault on February 1, 2005 when King Gyanendra sacked the prime minister, formed a new cabinet composed largely of royalists, and established direct monarchical rule.
While the U.S., India, and Great Britain have sharply condemned the Feb. 1 coup by King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah of Nepal, the policies of those three governments vis-à-vis the ongoing civil war in the Himalayan nation must share considerable blame for the present crisis.
When newly appointed CIA Director Porter Goss recently warned that China??s modernization of its military posed a direct threat to the U.S., was it standard budget time scare tactics?
Largely unnoticed with the focus on the war and insurgency in Iraq, and overshadowed by an upsurge in violence in Saudi Arabia, terrorist violence is also on the increase in neighboring Kuwait.
While on one level appointing John Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is the contemporary equivalent of having King Herod as head of UNICEF, there is some comfort to be drawn from it. He will be singularly ineffective in winning friends and support for the White House’s policies.
The Iraq War launched by the Bush administration 24 months ago is draining lives–U.S., Iraqi, and others–and treasure that should be devoted to other human needs.
Ongoing scandals of prisoner abuse by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are fuelled by the Bush administration??s criticism of the Geneva Conventions.
John Paul’s vision of globalization sharply countered the pro-corporate triumphalism spread by “free trade” boosters.
In the past 17 months, President Bush has undertaken a concerted effort to wrap his foreign policy in the folds of freedom and democracy.
The royal takeover of February 1, 2005 goes against this vital interest of the country.