Europe

Why the U.S. Should Not Arm Ukraine Right Now March 6, 2015 Today, members of Congress and outside voices are continuing the push to send lethal aid to Kiev. These calls are ill-timed, especially while a tenuous ceasefire seems to have taken hold pursuant to the Minsk II agreement reached last month between European powers, Ukraine, and Russia. While the future of the ceasefire remains very much in doubt, a decision to send arms to Kiev now would carry more cost than benefits, undermining rather than protecting U.S. and European interests. Top costs include inducing Russian escalation, giving Putin political cover to violate the ceasefire, and undermining transatlantic unity in confronting Moscow’s aggression. Despite these costs, American arms will not empower Kiev to successfully resist… Read More ›

Jeb Bush Lays out Limited Foreign Policy Vision February 20, 2015 On Wednesday, Jeb Bush laid out the foreign policy framework for his anticipated presidential campaign in a speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Bush’s remarks covered a broad range of subjects, and while he identified many of the pressing international challenges facing the United States, his remarks lacked clarity or solutions. As the presidential race moves forward, the national security debate will require more depth of understanding on issues including resolving Iran’s nuclear program, addressing the threat from the Islamic State, the fighting in Ukraine, normalizing relations with Cuba, and ongoing Pentagon spending debates, and we will look for candidates that back up emerging positions with effective policies. Bush doesn’t seem to… Read More ›

Lethal Aid for Ukraine: Assessing Costs and Benefits As Russia’s support for separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine and direct involvement in the conflict there continues to escalate, French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are in Moscow in an effort to negotiate a ceasefire and diplomatic solution with their Russian counterparts. Meanwhile, with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry in Europe, there are reports that the United States is considering the provision of defensive arms to Ukraine should diplomacy not be immediately successful. Taking the step of providing arms to Ukraine has garnered increasing support from members of Congress and outside experts. While it is clear that the United States and Europe need to reinforce their response to Russia,… Read More ›

Brian Katulis, NSN Board Chairman January 15, 2015 | MSNBC For the original clip, click here Read More ›

What We Know – and What We Don’t – About the Paris Attacks As the world gathers to demonstrate its resilience in the face of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris and its commitment to the freedom of expression, European and U.S. policymakers are beginning to respond. Foreign leaders from around the world gathered in Paris for a symbolic march, and U.S. policymakers are pressing forward with practical counterterrorism efforts, including a summit next month to address the threat of terrorism and radicalization. Reports are beginning to illuminate who the terrorists were and how the tragedy occurred. These reports suggest that the attacks were acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by individuals radicalized in France. The terrorists appear to have been affiliated in some way with… Read More ›

Charlie Hebdo Attack: Can We Sustain a Response to Extremist Ideologies? By Brian Katulis January 9, 2015 | Wall Street Journal Remember all the talk after 9/11 about a battle of ideas? The notion that we were in a contest over the values that underpin civilized society? Despite regular wake-up calls–whether it’s scores of school children murdered in Pakistan, mass killings in Syria and Iraq, the atrocities of Boko Haram in Africa–we somehow lost sight of that. From time to time, the inhumanity of extremism stirs our conscience, especially when it is not just on distant shores, as in Boston in 2013. But for the most part we are untouched by the attacks taking place every day. We in the U.S. have somehow become desensitized to the fact that a dangerous ideology… Read More ›

Conservatives Politicize Paris Attacks with Inaccurate Criticism and Ineffective Policies Paris and the world are still in shock two days after the horrifying attack on the French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. While information about the perpetrators is still being discovered, reports so far have identified the attackers as brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, reportedly killed in a raid this morning, and Mourad Hamyd, who turned himself in. The brothers had long-established ties to terrorist-recruitment efforts and Saïd Kouachi traveled to Yemen to train with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The brothers “have been under scrutiny for years by officials in France and the United States,” the New York Times reports, “and according to an American intelligence official both were in the American database of… Read More ›

January 6, 2015 | POTUS, The Morning Briefing with Tim Farley John Bradshaw discussing foreign policy challenges of 2015 – reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, authorizing use of military force against the Islamic State, closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, U.S.-Russian relations and Ukraine, and trade – with Tim Farley on the Morning Brief. To view the original posting, click here.  Read More ›

Top Five Foreign Policy Challenges for 2015 Tomorrow, the new Congress is set to begin its first session amid a flurry of near- and mid-term foreign policy challenges that it will have the ability to affect for better or worse. Issues looming large include negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program as conservatives once again consider new counterproductive sanctions, the war against the Islamic State as American forces are being exposed to increased risk, the fate of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as the transfer of prisoners picks up pace, managing America’s security interest in sustained nonproliferation cooperation with Russia even as Moscow misbehaves in Eastern Europe, and potentially divisive trade agreements under negotiation. On all of these issues, an effective relationship between Congress and… Read More ›

The Obama Administration is cautiously escalating its efforts to defeat the Islamic State, building an international coalition to support ongoing operations that have included advising Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga and supporting offensives in Iraq against the Islamic State with airstrikes. But as the United States increases its efforts to push back the Islamic State, it is now more critical than ever to frankly assess the threat the organization poses and formulate clear goals and a sustainable strategy for defeating the Islamic State. The United States needs clear goals and a fully-articulated strategy to avoid mission creep and the risk of miring itself in a potentially long, costly, and inconclusive conflict. The United States needs an honest, clear-eyed assessment of the Islamic State and… Read More ›