T-TIP

Connecting the Dots: Linking Principles to Priorities in the New National Security Strategy The Obama Administration has just released its 2015 National Security Strategy. The updated strategy concentrates on broad lines of effort that are crucial to American interests, ranging across the categories of security, prosperity, values, and international order. However, to have full effect, leadership is needed to transform the document’s intent into concrete priorities. Indeed, the document reads, “our resources will never be limitless. Policy tradeoffs and hard choices will need to be made.” In moving towards implementation, therefore, national security leaders have the opportunity to reassess their near-term policy priorities to make sure they are addressing long-term trends. In particular, priorities should better reflect the need to effectively deal with the security… Read More ›

Implementing Obama’s “Smarter Kind of American Leadership” Last night, President Obama in his State of the Union address touched on a host of national security issues of critical importance to the United States and international community. While his discussion of national security was broad, a key theme running through his address was the forward-looking need to reinforce America’s global position and security in the 21stcentury by emphasizing diplomatic and economic power. This “smarter kind of American leadership” applies to a number of issues, but the President’s comments on Asia, Iran, Cuba, trade strategy, and climate security in particular demonstrate the value of careful and relentless global engagement to producing results. Now armed with a clear agenda, the Administration and Congress need to work together to… 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 ›

  Recently, there have been two significant developments on U.S. trade agenda. Last month President Obama, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy officially launched the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union. And earlier this week, the latest round of negotiations on the Transpacific Partnership agreement (TPP), were launched in Malaysia. These two agreements signify an ambitious trade agenda for the U.S. in light of the long-stalled Doha rounds. However, it also marks an ambitious strategic agenda. If twentieth century strategy and America’s role in the world were dominated by military engagement, then twenty-first century strategy will face an increasing importance on economic engagement, what has… Read More ›

Yesterday, President Obama and some of his European counterparts officially announced their shared intent to move forward with negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – a prospective free trade agreement between Washington and the EU’s 27 member states. The initiative represents the latest element in the administration’s strategy to support the economic foundations of American power and modernize U.S. national security strategy for the 21st century where competitiveness will sustain U.S. global leadership. The Partnership is intended as a high-standards agreement to help shape the norms in areas like tariff reduction, investment and complex, often burdensome regulations across markets. To make this promise a reality, TTIP negotiations will have to incorporate stakeholders from business, labor and civil society in innovative and effective ways. … Read More ›