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Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO | October 24, 2012 After returning from Afghanistan, NATO's Secretary General Rasmussen stated that Afghans are prepared to take the lead in providing their own security by the end of 2014. ++ The process of transferring security responsibility is well underway: Afghani police and troops are leading 80% of the operations and 85% of their own training. ++ ISAF will focus less on ...More

Bremmer & Leonard, Transatlantic Academy | October 22, 2012 US-German relations are quickly dismantling, putting the entire Western alliance in jeopardy. ++ There has been a fundamental shift, not so much over Libya in which case Germany's abstention made no difference, but over events that transpired during the G20 summit in South Korea. ++ Obama was surprised to discover Merkel's opposition to his global rebalancing ...More

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University | October 18, 2012 Of the choices presented to Obama over the Syrian conflict, the president gets to choose between a bad decision and a worse one – he chose the wrong one. ++ In the upcoming US elections, we are seeing two Obamas: the one of the Cairo speech in 2009 and the other of a "terrorist-slayer". ++ The latter has taken over, while ignoring the deeper roots of ...More

Michel Barnier, European Commission | October 16, 2012 Five years on, Europe's economic situation remains vulnerable to a mild recession expected this year. ++ Recently, a decision was reached to create a single supervisor for banks in the eurozone, however work still needs to be done in determining: the scope of the new supervisory mechanism (restricting it to systematically significant banks or all of them); the ...More

Gareth Porter, Asia Times | October 11, 2012 Although the latest string of "green-on-blue" attacks is becoming the new face of war in Afghanistan, the older face, IEDs, still account for 59% of US casualties. ++ The US military has taken two contradictory approaches: investing in high-tech solutions to detect IEDs (pressuring the Taliban to produce more instead); having more dismounted patrols so as to ...More

Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post | October 8, 2012 As China becomes more assertive, its neighbors are looking for US support. ++ Obama announced that US foreign-policy will "pivot" toward Asia in 2011, however there is no escaping the importance of the Middle East and Central Asia. ++ There is a growing al-Qaeda presence to the south of Libya, while Syria is embroiled in full-on civil war. ++ Although Romney ...More

Stephen S. Roach, Yale University | October 4, 2012 Policymakers have misdiagnosed the ailment of America's financial problems. ++ The prescribed medicine can result in unwanted side effects. ++ The American consumer, the patient, has been spending far less, due to the disease, the protracted balance-sheet recession. ++ The problem is that the Fed is treating the disease by deploying monetary accommodation to ...More

Roger Cohen, The New York Times | October 2, 2012 China remains a status quo power avoiding anything in its way to economic growth, while Russia too is a status quo power (of 30 years ago, that is). ++ Europe is a status-seeking power with only one serious politician left, Merkel. ++ But what of the US? ++ For Obama, America is in the "status-management business", adjusting foreign policy in a changing ...More

Yan Xuetong & Qi Haixia, The Diplomat | September 28, 2012 The United States and China are 'superficial friends', whereby each exaggerates their bilateral friendship in order to boost future cooperation as well as current ties. ++ But as Chinese power rises, there will be more competition as the US focuses on Asia and hopes to increase its domination in the Western Pacific. ++ This enhanced competition could lead to a ...More

Christopher Hill, Dean of Korbel School Int't Studies | September 27, 2012 Foreign policy has not really shown up so far in the US presidential election, but when it does, it is likely to be an intellectually deficient debate. ++ The Iran question might be reduced to whether or not the US should support an Israeli strike. ++ Any meaningful debate surrounding China is unlikely. ++ The Syrian conflict and its regional implications ...More