The Brookings Institution held a discussion titled “American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr” to explore the future of American power and foreign policy engagement. Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Vali Nasr contributed thoughts from his new book.  Robert Kagan, Brookings Senior Fellow, contributed to the discussion and Martin Indyk, Vice President and Director for Foreign Policy at Brookings, moderated. For full event notes continue reading or click here for ...

On Thursday, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a discussion titled “QDDR in Action: Civil Society Sustainability in U.S. Foreign Policy.” The event featured Scott Busby director for the Office of Multilateral and Global Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor; Alyse Nelson, president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership; Lisa Schirch, director of 3P Human Security; Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global ...

On Thursday, the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted an event exploring whether the Arab Awakening has marginalized al-Qaeda or has presented opportunities. The speakers included Jon Alterman, the Director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Barak Barfi, a research fellow at the New America Foundation, Daniel Byman, a professor at Georgetown, and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Bruce Hoffman, director for the Center ...

On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about national security and the foreign policy priorities in the $51.6 billion fiscal year 2013 International Affairs budget. Senator John Kerry (D – MA) presided over the committee, which was co-chaired by Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN). To read the full text of the event notes, continue reading below or click here for the PDF   Senator John Kerry began by ...

On Tuesday, the Center for National Policy hosted a panel on U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and if the peace talks with the Taliban will be successful. The speakers were the Honorable Paul McHale, former assistant Secretary of Defense and member of Congress, Michael O'Hanlon, director of research and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Joshua Foust, a fellow at the American Security Project and correspondent for The ...

Semira Nikou, from the United States Institute of Peace, speaks with Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the former foreign policy adviser to Iran's former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on whether Iran is "ready" to begin diplomatic negotiations with the United States.   According to Mousavian, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be "ready to negotiate" once Iran is offered the "right solutions package" by the P5+1 (five permanent members of the ...

On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a nomination hearing for William J. Burns to become Deputy Secretary of State. The hearing was presided over by Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry (D-MA) with Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Jib Webb (D-VA), Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-PA), Richard Lugar (R-IN), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) in attendance. William J. Burns is a career foreign service officer and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and ...

Next Friday, April 29, America Abroad Media (a non-profit organization in Washington, DC that produces a monthly, hour-long documentary radio program on foreign affairs for broadcast on NPR stations across the country) is hosting a "town hall" event at American University's Katzen Center from 7:30-9am. They will be connecting DC's local WAMU radio station with a radio station in Kabul to facilitate a discussion ...

On Tuesday, during a visit to the Charleston Gazette, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) called for increased scrutiny of the military budget and for the U.S. to immediately end operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. "We should be out of Iraq this year altogether," he said. "We are not going to win.  It is not in the cards.  Many Asian countries have a totally tribal culture.  It is the same thing ...

Writing at Foreign Policy, Ken Adelman, asserts that support for the U.S. foreign assistance budget is misguided and that arguments in support of these programs become "shallower" upon closer investigation. He argues that: "Four of the largest U.S. foreign-aid recipients today -- Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Afghanistan -- all take contrary positions on issues of critical importance to the White House."  Adelman also criticizes a recent article by Joseph Nye, stating ...

On Wednesday, The Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Advanced Governmental Studies hosted an event focused on American foreign policy, entitled, “American Foreign Policy: A View From the Senate.” The event was moderated by Robert J. Guttman, founder and chair of the Center on Politics and Foreign Relations, and Richard McGregor, the Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief. The speaker at the event was Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). For full notes, continue below ...

On Tuesday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted an event in which Michael Corbin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs for Iraq issues discussed the strategic challenges facing Iraq as the State Department prepares to take the lead on U.S. operations in 2012.  Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS moderated the event and made opening remarks.To ...

On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) criticized the CIA and the intelligence community for failing to predict the uprising in the Middle East.  She stated that U.S. intelligence failed to warn about growing instability in Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain and blamed their inadequacy on the lack of "the right 'human assets'" gathering information on the ground.  She also cautioned the Obama Administration against intervening in Libya without international support as it may lead to U.S. ...

Speaking in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee on State and Foreign Operations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed her recent meetings with world leaders in Geneva over the situation in Libya and stated that the USAID had deployed humanitarian teams to help refugees fleeing to Tunisia and Egypt.   She also stated that the situation in the region and in Libya is an example of this administration's use of combined assets of diplomacy, development, ...

On Tuesday, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held an open hearing to assess U.S. foreign policy priorities in light of the country’s current economic challenges.  The Committee — chaired by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and with Congressman Howard L. Berman (D-CA) in attendance — requested the testimony of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.To see full notes, continue below or click here for pdf.  To see webcast, click here.Rep. Ros-Lehtinen opened ...

On Wednesday, Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission released the results from the September parliamentary elections for 34 of 35 voting districts. A loose coalition led by former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah won over 90 of the 249 seats in the lower house of the Afghan parliament and will form a quasi-opposition to President Hamid Karzai’s parliamentary allies. Christian Science Monitor reports that the winners were disproportionally members of the Hazara ethnic community, largely because continued ...

The final results of the September elections for the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) will be announced by the Independent Election Commission on Wednesday. The announcement will come on the heels of 21 candidates who "earned a winning number of votes in their distric," being disqualified "'ue to irregularities, usage of fake votes and the influence of provincial officials, which created electoral fraud,'" according to Ahmad Zia Rafat, ...