Category: Blogs

Leading From Behind: But to What End?

By James Joyner

A 10-page New Yorker feature explaining "How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy" is getting attention mostly for a phrase in its last paragraph: "leading from behind." The phrase was intended to be flattering; it has been received as anything but.

Italy commits 4 Tornado jets for NATO air strikes in Libya

By Alessandra Rizzo, the AP

From Alessandra Rizzo, the AP:  Italy has put four jets at NATO’s disposal for airstrikes against military targets in Libya as part of a stepped-up role in the military campaign against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces

NATO jets stop attack on Misrata

By Ben Hubbard, the AP

From Ben Hubbard, the AP:  NATO warplanes pounded forces loyal to Libyan leader Moaamar Gadhafi attacking the rebel-held city of Misrata, blasting fighting vehicles advancing on the port that serves as the besieged city’s sole lifeline

Spread of Arab revolts challenges Donilon’s lack of foreign policy experience

By David Ignatius, the Washington Post

Building New Partnershps

By Harlan Ullman

During World War II, the U.S. Navy’s construction battalions, affectionately known as “Seabees,” bragged that accomplishing the difficult was easy and the impossible just took a bit longer. Today, the United States and the Obama administration face an array of foreign policy problems that include the intractable and the seemingly impossible.

US officials: Panetta to Pentagon, Petraeus to CIA

By Anne Gearan and Kimberly Dozier, the AP

From Anne Gearan and Kimberly Dozier, the AP:  President Barack Obama plans to name CIA Director Leon Panetta as the next secretary of defense and move Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, into the CIA chief’s job

Update: NATO activities in Libya on April 26

By NATO

Atlantic Update 4/27/11

By Klee Aiken

"No Work, No Home" headlines a Dutch editorial, the "crisis" over North African immigration has led to a call for Schengen reform, while intolerance in the east erupts as far right vigilantes clash with Hungary’s Roma population. Taken together do such headlines highlight Europe’s rightward trajectory and perhaps even a "betrayal of EU values?"

How Libya revealed the huge gap between U.S. and European military might

By Lawrence F. Kaplan, the New Republic

From Lawrence F. Kaplan, the New Republic:  In 1992, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, Jacques Poos, declared that “the hour of Europe” had arrived.