United Nations

Assistant Secretary of State Countryman: The US “Will Sign” the UN Arms Trade Treaty

From March 8th through the 28th, the United Nations held a conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)—the last days of a seven-year effort to control the flow of small arms so that they do not end up in the hands of terrorists, organizations aimed at committing human rights abuses, and other malicious entities. The […]

Russia’s Foreign Minister sees danger in ‘NATO trying to play a global role with global military reach’

By Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Policy

From Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Policy:  Of course the relationship between such big countries can never be cloudless. And we have some things which still divide us. Missile defense is one case in point.

India’s Tough Road to the Security Council

By Rajan Menon

Something President Obama said in his speech to India’s parliament in 2010 gladdened lots of Indian hearts.

Syria: Between Sarajevo and Baghdad

By Julian Lindley-French

Thucydides, the great-great grandfather of unforgiving International Relations, once said, “The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept”.  British Foreign Secretary Hague’s announcement last week in Parliament that Britain will send armored vehicles and bullet-proof vests to support the Syrian National Coalition came just at the moment when […]

US-Mideast Policy Is Isolating America, Not Iran

By Sarwar Kashmeri

Two thirds of the U.N.’s countries recently signed a communique expressing support for Iran’s nuclear energy program and rejecting, what they termed, the United States’ unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic. A flashing red light that signals the American policy aimed at isolating Iran in order to curb its nuclear ambitions appears instead to have […]

Preventing Atrocity Crimes in Syria: The Responsibility to Protect

By Paul R. Williams J. Trevor Ulbrick and Jonathan P. Worboys

Has the Syria crisis finally reached the tipping point for intervention? In Aleppo, Human Rights Watch reported that Syrian aircraft have been deliberately bombing breadlines.

Ban Ki-moon: Assad May Suffer Fate of Qaddafi or Taylor

By James Joyner

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hinted that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will suffer the fate of Laurent Gbago, Charles Taylor, or Muammar Qaddafi if his reign of violence continues. He declared, “no leader, anywhere, should imagine that he—or she—enjoys impunity for crimes of atrocity.”

Ban Ki-moon: World Needs West’s Leadership

By James Joyner

Ban Ki-moon declared that the world faces “an over-supply of problems,” a “deficit of solutions,” and a “deficit of leadership” and called on the United States and its transatlantic allies to provide it.