In an earlier post, I wrote about the emergence of Turkey and Brazil on the world stage.  Since then, the ‘terrible twins’ voted against the Security Council’s latest set of (almost certainly ineffective) sanctions against Iran.  The Obama administration had worked hard to get both countries on board; their rebuff dramatized the limits of President […]

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have a lot to answer for in their 100-year-plus conflict over some of the most miserable and hardscrabble but somehow beloved land on the face of the earth.  But the sad and sorry truth is that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are really responsible for the mess that […]

Change is coming to the Mead world.  On June 30, I will be changing hats.  After more than 12 years at the Council on Foreign Relations, I will be stepping down as the Henry Kissinger fellow in US foreign policy to take up a full time position as the James Chace chair in political studies […]

While browsing through the bookstores of Oxford last month (much as I love Amazon.com and my Kindle, no on-line bookstore has yet reproduced the experience of wandering through a great bookstore as random titles catch your eye), I ran across the kind of book I love: a big fat paperback narrative history.  It’s been a […]

As the Security Council prepares to vote the next round of sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, I’m thinking of some old debates about how to handle difficult regimes.  The thoughts aren’t consoling; too many voices in the debate over Iran hearken back to some of the worst ideas in American and European history.Of all the […]

It’s been another heavy weekend of non-blogging commitments.  My parents have sold their home of the last thirty five years as they plan a move into a retirement center.  The closing and the move are taking place later this month, but the chaos has already hit.This past weekend there was a gathering of the clan; […]

These days, there’s an unusual spectacle in world affairs.  The United States has relatively good relations with the major powers: China, the EU states, India and even Russia are all more or less working together.  But two middle powers, Turkey and Brazil, are not only asserting themselves more effectively than in the past; they have […]

Outrage reigns as Israel writhes, impaled on the horns of the same old dilemma once again.It is an old and familiar story.  Pursuing its security in a hostile environment, Israel takes a risky and perhaps a radical step.  Something goes awry and people are killed.  Waves of international outrage flood the globe.  In the Arab […]

It’s been a slow week for blogging; I was attending a conference at Oxford on religion and foreign policy.  As always, I feel a little bit like Rip Van Winkle when I visit Britain.  I lived there for a year almost half a century ago and my relatively brief visits since haven’t effaced the impression […]

I’ve been at a conference in the UK the last week and between catching up with old friends at Oxford, listening to speeches and making a presentation myself, there hasn’t been much time for writing.  That should change now; I’m back in New York and as the jet lag fades I will be back on […]