Grading Obama’s Foreign Policy

The editors at Foreign Policy magazine used the occasion of the first anniversary of Barack Obama's election as president to ask a "a group of experts" to grade President Obama's foreign policy performance.   I was honored to be among the graders. My B-minus was exactly in line with the consensus:  "Obama scored only an average of a B-: five As, nine ...

Obama’s Europe Neglect Could Bring Bush Nostalgia

My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, "Europe's Obama Fatigue," is online. Despite George W. Bush's defiant "you're with us or you're against us" public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe. [...] It would ...

New Atlanticist Roundtable: Transatlantic Alliance

Those of you in the DC area are invited to attend the first New Atlanticist Roundtable at the Atlantic Council today from 11-12:30. We'll be discussing the big issues faced by the transatlantic alliance including: Is NATO expansion over? Can NATO survive losing Afghanistan? and What will French reintegration mean for the alliance? In addition to myself, participants include Christian ...

Bush’s Third Term

My first piece for The National Interest, "Bush's Third Term," is now up.  It catalogs the remarkable continuity  between Barack Obama's foreign policy and that of his predecessor. The closer: Through some combination of political calculation and genuine misunderstanding, Obama campaigned against a caricature of Bush’s foreign policy. Early in Bush’s second term, he began quietly shifting away from the so-called neoconservatives, and ...

Bow? Wow!

The conservative media and blogs have been having a field day parsing the bow that President Obama gave before Saudi King Abdullah in London last week. Some see it as a sign that he is submitting in fealty to Saudi Arabia. Others find 'coded messages' about how the US will submit to Islam. His act stirs up the canard that ...

Heads in the Sand Book Reviews

Matthew Yglesias published Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats way back in April but some of the reviews are just now hitting the 'net. Jim Henley's is in Reason and entitled, "Between Iraq and a Soft Place - Democrats counter with a kinder, gentler interventionism."  My own, which hit ...

Blogging the World

Over at New Atlanticist, I argue in "American Elections and UK Relations," against the notion that Americans or Europeans should expect much to change in our international relationship simply because there will soon be a new occupant in the White House.   Instead, as always, events and the perceived interests of the actors involved will dictate the outcome. In "Don't Know Much ...

AP Blog Fair Use Guidelines

The Associated Press is backing down on its attempt to use the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to stop the Drudge Retort from using short excerpts of its content after a major backlash in the blogosphere. (See Jeff Jarvis, Cernig, Michael Arrington, and others for background.) Saul Hansell reports the AP's modified stance in today's NYT: The A.P.’s effort to impose some ...

Getting Away From Politics for a Minute…

For those of you out there who enjoy the pleasures of a fine cigar, I thought I'd let you know that I've become a reviewer over at the cigar review site CigarJack.net. My first review, of the La Gloria Cubana Wavell Natural, can be found here.La Gloria Cubana is in General Cigar’s large brand of products, and this particular ...

OTB Radio – Tonight at 7 Eastern

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and Alex Knapp will be joining me tonight to talk about the Pennyslvania primary results and other topics. Please join us. We'll also be taking your calls at (646) 716-7030. You can play the show, subscribe to its ...

Bloggers Create Ruckus at Newsweek

OTB's Campaign 2008 coverage will be featured on Newsweek.com's new Ruckus group blog. Media Bloggers Association president Robert Cox has the details: Media Bloggers Association (MBA) and Newsweek have launched "The Ruckus," a new group blog about politics for Newsweek.com. The blog will feature posts from nine MBA-member bloggers about the presidential campaign on a single page, giving Newsweek.com readers ...

What the Experts Really Said About Iraq

My latest for TCS Daily, "What the Experts Really Said About Iraq: As it Turns Out, Not Much," is up. It looks at the recent blogospheric debate about the foreign policy Establishment's role in the Iraq War debate. After an extensive review of the archives at Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and International Security from 2002 and 2003, I found that ...

New War and the Threat to Globalization

TCS Daily has published my full interview with Brave New War author John Robb as "New War and the Threat to Globalization." One excerpt: Joyner: You say that the Global War on Terror could take down the United States as a Superpower in much the same way that the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, "driven to bankruptcy by a ...

Brave New War – Review and Interview

My review of John Robb's important new book, Brave New War, is up at The Examiner. John Robb has spent his career studying terrorism, computer systems and risk management. He has brought these experiences to bear in this vital study of global terrorism. The view is bleak. The terrorists are not only winning, they are unstoppable. We’re wasting trillions on defense and ...

Armed Diplomats – State and Stability Operations Collide

John Burgess and I have written a piece for TCS Daily that has just been published under the title, "Armed Diplomats? When State and Stability Operations Collide." It looks at the difficulties of integrating the enormous skills available within the State Department into hazardous national reconstruction missions such as that underway in Iraq.