Foreign Policy

The majority of the world's current crises take place within a 7-hour flight from Brussels. From the Balkans to North Africa and the Middle East, the world faces wide-ranging challenges that require different nuanced responses in each situation. The European Union has taken the lead in responding to many of these "hot zones" through a mix of civilian and military crisis management and conflict prevention operations as part of our Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP).

Thousands of EU personnel are currently staffing 13 active peace-keeping missions around the world in fragile states. Civilian missions help train police in Afghanistan, establish the rule of law in Iraq, and contribute to Kosovo’s efforts to develop an independent and multi-ethnic justice system and police and customs services. Military operations have helped stabilize conflict zones in the Western Balkans and parts of Africa. Our most important naval operation to date—EUNAVFOR Atalanta—helps deter, prevent, and repress acts of piracy and armed robbery on the high seas and protects vulnerable vessels cruising off the Somali coast.

What do Somali pirates, polar bears and the Chinese government have in common? Aside from reasons to resent the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, not a whole lot.

The treaty, also known as UNCLOS, forms the legal foundation under which Somali pirates are prosecuted, regulates activity in the polar bear’s habitat as it melts, and undercuts the territorial claims behind the Chinese government’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. And with the heads of the Defense and State Departments, along with the U.S.’s highest-ranking military officer, lobbying the Senate on Wednesday to take up the treaty, this week marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s official push to ratify the treaty once and for all.

The future of U.S. nuclear weapons is being hotly contested in bitter Congressional debates over the budget. The result is serious uncertainty in defense planning, and that comes with a cost. When nuclear policy is left to be blown about by erratic political winds, there are frequent and sharp changes in direction—changes that are expensive for the American taxpayer, reduce the effectiveness of what we procure, confuse allies, and risk unnecessarily exacerbating tensions with potential foes.
 
We are two nuclear experts who disagree on a lot, including whether the United States should pursue the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. In spite of these differences, however, we both agree the U.S. nuclear enterprise must be modernized and additional arms control measures should be pursued. And what we can agree on, if implemented consistently, would provide some much needed stability in the U.S. approach to the weighty issues of nuclear weapons.

Between secret deals with Russia to weaken our missile defense, the relaxation of conditions on military aid to Egypt, and the granting of visas to the progeny of a dictatorial Cuban regime – just to name a few troubling actions – the current Administration’s flippant attitude toward America’s sovereignty and its role on the world stage is a major cause for concern. This concern is not eased by the Administration’s latest efforts: A push to ratify the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty.
 
The Law of the Sea Treaty seeks to regulate and limit the use of the world’s oceans for commercial use and environmental management and would determine the extent to which national territory extends off a nation’s coasts. In doing so, the treaty ignores centuries of already established international practices regarding freedom of navigation on the seas and would empower multiple U.N.-established bureaucracies.

Early in the morning on Nov. 24, 2011, two NATO Apache helicopters, an AC-130 gunship and two F-15 strike fighters entered the Mohmand Agency in Northwest Pakistan from Afghanistan and struck two Pakistani border patrol checkpoints, killing 24 soldiers. Pakistan officials protested about the strike, the Pakistani public remains up in arms about the deaths of 24 soldiers, and the Pakistani government canceled NATO access to the Shamsi Airfield (which used to host the flying Predator drones) and to vital Pakistani supply routes.

In the meantime, the United States had been building an alternative to Pakistan. Starting in 2008, the United States began inking deals with various countries in Central Asia and Europe, including Russia, to create a Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that would allow the United States to break its reliance on Pakistani territory to resupply the war effort. When Pakistan closed down its supply routes, it found, suddenly, that it didn’t have quite the same leverage over the United States it once did. The United States could still run the war, even if the northern resupply cost more than the old Pakistan-based routes.

In what can be described as both a landmark bill for Middle East peace and a provocation that could stir the wrath of the whole Arab world, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) has proposed legislation that could strip millions of Palestinians of their refugee status.

Kirk’s bill, which is being marked-up today, would amend the 2013 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill to change the status of the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of Palestinian refugees. More than 4.9 million Palestinians currently claim refugee status, despite the fact that they were never personally displaced by the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars.

If left intact, Kirk’s proposal would require the U.S. government to confirm how many Palestinians currently served by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency are actually refugees.

The most promising summit in years is scheduled to take place this week between the P5+1 and Iran to discuss the enduring stalemateover the Iranian nuclear program. A number of factors – the threat of additional sanctions, a growing divide in Israel, and an Iranian willingness to discuss ideas – are coming together in a way that indicates a successful dialogue may be achievable. This meeting has the potential to actually accomplish something tangible and finally cross the threshold from talk to action.
 
Even agreements to discuss additional IAEA inspections or small confidence building measures would mark a successful conference. The Iranian nuclear issue is at a point where even a small but concrete agreement will tip the slide and start rolling the ball forward.
 
Going into the summit, the list of demands from the P5+1 include the removal of Iran’s stockpile of 20% enriched Uranium, dismantling the Fordow enrichment site, and allowing IAEA inspectors into the Parchin military facility. But to achieve these goals the United States must allow for flexible and creative solutions thatincorporate Iranian political restraints.

Today, Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the fastest growing regions in the world, home to seven of the world’s fastest-growing economies. In fact, just this week, the International Monetary Fund’s
 
Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa projected Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth to remain above 5 percent — faster than many newly industrialized Asian economies.
 
The major force behind this dramatic growth has been significant increases in private sector investment and trade in the region. Foreign direct investment flows to the continent now hover around $80 billion and trade has tripled over the last decade. But this private sector boom has largely missed Africa’s agricultural economy, favoring investments in resources like oil, gas and minerals.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg turned 28 this week. When he sat in his dorm room at Harvard eight years ago, cooking up what later became the world’s largest social network, Zuckerberg envisioned a product that would connect friends to one another across the world. He probably never imagined Facebook would become a forum for Saudi clerics to encourage their followers to crush demonstrators’ skulls or beat their wives.

Sadly, that’s what clerics are doing, and only a small taste of what we found during a six-month study of Saudi social media between January 1 and June 30, 2011. With the help of ConStrat, a Washington-based technology and analytics company, we collected and analyzed more than 40,000 social media entries in both English and Arabic.

Despite the clerics’ historical opposition to modern technology, they’re increasingly gravitating towards it. Here are five of the Saudi clerics’ most politically incorrect messages that you (probably) wouldn’t want your religious leaders repeating.