Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The President's visit reflects less a strategic shift in administration thinking about a troubled region and more an effort at short term crisis management. Indeed, Biden will find a region filled with problems -- Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- he can't resolve and one that is wary of America's own staying power and stability.
To the extent NATO’s new Strategic Concept mentions commitments at all, they are couched in elastic language devoid of benchmarks specifying what members will do, how much they will spend to do it, and when. In short, the Strategic Concept is neither a strategy nor a concept but rather stirring verbiage about NATO’s future aspirations.
Still, as he travels to the region, Biden confronts big challenges—the need to increase oil supply; a broken Israeli-Palestinian peace process; looming tensions between Iran and Israel; and an uncomfortable meeting with a Saudi crown prince, whose country Biden once deemed a “pariah”—that only offer the prospect of incremental gains.
The dignity deficit cannot be solved by presidential elections but requires attention one community at a time. The most pressing foreign policy challenge is not to build democracy but to transform governance by supporting human dignity where it is born—at the local level.
Water scarcity threatens the political, social, economic, and environmental stability of Iran. The European Union can help by trailblazing a new form of diplomacy that integrates climate action, cultural exchange, and technological cooperation.
North Macedonia’s access to the EU has been opposed by Bulgaria due to historical disputes. The bloc should help Sofia and Skopje to shift their focus to more practical concerns, such as trade, infrastructure, telecommunications, and energy.
Unlike Ukraine and Moldova who have been given candidate status, Georgia has been offered a much weaker offer of EU membership perspective. Despite the best efforts of the country’s protestors, the Georgian dream government is unlikely to back down and meet these demands any time soon.
It’s that time of the year! Dip into the first batch of summer recommendations from Carnegie Europe’s scholars, friends, and colleagues. We hope you enjoy them and discover some real gems.
Join us on Thursday, July 7 from 16:00 until 17:30 Beirut time for a panel discussion with Hesham Alghannam, Dana El Kurd, Aaron David Miller, Ahmed Nagi and Maha Yahya, as they explore the main issues directing Biden’s agenda during his visit and what the possible outcomes of the trip may be.
Moscow has created a trust-based relation with India in the military domain. Since the Cold War, it has been supplying India with high tech material it denies to other countries. Both the S-400 and the Su-35 fighter jet are cases in point. This is not a new development.