Mike Singh’s Latest in Foreign Policy
President Donald Trump’s unexpected decision to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has elicited sharply divided responses. The White House has presented the proposed summit as a diplomatic coup, while advocates of engagement have greeted it with guarded relief. Skeptics have described it as naive at best, given Kim’s atrocious record of abuses, and a disgrace at worst. Yet history will judge the meeting by a simpler metric — whether it succeeds.
Read MoreEly Ratner’s latest on China in The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs
In an early morning tweet on March 2, President Donald Trump avowed that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” We’re about to find out if he’s right. Trump may have just started one with China.
Trump’s recently announced tariffs on steel and aluminum look trivial by comparison—especially if, as expected, he ends up granting exemptions to U.S. allies. Using an arcane statute of the Trade Act of 1974, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has concluded an investigation of China’s unfair practices against U.S. firms, including forced technology transfers, joint venture requirements with Chinese partners, and outright cyber espionage…
Read MoreLisa Monaco’s latest piece in The Washington Post: “A ‘global game of whack-a-mole’: Overseas data rules are stuck in the 19th century”
How should law enforcement officials deal with digital data that happens to be stored in a different country? If FBI agents, pursuing a subject who committed a crime in the United States, serve a valid court order on an American company, the government shouldn’t have to wait a year because the company happens to store the information overseas. Likewise, if the London police are investigating a local murder, the fact that they are seeking phone records from a communications provider located in the United States should not block them from doing their job.
Read MoreAntony Blinken’s latest piece in the New York Times: “Behold Vladimir V. Potemkin”
If Xi Jinping is the world’s most powerful man, conventional wisdom puts Vladimir Putin a close second. He’s made his own bare-chested virility synonymous with a resurgent Russia. Mr. Putin seems to be playing on every chessboard, from what Russia calls its “near abroad” to the Middle East, from Europe to America.
Read MoreMichèle Flournoy and Tony Blinken Form Global Strategic Advisory Firm with Former Senior National Security Officials
WestExec Advisors, LLC will advise companies on geopolitical risk and emerging opportunities
Washington, DC – WestExec Advisors, a new Washington, DC-based global strategic advisory firm, launches under the leadership of Managing Directors Michèle Flournoy, former Co-Founder and CEO of the Center for a New American Security and former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and Tony Blinken, a co-founder of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and former Deputy Secretary of State, Deputy National Security Advisor to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President.
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