politico:

President Barack Obama tangoed. Donald Trump tweeted.

That about sums it up—not just the predictable pundit pile-on, but Obama’s and Trump’s radically different postures to the world, and the world’s toward them, forced into focus by a week of reopening in Cuba and terrorism in Brussels.

Trump is playing the part of angry isolationist. Obama’s the guy doing the wave at the baseball game with Raúl Castro. Trump called for the borders to be closed. Obama got in his plane Tuesday night and flew to his second big foreign stop in a week, taking him further away from Washington than he was when the bombs blew up in Belgium.

People around the world don’t seem to want Trump’s approach, but a lot of people inside America—at least among Republican primary voters—do.

And one of the few areas of consistent agreement among Republican presidential candidates was Obama’s failure to project strength in foreign policy: “Under this administration, we are inconsistent and indecisive,” declared Jeb Bush. “We definitely no longer inspire fear in our enemies.”

Until this week, though, “the Obama-Clinton foreign policy” was mainly a Republican talking point. But in her big counterterrorism speech Wednesday at Stanford University and her comments Thursday in Los Angeles about not giving into fear, Hillary Clinton made it clear she was on Obama’s side, despite her overall more hawkish, interventionist tendencies.

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politico:

Washington’s newest arms race pits the State Department against the Pentagon, which are feuding over who should make the decisions on supplying military aid to foreign nations.

And to the consternation of the diplomats, the generals are on a winning streak.

The Pentagon is steering a growing pot of money, equipment and training to help countries fight terrorism, stem the drug trade and deter a rising China and resurgent Russia. Congress is poised to further expand the military’s ability to ship arms overseas — causing the State Department and its supporters on Capitol Hill to warn that some of the aid may contradict broader U.S. interests, such as promoting human rights.

Countries the Pentagon wants to assist include Burkina Faso, which the State Department has singled out for using excessive force against detainees and discriminating against women, and Tajikistan, where the department says torture and “repression of political activism” run rampant. In some recent cases, officials say, the State Department has learned of the aid only after the fact.

“It is militarizing foreign policy,” said one administration official, who described a “groundswell of a freak-out” bubbling up in Foggy Bottom. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, asserted that military officers eager to get results on the battlefield have become the face of the U.S. government in too many countries.

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In 1974 and 1975, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew back and forth between Middle Eastern capitals. These trips were accompanied by the media and were short in length. The media who flew with him coined the term “shuttle diplomacy” to describe it.

As a result of Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy, three deals were formed. You can read about those deals at the link.

politico:

President Barack Obama signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on North Korea in light of the authoritarian regime’s latest belligerent actions, the White House announced Wednesday.

The executive order, signed Tuesday, follows North Korea’s nuclear test on Jan. 6 and subsequent Feb. 7 launch using ballistic missile technology in violation of long-standing six-party talks. The sanctions represent a tightening of restrictions already in place, the administration said.

“These actions are consistent with our longstanding commitment to apply sustained pressure on the North Korean regime,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. “The U.S. and the global community will not tolerate North Korea’s illicit nuclear and ballistic missile activities, and we will continue to impose costs on North Korea until it comes into compliance with its international obligations.”

According to a fact sheet circulated by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the sanctions target the regime’s censorship machine, Workers’ Party of Korea, Propaganda and Agitation Department, as well as financial institutions and mining and transportation companies, whose efforts play a large role in financing, funding and shipping, respectively, the regime’s nuclear and ballistic programs.

politico:

MIAMI — Cuba didn’t want to change the way things were — the United States convinced them to, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said here Friday.

Normalization wasn’t even on the minds of Cuban officials as Rhodes in 2013 began the secret talks that led to the release of American prisoner Alan Gross, he said, arguing that the Castro government felt like it benefited from the isolation and opposition to the United States.

Rhodes came here on a trip to the heart of the Cuban ex-pat community, meeting with students, religious leaders and human rights advocates to discuss plans and their concerns ahead of President Barack Obama’s scheduled landing in Havana next Sunday, March 20.

In contrast with the Cubans, Rhodes said, he went into the talks with instructions from the president “to see how far we could go.”

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politico:

Last month, the Obama administration released its 2017 budget proposal, including thousands of pages on the nearly $600 billion request for the Pentagon. That money is earmarked for a wide array of projects—$1.8 billion in procurement of equipment for the Special Operations Command, for instance, and $1.2 billion for the chemical and biological weapons defense program. In each case, the administration carefully explains the rationale and purpose for the budget request.

But what isn’t included in that massive budget is a comprehensive country-level breakdown of the $10 billion or so in foreign military aid the Pentagon administers every year, euphemistically referred to as Building Partner Capacity. This makes it impossible to calculate the cost of individual aid programs, much less to determine whether the BPC programs are effective. That’s a concern, because BPC sometimes causes more problems than it solves.

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politico:

By ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.

In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I’ve made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country. As we focus on the rise of the Islamic State and search for the source of the savagery that took so many innocent lives in Paris and San Bernardino, we might want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology. Instead we should examine the more complex rationales of history and oil—and how they often point the finger of blame back at our own shores.

statedept:

Secretary Kerry’s remarks on the United States Foreign Policy Agenda for 2016. 

The United States’ continuing involvement in the Middle East has been contributing to the regional instability more often than not. 

In 2014, Chas W. Freeman discussed the U.S.’s continuing issues in its foreign policy with regards to the Middle East at 23rd Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference. You can read these comments at the link.

statedept:

1. U.S. and Cuba Re-establish Diplomatic Relations: In January, Cuba and the United States began talks to re-establish diplomatic relations after 54 years. Those talks resulted in the July re-opening of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the United States Embassy in Havana. To mark the occasion, Secretary Kerry traveled to Havana, Cuba, where he watched as the American flag was raised at the Embassy building there.

2. COP21 Climate Change Agreement: In December, world leaders from across the globe gathered in Paris for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to focus on the fight against climate change and negotiate an ambitious, inclusive and durable global climate agreement. 

3. Iran Nuclear Agreement Announced: The Nuclear Agreement with Iran, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was finalized in July 2015. After weeks of intense multilateral negotiations on the ground in Vienna, it was announced that an agreement had been reached, one that would ensure Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful. 

“The agreement we’ve reached, fully implemented, will bring insight and accountability to Iran’s nuclear program – not for a small number of years, but for the lifetime of that program. This is the good deal that we have sought.” - Secretary of State John Kerry on the Iran Deal

4. Second “Our Ocean” Conference: In October, the Chilean government hosted the second global “Our Ocean” conference in Valparaiso. During the conference – which brought together individuals, experts, practitioners, advocates, lawmakers, and the international ocean and foreign policy communities to look at ways to protect our ocean – the United States announced the creation of two new national marine sanctuaries. Secretary Kerry also used the opportunity to underscore three key areas for engagement: ocean monitoring, stopping illegal fishing, and climate change.

5. Bringing Peace, Stability to Syria: The conflict in Syria has continued to unfold in tragic ways over the course of 2015. From the humanitarian crisis endured by refugees fleeing violence, to the reprehensible human rights violations and violence carried out by the Asad regime, the Syrian people have borne a heavy load. The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need – the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011. 

More of the Pivotal Foreign Policy Moments of 2015