In his Foreign Policy Shadow Government blog, Strauss Scholar Will Inboden commends President Obama’s first offer of praise for a Bush foreign-policy initiative.
In his speech on World AIDS day, Obama expressed his appreciation for George W. Bush’s leadership in building a foundation for global action for AIDS relief. This represents a departure from Obama’s tendency to avoid giving credit to his predecessor. Professor Inboden argues that this act of bipartisanship is important because bipartisan support that extends across presidencies is often the basis for the best foreign policy initiatives.
This Spectator article features Professor Inboden’s blog and agrees with his assessment that President Obama broke with the tendency of not acknowledging any successes of the Bush era, including policies that Obama himself adopted. While the lack of controversy surrounding AIDS prevention makes bipartisanship less of a challenge, Professor Inboden commends President Obama for his genuine support for PEPFAR and successor AIDS prevention initiatives.
Robert D. Kaplan, a Strauss Center Distinguished Senior Lecturer, provided a review for the Wall Street Journal on "The Village on the Edge of the World." The book centers around Herta Müller's experience growing up in Romania under its repressive communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. "A fact that cannot be emphasized enough is that World War II ended in 1945 only...
Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Joshua Busby recently co-authored a piece in The National Interest titled “No Easy Solutions to Europe’s Geopolitical Trilemma.” Busy examines the mounting strategic pressures facing the European Union as it seeks defense, economic, and energy autonomy amid growing uncertainty from Russia, China, and the United States. “Thankfully for Europe, it is wealthy enough to continue restricting...
Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Dr. Joshua Busby recently published a piece in Foreign Policy titled “Trump’s National Defense Strategy Tries to Imagine Climate Change Away.” Busby discusses the omission of climate change and concerns in the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS). “The Pentagon’s long-standing, bipartisan concern with climate- and energy-related matters was grounded in clear-eyed thinking about strategic risks, which...