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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Drama in Syria
There are certain events in the foreign policy realm that simply take the breath away. The scenes from Damascus, Syria on the 8th of December, signalling the fitting end to a half century of brutal familial dictatorship in the heart of the Middle East, fall into the breathtaking category. Fourteen years after the start of…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Viewpoint: Remembering Halcyon Days
Thirty-five years ago the iron curtain collapsed. So ended a brief but tragic period in the European story first defined by Winston Churchill in a 1946 speech; “From Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” As communist regimes fell from Budapest to Berlin to Prague…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Trump 2.0 and Foreign Policy
Now that the dust has settled from the general elections with the Glover Cleveland-like return of former President Trump to the White House, we can step back and ponder what this dramatic shift in America’s leadership means for our place in the world. While much will be written in the coming two months about border…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Key Foreign Policy Challenges – the Homefront
This is the seventh and final piece in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president. This series of articles, which began in June, has figuratively spanned the globe from Beijing to Lagos to Moscow to Tel Aviv to Mexico City and beyond in an attempt to present some…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Key Foreign Policy Challenges – Expect the Unexpected
This is the sixth, and penultimate, in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president. The articles will continue between now and the general election on 5 November 2024. The focus of this series of articles has been on specific foreign policy challenges – China, Russia, the Middle East,…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
A Year of Bloodshed in the Middle East
One year ago on 7 October 2023 Hamas, the militant terrorist group/governing authority of the Gaza strip, launched a lightning assault on Jewish communities across the border in Israel. The bloodletting resulted in nearly 1200 dead on the Israeli side with another 252 hostages seized in the strike and brought back to Gaza. The ramifications…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Key Foreign Policy Challenges: The Global South
This is the fifth in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president. The articles will continue between now and the general election on 5 November 2024. While much of the bandwidth of the foreign policy community is understandably focused on China and Russia – the “main threats” to…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Key Challenges for the Next U.S. President – China
This is the fourth in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president. The articles will continue between now and the general election on 5 November 2024. In a 2023 essay in the journal Foreign Affairs, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. National Security Advisor, described America’s current relationship with China…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Beware Years Ending in Four
Fifty years ago this month Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace as President of the United States, before likely being impeached in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The corruption at the highest level of the American government contributed to a nascent loss of trust by a significant portion of the populace in their elected leaders,…
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Robert “Bob” Beck served 30+ years in US embassies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Bob is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Since retiring in 2020, Bob has taught, written about, and spoken on foreign policy across the scenic Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire.
Key Challenges for the Next U.S. President – The Return of History
This is the third article in a series on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president. The series will continue between now and the elections on 5 November. In his influential 1992 work – The End of History and the Last Man, on the logical progression of social and governmental structures to the…
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Bob Beck's Foreign Policy Blog 