Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Source: Getty
Summary: The number of organizations and projects focused on influence operations has grown dramatically in recent years. This growth is encouraging, but its pace brings challenges.
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The number of organizations and projects focused on influence operations has grown dramatically in recent years. Around the world, hundreds of new think tanks, fact-checking organizations, tech start-ups, and other public and private initiatives have begun working to identify, analyze, or counter influence operations.
This growth is encouraging, but its pace brings challenges. Because many in the field are not familiar with each other’s work, they often duplicate efforts and miss opportunities to collaborate.
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It seems as if Biden’s path should be simple: Reverse the Trump sanctions and agree once again to the 2015 deal, which put a lid on Iran’s nuclear program by limiting its ability to enrich uranium. But as a veteran U.S. diplomat reminded me last week, negotiations between the United States and Iran have never been smooth; the two countries have built up a deep store of animosity and mistrust since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Last week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his government is willing to return to the Obama-era nuclear limits if the U.S. lifts sanctions. If the new Biden administration “returns to the situation as it was in 2017, then so will we,” he said.
FOCUS: Biden s commitment to Asia to be tested after America First Trump
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden (L) announces retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin as his choice to be secretary of defense at the Queen Theater Dec. 9, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Getty/Kyodo)
President-elect Joe Biden, preparing to take office on Jan. 20, has been sending reassuring messages to U.S. allies that his incoming administration will value them and multilateralism in a clear shift from President Donald Trump s America First foreign policy.
But uncertainties loom ahead for the United States to regain its status as a credible and central player in Asia, where China has grown more assertive and economic integration in the region has deepened compared with the time Biden left the White House four years ago.
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Since Joe Biden’s US election win, a wave of relief has washed over the foreign policy commentariat. The storyline appears set: with adults back in the room, Washington will relight multilateralism’s torch while displaying a surer touch on alliance management and strategic competition with China.
Biden’s own rhetoric has calmed nerves frazzled by four years of Donald Trump’s meandering idiosyncrasy. America is back , he says, and ready to lead the world .
Maintaining the rage: middle-class Joe Biden will have to accommodate the anxiety, stress and bitterness in middle America that brought Trump to power.
AP