Foreign Policy

For next week, we plan to turn our attention to Europe to consider the questions raised in the following New York Times article: The Questions That Could Reshape a Worried Europe in 2017.

Although there are lots of questions, we felt that it might be best to come prepared to discuss all of them–based on the premise that some might not be fruitful enough for two hours’ discussion and we might thereby suffer from more “topic drift.”

See you next week!

If tomorrow’s winter storm doesn’t get you thinking about warmer climes, perhaps this will…

We’ll discuss the Obama Administration’s steps toward normalization of relations with Cuba.

• Is now the time to normalize relations?
• Should there be any preconditions?
• How rapidly should it take place?
• What happened to the principles governing our policy for the last 50+ years? What changed?
• To what degree should the views of Cuban emigres to the US help to shape our national policy vis-a-vis Cuba?
• What similarities/differences are there from the Nixon Administration’s steps to normalize relations with China?

See you tomorrow.

In the wake of the recent news around the release of “The Interview” and our own discussions about how to treat nuclear states, we’ll turn our focus to the Koreas, North and South.

• What are the prospects for reunification? Over what time frame?
• What should be the US policy with respect to each country?
• What else can (or should) the US do to address the issues arising from North Korea?
• What does this mean of Sino-US relations and cooperation?