Penn Kemble Forum and Democrats' Foreign Policy

Hello all, here's an overdue update. 

I was recently accepted as a 2017-2018 Penn Kemble fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy, and as such will participate in monthly dinners and online conversations about democracy, human rights, and policy with foreign policy experts, government officials, and democracy practitioners. The full group of fellows has just been named and I'm very much looking forward to these conversations and some related writing.

On a related note, most of my work as a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States this summer has been focused on a paper on where the Democrats are headed on foreign policy, which should be out in a month or so. (I also did a few interviews on the occasion of Trump's second European trip - here on Al Jazeera - parts one and two). Zach Beauchamp at Vox has a good piece out this morning on the Democrats' lack of foreign policy ideas and structural reasons for it. I argue Barack Obama managed U.S. foreign policy pretty well, but the Democrats need a more vibrant debate going forward, accounting for both smarter policy and the realities of public opinion, to do what they can as a congressional minority and prepare for retaking the White House and repairing a damaged U.S. leadership role in the world, and I analyze what's already there in the Democratic debate. More soon.