William J. Burns

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Burns testifying in the U.S. Senate, February 2021

MundoAmérica,

For as long as countries have kept secrets from one another, they have tried to steal them from one another. Espionage has been and will remain an integral part of statecraft, even as its techniques continually evolve. America’s first spies spent the Revolutionary War using ciphers, clandestine courier networks, and invisible ink to correspond with each other and their foreign allies. In World War II, the emerging field of signals intelligence helped uncover Japanese war plans. During the early Cold War, the United States’ intelligence capabilities literally went into the stratosphere, with the advent of the U-2 and other high-altitude spy planes that could photograph Soviet military installations with impressive clarity.…  Seguir leyendo »

Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg in March. Last week, Russia announced it would expel 60 American diplomats. Credit Pool photo by Anatoly Maltsev/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock

Europa

Last week, following the brazen attempt by Russia to assassinate one of its former spies and his daughter in Britain with a chemical weapon, 27 countries expelled more than 150 Russian diplomats. Moscow swiftly and predictably reciprocated, announcing that it would expel 60 American diplomats.

Is this the end of President Trump’s illusion about a grand bargain with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the beginning of a sober, long-term strategy?

Mr. Putin has prided himself on playing a strong game with weak cards. He sees plenty of opportunities to hobble his adversaries abroad and further cement his position at home. That requires engaging in an asymmetric game — relying on dark arts to make inroads in a brutish world, exploiting the vulnerabilities of open societies while highlighting the benefits of his closed one.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Senate Armed Services committee hearing about the Iran nuclear accord in 2015. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

MundoOriente Próximo,

As the two negotiators who initiated the secret talks that led to the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, we are intimately familiar with the deal’s strengths, its inevitable imperfections and the wider challenge posed by Iran.

In an ideal world, we would have erased Iran’s knowledge of the nuclear fuel cycle, eliminated its missile arsenal, stopped its dangerous use of proxies across the region, and transformed it into a less disruptive regional power.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. Diplomacy requires difficult compromises. And the nuclear deal achieved the best of the available alternatives. It cuts off Iran’s pathways to a bomb, sharply constrains its nuclear program for a long time, and provides for unprecedentedly strict monitoring and verification.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Russian flag flying at the annual International Military-Technical Forum in Kubinka, west of Moscow. Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto Agency

MundoAméricaEuropa, ,

In the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War, profound grievances, misperceptions and disappointments have often defined the relationship between the United States and Russia. I lived through this turbulence during my years as a diplomat in Moscow, navigating the curious mix of hope and humiliation that I remember so vividly in the Russia of Boris N. Yeltsin, and the pugnacity and raw ambition of Vladimir V. Putin’s Kremlin. And I lived through it in Washington, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations.

There have been more than enough illusions on both sides. The United States has oscillated between visions of an enduring partnership with Moscow and dismissing it as a sulking regional power in terminal decline.…  Seguir leyendo »

Internacional,

El Papa Francisco ha dicho que la corrupción es “la gangrena de un pueblo”. El secretario de Estado norteamericano, John Kerry, la ha definido como un “radicalizador” porque “destruye la fe en la autoridad legítima”. Y el primer ministro británico, David Cameron, la describió como “uno de los mayores enemigos del progreso en nuestro tiempo”.

La corrupción, en pocas palabras, es el abuso de la función pública para beneficio personal. Cada vez más, los líderes reconocen que es una amenaza para el desarrollo, la dignidad humana y la seguridad global. En la cumbre anticorrupción que se llevará a cabo en Londres el 12 de mayo, los líderes mundiales –junto con representantes de empresas y de la sociedad civil- tendrán una oportunidad crucial para actuar a partir de este reconocimiento.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

In a perfect world, there would be no nuclear enrichment in Iran, and its existing enrichment facilities would be dismantled. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We can’t wish or bomb away the basic know-how and enrichment capability that Iran has developed. What we can do is sharply constrain it over a long duration, monitor it with unprecedented intrusiveness, and prevent the Iranian leadership from enriching material to weapons grade and building a bomb.

Those are the goals that have animated recent American diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue, including during the back-channel talks with Iran that I led in Oman and other quiet venues in 2013.…  Seguir leyendo »