Posts Tagged ‘Secretary Clinton’
Secretary Clinton Nudges India to Embrace the Leadership Role
For many in India, Secretary Clinton’s visit this week was reassuring; reassuring that India was still United State’s most favored partner in the region. Secretary Clinton’s visit was part of the second annual India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue initiated last year. Strategic dimension of the interactions received maximum attention in the media and among analysts. The insistence on need for India to engage in leadership diplomacy in Asia was warmly welcomed. Moreover, agreements on small ticket items demonstrated the growing strength of bilateral relations.
Secretary Clinton’s Diaspora Engagement Alliance: Opportunities for the Indian Diaspora
In the same week that President Obama delivered his much awaited Middle East speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inaugurated the State Department’s new diplomatic outreach initiative - The Global Diaspora Forum held during May 17-19, 2011. The initiative, christened as idEA (International Diaspora Engagement Alliance) is based on simple understanding: Diaspora communities often have the local knowledge and contacts; U.S. Government agencies have the technical expertise, global presence, and convening power. Based on these complementarities, the State Department shall develop new diaspora-centric partnership models and undertaking new programs to encourage intra-diaspora collaboration and learning.
President Obama’s Diplomatic Outreach
The U.S. has for long sought to define and relate to its allies in unambiguous terms. President Bush epitomized this approach in his famous ‘either with us or against us’ speech and through his policy of pre-emption. The Obama Presidency appears to have opened with the objective of de-categorization of countries in U.S. foreign policy. President Obama is challenging the traditional tags for casting friends, enemies, competitors or facilitators while discarding the rigid criteria of ‘either with us or against us’. President Obama’s foreign policy approach puts Lord Palmerstone’s contention into action: “We have no permanent allies, we have no permanent enemies, we have only permanent interests.” This change of policy goes beyond a simple transition from Republican to Democratic administrations; it involves a transformation of global relations. Click to continue…