The US Fulbright Alumni Association has launched the "Stand for Fulbright" campaign, because "the Fulbright Program is facing an existential threat: The Administration has submitted a budget that would result in a 47% cut to the Fulbright Program for Fiscal Year 2018."
Continue reading ""The Fulbright Program is facing an existential threat”"Many headline writers are blowing Merkel’s statement about US and UK reliability out of proportion. Putin will be happy about the display of transatlantic division. I think Merkel’s comment could be very good for transatlantic relations in the mid-term.
She was speaking in a beer tent in Bavaria. Federal elections in four months. Merkel was making the case for a stronger EU and a more active German foreign policy. Her party is in favour of increasing defence spending and working towards NATO's goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. The second biggest party is questioning this goal, although they have been part of the coalition government which made this commitment in 2014.
Continue reading "Merkel and Germany Are Not Turning Away from America"Hillary Clinton is much more supportive of NATO and Europe than all the other presidential candidates. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton gave an impressive speech describing NATO as "one of the best investments America has ever made". She stressed the need for US leadership and collaboration with allies in the struggle against ISIS. Bernie Sanders has yet to give a major speech on NATO. Donald Trump's opinion on NATO reflects widely held sentiments in the US.
Hillary Clinton's speech was impressive because she spoke at Stanford on the Pacific coast, and not on the Atlantic. She spoke to students, not the old Cold War generation with a stronger attachment to Europe. Often accused of pandering to the desires and needs of her given audience, Hillary Clinton here did not talk about opportunities in Asia-Pacific region, but about the threats in Europe and the Middle East and the need for strong US engagement in these regions. Moreover, the speech comes shortly after recent statements by Donald Trump and President Obama who criticized Europeans as mainly free-riders on defense in interviews with Washington Post and The Atlantic respectively.
Continue reading "Clinton gives Atlanticist speech at the Pacific"Wouldn't it be best for the United States if Hillary Clinton would be the Republican nominee and Bernie Sanders the Democratic nominee?
Certainly the US would then be more like Germany and other European countries for better or worse...
Bernie Sanders would make a great Social Democrat in Europe, one with a business friendly attitude towards small and medium seized entreprises. Hillary Clinton could be center-left Conservative, more business-friendly than Angela Merkel.
Continue reading "If the US Presidential Candidates Would Run for Office in Europe"I think it's great that Political Science professors testify in Congress from time to time. This happens far to rarely in Germany! The quality of Stephen Walt's testimony on the future of the EU, however, is underwhelming.
He describes at length five well-known EU problems/facts and then presents three scenarios. His most likely scenario for the EU is to muddle through as in the past. How brilliant or surprising is that? He also warns of the scenario that the EU might gradually unravel. He describes an optimistic scenario for a reinvigorated EU, that he considers unlikely.
Foreign Policy magazine apparently feels the need to maximize profit with clickbait, so they use the headline "Does Europe Have a Future?" for Walt's article based on his testimony. Professor Walt seems to distance himself from this sensationalism by tweeting a clarification: "To be clear: Europe does have a future. But as I told Congress, just not a very bright one."
Five quick comments and questions:
Continue reading "Does US Punditry about Europe Have a Future?"In this video produced by the German Fulbright Alumni Association in 2014 former German and US grantees talk about the relevance of their exchange experience and their reasons to get involved with the Alumni Association.
The video captures the importance of the Fulbright program quite well. Authentic, personal, no exaggerations. After watching it, you will probably want to get in touch with the German Fulbright Alumni Association or learn how to get a Fulbright grant: For Germans going to US, for Americans going to Germany, for all other nationalities and destinations.
The last link takes you to the State Department and promotes the Fulbright Program as "the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. (...) Currently, the Fulbright Program operates in over 160 countries worldwide." Most programs with rich countries are financed jointly. The German-American Fulbright program has received 2.6 Mio EUR from the State Department and US Host Institutions, but the much larger amount of 5.6 Mio EUR from Germany's federal and regional governments in 2013/2014. 332 Americans and 408 Germans received grants in that academic year.
The American Fulbright Alumni Association has just released this promotional video:
Continue reading "Fulbrighters Reflect on their Exchange Year"Many organizations give awards to prominent people, who have already received dozens in the past. Sometimes it seems the purpose is not to honor the recipient of the award, but to use his or her fame to shine a light on the organization that is bestowing the award. Many also combine the awards ceremony with a fundraising dinner.
Not so the German Fulbright Alumni Association, which awarded the Mulert Award on Mutual Understanding 2015 to this blog. I will keep you post regarding the project that I will implement.
Continue reading "Atlantic Review Receives the Fulbright Association's Mulert Award"The Pew Research Center's transatlantic survey indicates a high degree of security complacency and a lack of solidarity across NATO member publics. Evidently, the Atlantic Community is still a distant future, with this vision being marred by an absence of real unity. We must encourage more policy dialogue between citizens throughout Europe and across the Atlantic and thereby create empathy and a shared identity.
Many in the European publics, especially the Germans, take US support for granted, feel comfortable as security free-riders, and don't seem to understand NATO's concept of collective defense. From the Pew Research Center:
Americans and Canadians are the only publics where more than half think their country should use military action if Russia attacks a fellow NATO member (56% and 53%, respectively). Germans (58%) are the most likely to say their country should not. All NATO member publics are more likely to think the United States will come to an ally's defense (median of 68%) than to be willing to do so themselves. (…) Poles stand out as less certain that the U.S. would come to an ally's aid (49% would, 31% would not).
This is quite troubling and disconcerting as only a friend in need is a friend indeed. But, according to this poll, we are not even „fair weather friends", as we oppose solidarity already, before a NATO ally has even been attacked. Coming to each other's defense is the most basic principle of a friendship or partnership. Failing to do so is obviously infinitely worse than a disagreement about out-of-area missions or specific strategies.
Continue reading "NATO Solidarity: Atlantic Community is a Vision, not yet a Reality"