The word empire has been in the news recently, and with good reason. With an election underway in the US which will (once again) determine how America projects itself in the world, the widespread reaction to a single film has placed those men and women who embody America’s power around the world in highly dangerous …

The agreement over the weekend in Geneva signals the first steps to a coherent policy from the international community towards the Assad regime. Syria is one example of the new challenges facing the UK foreign policy following two years of rapid economic and political change. The scale of those changes has been unprecedented, from the …

Nato leaders gathered in Chicago this week to discuss the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan and announced summer 2013 as the handover date to Afghan troops. But the alliance also met to discuss its own future amid savage defence cuts among almost all of its members. So is the Afghan war the last major Nato deployment …

As a fragile ceasefire begins in Syria, the UN is beginning its task of monitoring the violence and reporting back what we already know: that Assad is convinced his way to hang on to power is to kill his own people in their thousands. The international community has condemned his actions, and this week further …

As the decade-long mission in Afghanistan comes to an end, now might be the time to start asking what the lessons are from the Nato mission for future humanitarian intervention efforts and specifically how important it is to have an exit plan for future mission success. Afghanistan has had a complicated history, and the current …

First off, I’d like to pay tribute to the well-argued and thoughtful views that Alex Bigham has set out in this column for the past three years. I’m really pleased to be picking up where he left off. Alex helped keep foreign affairs on the party’s agenda during the post-Iraq years. I think most members …

Everywhere the nation-state is in flux. From global businesses that have more spending power than many countries, to protesters using social networks to bypass the forces of law and order, the state monopoly of power is under challenge. Why, then, does the dream of nationhood still captivate the aspirations of those denied it, whether in …

It is not that often that foreign policy provides an opportunity for campaigning activity. Major issues of injustice occasionally capture the public imagination – like Joanna Lumley’s championing of the Gurkhas or Bob Geldof’s attempts to end world poverty. However, there is an issue that should unite progressives in anger: the plight of Afghani interpreters. …