The discourse surrounding drone strikes in the FATA region has always been complex. At least, that is what the New America Foundation’s Peter Bergen said recently, a revelation that was backed by a statement from an unnamed official in Islamabad. With a sharp decline in the number of drone strikes from 2010 onwards, and no strikes at all so far in 2014, it seems as if the Obama administration, ahead of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2016, has finally decided to wrap up the CIA drone campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

President Barack Obama wants America’s friends and allies not only to remain tightly tied together, but to grow the group in order to make sure shared democratic values and open markets are defended and promoted. Most importantly, he wants to make sure America and her collective is unbreakable. What we are witnessing is the end of “big-stick” policy. This is the era of bundled “little-stick” politics.

On Thursday, French President Francois Hollande will host foreign dignitaries to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-day. And the celebration will conclude with a state dinner — or, rather, two state dinners. Officials told the AP that President Hollande will eat twice, once with President Obama and then again at a late dinner with Russian President Putin. 

President Obama urged the world Wednesday to help Ukraine as it faces economic challenges, Russian threats and separatist violence in the eastern and southern regions. "We're confident that Ukraine can, in fact, be a thriving, vital democracy that has strong relationships with Europe and has strong relationships with Russia," Obama said after his first face-to-face meeting with Ukraine President-elect Petro Poroshenko.

President Barack Obama is set to take his boldest step to halt the rise of the oceans and stop the warming of the planet. It won’t be enough unless the rest of the world follows. Trimming carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 25 percent in coming decades, as Obama is said to be proposing, would be more than overwhelmed by increases in China andIndia where coal-fired power plants are springing up and new cars are rolling out of showrooms.

America should provide global leadership with less recourse to military might in future, Barack Obama announced on Wednesday, proposing a new foreign policy doctrine focused on soft power diplomacy and launching financial grants to fight terrorism through international partnerships instead.

In his commencement address at West Point, Obama will ask Congress to support a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF), a White House release said. The United States is setting up a $5 billion “terrorism partnership fund” to help other countries push back against radical extremists, President Obama will announce Wednesday. “It will allow us to pursue a more sustainable and effective approach to combating terrorism that focuses on empowering and enabling our partners around the globe,” the release said.

Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who swept the country’s election results on Friday, has started to appear decidedly more prime ministerial by the day. Over the past few days, he has taken to Twitter to thank foreign leaders for their support, but the order in which he thanked them and one notable omission, later rectified, was more interesting than the content of the tweets themselves.