After the 2010 elections, it’s not exactly news that Obama has lost America. But in a less public referendum, he also lost the world. Obama’s cocktail party tour of the world’s capitals may look impressive on a map, but is irrelevant on a policy level.

Last week, Republican members who had pledged to support the fiscal year 2011 Omnibus Appropriations Bill changed their minds and chose instead to walk in lockstep with the House and Senate Republican leaders who believe that freezing spending at the fiscal year 2010 level is good politics.

Bill Richardson, a former US presidential candidate and currently governor of out-of-the-way New Mexico, grabbed world headlines over the weekend. He travelled to North Korea and, amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, announced a wide-ranging deal with Kim Jong-il's regime.

...Thanks to an unwritten agreement between Holbrooke and Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the American Cultural Center in Belgrade, closed by order of the US government through its now-defunct United States Information Agency in the mid-1990s, was reopened not long after the 1995 Dayton Peace accord -- with Milosevic footing the bill!

The strategic nuclear arms treaty passed a key procedural hurdle on Tuesday when the Senate voted to bring the weapons pact between the United States and Russia to the floor of the Senate for a final vote.

The United States–which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month–is doing things a bit differently in the chamber today. About two weeks ago, Ambassador Rice solicited feedback from young people around the world for the kinds of topics and issues they would like taken up by the Security Council.

On Dec. 15, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rolled out the State Department's first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) at an internal town hall meeting -- a year behind schedule. No surprise, it turns out to be more of a public relations document than a disciplined strategic review.