For better or worse, the word most associated with President Obama’s foreign policy is “engagement.” Many in the United States and throughout the world perceived the Bush administration as heavy-handed, abrasive, and too unwilling to listen to other nations’ hopes, fears, and perspectives.

Some are saying that The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg’s digital pen brought down CNN veteran Middle East editor Octavia Nasr. It’s clear that Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings brought down Afghanistan commander General Stanley McChrystal — perhaps with a strong assist from this piece.

As I wrote a few days ago, I was informed that alleged Russian spy Mikhail Semenko had my business card. Turns out I had his information as well in my personal lap top and had hoped to meet him before my next trip to China — as his blog on the Chinese economy interested me….

Yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, cosponsored by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, I spoke on a panel focused on “Smart Power” with a heavy emphasis on the Afghanistan War.

(Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America) This is a guest post by Anya Landau French, who directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.

(Photo Credit: Flickr) Conflicts Forum Director Alastair Crooke recently wrote a strikingly original article in The Washington Quarterly on the Middle East’s shifting strategic landscape.

The opening forum at the political celebrity and policy wonk packed Aspen Ideas Festival which opened yesterday was titled “The Financial Crisis: Will It Lead to America’s Decline?” and featured historian Niall Ferguson, US News & World Report owner and real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, and presidential adviser David Gergen.

This terrific view was sent in this morning by TWN reader and communications diva Kate Brown from Minot Beach, Massachusetts.

Michael Steele is right on Afghanistan. The Republican National Committee Chairman, who is receiving a heap of scorn by war-hungry members of his party and by Democrats who want to puff up and act like the real defenders of the Pentagon faith, called the conflict in Afghanistan “a war of Obama’s choosing.” Former George W….

I learned today that recently arrested, alleged Russian spy Mikhail Semenko had my business card. “Really?!” I asked. “Really,” I was told back.