Editor's note: Kenneth Lieberthal is senior fellow and director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. He served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia on the National Security Council from August 1998 to October 2000. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, "Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy."

By Kenneth Lieberthal - Special to CNN

Pretty much everything has changed in U.S.-China relations since Richard Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai signed the Shanghai Communiqué 40 years ago on February 21, 1972.

Nixon's goals were purely geostrategic. By cultivating China, he sought most of all to put pressure on North Vietnam to come to terms to achieve his promised "peace with honor" there, hopefully before the November election. He also sought, through China, to pressure Moscow to embrace détente and thus put America in the catbird seat in relations with the two communist behemoths.

China had different priorities - most of all, Beijing wanted to stiffen President Nixon's spine to oppose Soviet aggression and therefore to reduce Moscow's threat to China. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Dr. James M. Lindsay is a Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Visit his blog here and follow him on Twitter.

By James M. Lindsay, CFR.org

Foreign service officers posted in embassies and consulates around the world send cables to Washington every day. Much of what they write is forgotten even before it is read at the State Department. A few cables gain notoriety when they are leaked to the public. Almost none help change the course of history. But the cable that George F. Kennan sent to his  State Department superiors from Moscow on February 22, 1946 did just that.

Hopes in the United States were high during the winter of 1945-46. World War II had ended with the defeat of Japan and Nazi Germany. Many Americans expected that Washington would build on the relationship with its wartime ally, the Soviet Union. They shared the conclusion that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower reached visiting Moscow in 1945:  “Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.” But by late fall 1945 the alliance began to unravel as Moscow pushed to carve out a sphere of influence in the Balkans, a prelude to what would become Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

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By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

When you think of Switzerland, the image that comes to mind is pristine, clean, unlittered. In fact, no one dares litter in Switzerland for fear of a huge fine.

Well, now they've taken their cleanliness to a new level - out of this world, you might say. The Swiss have decided they are going to clean up outer space.

Clean Space One announced this week by the Swiss Space Center will be a "janitor satellite" whose mission will be to tidy up the upper atmosphere.

There are said to be more than 500,000 pieces of space junk up there. When they're done with space, I'd love for them to pay a visit to my office.

Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

The three traditional pillars ofWashington's strategy for the Middle East have long been energy security, the security ofIsrael, and protecting ‘friendly leaders’. In the last decade, countering terrorism became another pillar. Pursuing all four of these pillars simultaneously has always been challenging.  The last year of political upheavals in the region has made the balancing act even trickier.

Washington’s policymakers remain stuck in a reactive mode, struggling to understand what the future might hold forU.S.interests in the region. Whereas most Middle East governments had fairly positive relations withWashingtona year ago, their successors keeping their distance. Untested populists are coming to power with different priorities from their predecessors. Previously friendly rulers are more wary ofU.S.ties, or are making things awkward for relations by cracking down on civic groups. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Syrian security forces continued a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters and opposition forces in the central city of Homsfor the twentieth straight day, killing nine Syrians and two foreign journalists (al-Jazeera). A U.S. reporter with the UK's Sunday Times, Marie Colvin, and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed when Syrian forces shelled a makeshift media center in the Bab Amr neighborhood. The opposition Syrian National Council said Wednesday that "military intervention" may be the only solution to ending President Bashar al-Assad's deadly, year-long assault. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Ana Palacio is a former Spanish foreign minister and former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank. For more from Palacio, visit Project Syndicate or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

By Ana Palacio, Project Syndicate

Robert Zoellick’s announcement that he will not seek reelection as President of the World Bank has focused attention on whether the tradition of putting an American in charge will or should endure. But, legitimate as that question is, it is just a minor aspect of the debate that is needed about the World Bank’s role in the twenty-first century.

During its 67 years, the Bank has outgrown its original design with the addition of an arbitration court and three specialist financial institutions: one for the private sector, the International Financial Corporation; another, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, to insure against political risks; and the International Development Agency, which funds the poorest countries. The World Bank has become the World Bank Group, though its founding pillar, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), remains at its center. And that is the problem. FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Michigan State University and Adjunct Scholar at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

By Mohammed Ayoob – Special to CNN

Recent reports coming out of New Delhi indicate that India does not intend to comply with the unilateral economic sanctions imposed upon Iran by the United States and the European Union.  In fact, the opposite may be true.  India may attempt to take advantage of new opportunities in Iran created by the sanctions imposed on oil sales and financial transactions by Western powers.

The Indian Commerce Secretary announced a few days ago, “We will be mounting a mission to Iran at the end of the month to promote our own exports. A huge delegation will be going.” While acknowledging that India was honoring the four rounds of sanctions imposed upon Iran by the United Nations, the Indian official made clear that India was not willing to go along with the American-European sanctions. He asked rhetorically, “Tell me why I should follow suit? Why shouldn’t I take up that business opportunity?” FULL POST

Editor's Note: R. Nicholas Burns is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. He served as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008. Previously, he was U.S. ambassador to NATO. The following piece was originally published at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government “Power and Policy” blog. 

By R. Nicholas Burns

The Indian government’s ill-advised statement last week that it will continue to purchase oil from Iran is a major setback for the U.S. attempt to isolate the Iranian government over the nuclear issue.

The New York Times reported recently that Indian authorities are actively aiding Indian firms to avoid current sanctions by advising them to pay for Iranian oil in Indian rupees. It may go even further by agreeing to barter deals with Iran – all to circumvent the sanctions regime carefully constructed by the U.S. and its friends and allies. According to the Times, India now has the dubious distinction of being the leading importer of Iranian oil.

This is bitterly disappointing news for those of us who have championed a close relationship with India. And, it represents a real setback in the attempt by the last three American Presidents to establish a close and strategic partnership with successive Indian governments. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Ambassador Stephen Bosworth was United States Special Representative for North Korea Policy from March 2009 to October 2011. He has also served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea, the Philippines and Tunisia. Currently, he serves as Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Amar C. Bakshi: What do you make of Kim Jong-un?

Stephen Bosworth: He is an unknown quality.  We don't know exactly how old he is.  He spent a couple of years in Switzerland, studying at a middle school there where he was portrayed as the son of the embassy chauffeur.

I can’t believe that he’s going to have any real authority within the system in North Korea without the concurrence of all senior military and civilian leaders.  They’re not engaged in some sort of a suicide mission.  They’re not about to turn their fate over to a 28-year-old or 29-year-old untested person, even if he is Kim Jong-il’s son and Kim Il-sung’s grandson. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Sir James Dyson is a British industrial designer and founder ofDyson Company. Fareed Zakaria recently interviewed 

By James Dyson - Special to CNN

Last week, President Obama granted 10 states freedom from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The decade-old act holds states to a 2014 deadline to have all students deemed proficient in reading and math.

Even as the standards were enacted, its authors weren’t optimistic. They’d hoped the U.S. Congress would have stepped in to develop a more robust educational measure. The aim of the act was noble: To ensure American students were educated to a level at which they could compete with their global peers. But the method is flawed. Standardization does not inspire.

Two years shy of the deadline, the Obama Administration has given states an out, but not before setting its own benchmarks. To be exempted, states must agree to college- and career-ready standards, set new achievement standards and create new teacher evaluation systems.

The waivers signal a shift in the right direction. But do the new terms simply trade one yardstick for another?

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