Diplomatic protocol can be very tricky. Should you seat the ambassador of India ahead of the ambassador from China? Do you greet Roman Catholic cardinals before or after the governor of Guam? These things often seem silly to Americans who have spent many years perfecting the art of informality. But for much of the world, improper protocol signals disrespect. And the Obama Administration has recently been caught in some foreign relations protocol gaffes.

First was President Obama's meeting with United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The schedule was shuffled in a way that made the British feel they were being slighted. Then there was an awkward exchange of gifts where Prime Minister Brown brought some very impressive historical pieces and President Obama presented an uninspired group of 25 Hollywood DVDs. The Browns reportedly also brought nice clothes for the Obama children, while the Obamas sent a much less expensive model of Marine One to the Brown household.

Now when this happened, I was inclined to believe it was either a rookie mistake by the new White House or a calculated effort to distance the president from Prime Minister Brown since Brown is widely believed to be on his way out of office in Britain. But now a couple of other incidents make me worried that the problem is truly a lack of attention.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had her first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, she presented him with what was supposed to be a funny gift with a big message. She gave him a "reset" button because the United States has said it wants to "reset" the U.S.-Russian relationship. The button had the English word "reset" printed on it beside what was supposed to be the Russian word for reset. But it was the wrong Russian word.

Most recently, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also received some slipshod treatment. Keep in mind that Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with growing clout on the world stage. And President Lula (as he is know) is personally well-liked by world leaders across the board. But the White House bungled his schedule and then spelled his name wrong.

Writing for Foreign Policy.com about the Lula visit, Joshua Keating wrote:

I'm sure he'll feel better when he gets his DVDs. I know Obama's got bigger things to worry about, but there is a whole office of protocol that's supposed to take care of these things. If they can put together a Stevie Wonder concert, they should be able to arrange White House visits from the world's most important leaders with a little more class than this.

In the old days (during the Cold War), the U.S. relationship with Russia was the most important thing in the world. Back then the best and the brightest American Foreign Service Officers were put to work on Soviet issues. All other assignments were considered the minor leagues. Today, the stakes are not nearly so high, but when the new U.S. Secretary of State has her first meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister it is still a big deal.

That meeting happened last week, and it unfortunately started with a stupid little American gaffe. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a gag gift of what was supposed to be a reset button. This was a reference to Vice President Joe Biden's call for the United States and Russia to reset their relationship following eight years of the Bush Administration. But the Russian word printed on the button actually meant "overcharge" rather than "reset." Lavrov apparently laughed and later made a joke about the need to teach Russian in American schools.

Most accounts indicate the rest of the meeting went well with both sides agreeing to begin nuclear arms reduction talks which could lead to massive cuts for both sides. The Daily Beast, however, said Clinton had tough words for Russia.

Whatever the tone, it could have been much worse if a different Russian foreign policy expert had been there. Igor Panarin, dean of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy, says the United States is on the brink of collapse, according to a story from the Associated Press:

If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the U.S. will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order. "There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy—a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.

President Raul Castro is shaking things up in Cuba. But with everything on the plate of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, I thought it might be quite some time before they were able to focus on U.S.-Cuba policy... a policy largely unchanged since 1962. However, with a little nudge from an important Republican, small signs of change are in the air.

First, Cuba policy made a little noticed appearance in Secretary Clinton's confirmation hearings. In that process, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) submitted many written questions to Clinton, including several on Cuba. In one response she wrote:

"We anticipate a review of US policy regarding Cuba and look forward to working with members of the Committee and other members of Congress as we move forward to the consideration of appropriate steps to take to help advance US interests and values in the context of relations with Cuba."

Second, Lugar, who is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just released a report titled "Changing Cuba Policy -- In the United States National Interest." Steve Clemons at The Washington Note said:

"For US-Cuba policy junkies, the report is pretty breathtaking in its indictment of decades of American failure in trying to adjust Cuba's national government's behavior via sanctions and an embargo."

Next, Jake Colvin at Democracy Arsenal says President Obama has the prerogative to make fairly substantial changes in this area without Congressional approval. He wrote:

President Obama retains wide discretion to make significant changes to U.S. Cuba policy, as Presidents Clinton and Bush demonstrated.

And finally, the U.S. House of Representatives voted last month to ease some travel and trade restrictions on Cuba. The bill, which still needs U.S. Senate approval, would make it a little easier for Cuba to do agricultural business with the United States and it would allow a little more freedom to Americans hoping to visit family members living in Cuba.

One more note: The BBC web site recently asked users, "Should the US rethink the Cuban embargo?" They received nearly 1500 comments before closing off the discussion.

More:

• Is Removal of Cuba From "State Sponsors" List Inevitable?, from Counterterrorism Blog
• Rethinking U.S.-Cuba policy, editorial from the Chattanooga Times
• Baby Steps On Cuba, from The Americas Quarterly

The organizational charts and Constitutional pecking order make policymaking look like such an orderly, refined process. The truth, of course, is much messier... even inside the presidential cabinet room. Case in point: Who runs U.S. policy regarding China?

On one level, U.S.-China relations are far too big to be run by one person or one agency. But a battle is brewing in Washington, DC over who takes the lead on big, top level, strategic decisions on the relationship.

In one corner is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Now it should seem natural that the nation's top diplomat be in charge of U.S. relations with a giant like China. But not so fast.

During the Bush Administration, China policy was basically run from the Treasury Department under the direction of Henry Paulson. And the new Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, might want to keep it that way. Secretary Clinton has let it be known that U.S. relations with China should involve a broader agenda than economics.

Secretary Clinton earned high marks for her Asia visit last week. But the bigger policy battle may still be unfolding back at home in Washington, DC.

More:

• U.S. Treasury's lead role on China in doubt, from the International Herald Tribune
• Earth to the New York Times: Clinton's China policy isn't new, from Foreign Policy
• A U.S. Asia strategy for Hillary Clinton's trip, from Foreign Policy
• Clinton's agenda, beyond the money thing, from GlobalPost

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair appeared before Congress last week and said the number one threat to America is no longer terrorism. "The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications," he said.

The economic crisis is leading to unrest, violence, and instability in a number of countries. "In recent years, it seems we've had more security problems from states that have been in trouble than we have from strong states that have been an adversary to us in the traditional way," added Blair.

International relations experts call these unstable countries "fragile states." Countries that have gone all the way around the bend are termed "failed states." And they are a serious and growing threat. These places tend to be where bloodshed, starvation, refugees, and disease pandemics thrive. They are also havens for organized crime, human trafficking, black market goods, and terrorist recruitment and training.

Somalia is the most glaring example at the moment. There is no functioning government there, so pirates are free to use it as a base for disrupting global trade and successfully collecting multimillion dollar ransoms.

More about fragile and failed states:

• The Failed States Index, from The Fund for Peace
• Fixing a broken world: Failed States, from The Economist
• Fixing Fragile States, by Seth Kaplan

In a speech last week in Munich, Germany, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spelled out the Obama Administration's plan for American foreign policy in the coming four years. Although the speech heralded a major shift away from Bush Administration concepts and policies, nothing here was very surprising

Biden promised greater consultation with Europe, a new relationship with Russia, and a need to communicate with Iran. He also asked for help in finishing the war in Afghanistan and housing prisoners left in Guantanamo.

Two important quotes:

"We believe that international alliances and organizations do not diminish America's power. We believe they help us advance our collective security, economic interests and our values. So we'll engage. We'll listen. We'll consult."

And...

"We will continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven and it is cost effective. We will do so in consultation with you our NATO allies and with Russia."

The speech was presented at the Munich Security Conference where a day earlier, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani used the same podium to blast the United States. Christian Brose of ForeignPolicy.com was there for the speech and posted this review:

"Larijani launched into a 20-minute rant about America's many historical sins against Iran, enumerating them as he went, beginning in 1958 with the backing of the Shah (#1) and continuing on up to the recent war in Gaza (#10 as I recall). Presumably this was just the abridged, modern history. Surely the Declaration of Independence was an affront to Persian dignity and an attempt to destabilize the Zand dynasty. With National Security Advisor James Jones sitting stoically in the front row, Larijani went on and on like this..."

The potential U.S. opening to Iran, discussed here last week, seems more and more like a long shot.

Foreign policy circles have been buzzing over a possible opening in the U.S. relationship with Iran.

During his campaign, President Barack Obama famously said he would talk to enemies. Now according to a story in The Guardian, the United States is drafting a letter to the people of Iran:

"Officials of Barack Obama's administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned."

Experts say the most important thing about the letter is that it would offer security guarantees to Iran and assure them the United States is not trying to overthrow the Iranian government.

On the other side, some reports say former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami will run again for the office this June. Khatami was known as a reformer, and some Iran experts think the United States missed a major opportunity during Khatemi's presidency to improve U.S.-Iran relations. Re-election of Khatami, plus a new American willingness to talk, may mean the planets have come into alignment for a new era in this contentious relationship.

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen offers President Obama sage advice on how to proceed.

Several years ago, the stodgy old journal called Foreign Policy turned itself into a slick, but still serious, magazine. It won several awards and many new readers due to that effort.

Now Foreign Policy has done the same thing online. A couple of weeks ago, they fully renovated their web site and turned it into a real hub of expert opinion and dialogue on U.S. foreign policy. They still have the fantastic Passport blog. And they have added a team of new bloggers, like Arab media expert Marc Lynch. Another blog, titled Madame Secretary, is devoted to covering Hillary Clinton's term as secretary of state.

On the site, you can obviously subscribe to each of the new blogs separately, but there is no way to subscribe to all of them at once. So I created my own mash up of the feeds into one uber-feed. Drop this link into your blog reader and get all of Foreign Policy's goodness in one RSS stream.

Over five years ago, the world lost an amazing diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The life of this peacemaker was turned into a book, Chasing the Flame by Samantha Power, and an HBO documentary released this week at the Sundance Film Festival. A Hollywood movie is also in the works.

The book and the movies are the most high profile parts of a larger campaign aimed at using Sergio's ideals to create smarter American foreign policy. The centerpiece is the web site chasingtheflame.org:

In the months ahead, we'll be using the momentum generated by these media products to embark on a new campaign designed to educate Americans on Sergio’s life and lessons... and using his story to ignite a dynamic constituency that demands a smarter foreign policy for the United States. Fueled by the trilogy of media projects, this campaign will educate, connect and activate a new constituency using an advanced online presence and a series of offline initiatives including in-person events and media outreach.

Sergio died on August 19, 2003 when a massive bomb destroyed the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters. He was leading the UN operation there as he had in many countries before. I am very happy to see Sergio's life not only remembered and honored today, but to see his service and his ideals celebrated as well.

More than 145 members of the U.S. foreign policy community are issuing an open letter to the Obama Administration today. The letter, organized by the Connect U.S. Fund, calls for "...a renewed commitment to international cooperation."

"This includes a willingness to practice at home the standards we encourage others to follow overseas, to recognize and respond to the concerns of our friends, allies and other major stakeholders on global issues that are critical to our common long term well-being, and to strengthen the capacity of international institutions to address key global challenges."

The letter calls for specific action in four different areas:

• Repair U.S. credibility and influence on international human rights and humanitarian law
• Establish U.S. leadership on international efforts to address climate change
• Reduce the threat of nuclear war and weapons proliferation

Read the full letter. Read the list of signatories.