GAO examined risks related to extreme heat and wind, water stress, flooding, earthquakes, landslides and tsunami. State began assessing these hazards as part of a Climate Security and Resilience program established during the Trump administration. Check out their interactive map of the posts at risk . What's at risk? 90,000 personnel, and properties valued at approximately $70 billion. Who's most at risk? Beyond Manila-based staff, 16 of the 32 most at-risk posts are in East Asia and the Pacific. Other major at-risk posts include Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Bangkok, Mexico City, Cairo and Islamabad. SPORTS DIPLOMACY CORNER Did you know? Secretary of State Antony Blinken is a "very mediocre player" but a "lifelong lover of football" — that's soccer here in the states — according to remarks he made earlier this week while in Qatar to talk about sports diplomacy. Blinken didn't have much to say about exactly how sports and American participation in the Qatar World Cup is promoting American values and interests beyond saying "we use sports as a way of connecting people, connecting people to our country." Left unsaid: On Monday Blinken didn't jump in to defend American beer brand Budweiser, which Qatar banished from most parts of the tournament, or speak to the difficulty players have faced making anti-discrimination statements in a country where homosexual acts are illegal. His reticence may have been due to the fact that Qatar has proven a very helpful partner to the Biden administration, including helping the U.S. process Afghans rescued after the fall of Kabul. On Tuesday, Blinken slammed FIFA for threatening World Cup soccer players with yellow cards if they wear armbands in support of diversity. "No one on a football pitch should be forced to choose between supporting these values and playing for their team." Silence can speak volumes: Sometimes no voice is the best voice — as when Iran's soccer team failed to sing the Iranian regime's national anthem ahead of their first match Monday. Gucci Helle strikes back: Former Danish PM Helle Thorning Schmidt, who critics derided as " Gucci Helle " during her political career because of her expensive fashion tastes — and who once responded to a political heckler with " we can't all look like shit " — put her fashion bona fides to the service of equality Tuesday. Thorning-Schmit used her suit to get a pro-LGBTQ point across when meeting with Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, soccer's global governing body. RESTRAINERS UNRESTRAINED ON PACKER Veteran journalist George Packer is out this week with a major Atlantic essay that essentially trashes the left-right alliance of so-called "restrainers" — people who, for various reasons, want the U.S. to reduce its military intervention abroad. There's no easy way to summarize Packer's many points, but here's a key bit: "This restraint is not a hard-won prudence in the face of tragic facts. It's a doctrinaire refusal, by people living in the safety and comfort of the West, to believe in liberal values that depend on American support. The restrainers can't accept that politics leaves no one clean, and that the most probable alternative to U.S. hegemony is not international peace and justice but worse hegemons. They can't face the reality that force never disappears from the world; it simply changes hands." Ouch. Your co-host asked some restrainers to respond. A sampling of their comments: Will Ruger , president of the American Institute for Economic Research: "Restrainers didn't take seriously that Russia might invade Ukraine? Baloney. Many of us worried about this for over a decade and thought a Russian invasion was a real possibility the more the West pushed its influence east. This is part of the reason why we advocated measures like closing NATO's open door and finding an alternative security architecture for eastern Europe." Stephen Wertheim , senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: "The Biden administration has done well to support Ukraine while avoiding a direct war with Russia. Many 'restrainers,' including me, approve of its basic approach — contra Packer. The problem is that the United States is only more militarily overcommitted today than it was when Biden took office, given the mounting risks of major-power conflict in Europe and Asia alike." Emma Ashford , senior fellow at the Stimson Center: "He's incredibly dismissive about realist or restrainers' concerns about the war in Ukraine, arguing it is a simple refusal to see liberal values as important. Most people I know in that camp believe liberal values are extremely important, but also worry about escalation risks, nuclear weapons, and the potential for the US to get drawn into a direct conflict with Russia." Stephen Miles , president of Win Without War: "The biggest thing missing is the utter dominance of American imperialism as the overarching ideology of U.S. foreign policy. … Ultimately, one can believe the U.S. has a role to play in the world (even a really big role!) while recognizing that we can also [mess] things up, and also that some things just aren't really about us. The world is complex, even if our discourse doesn't allow for it."
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