Does the United States legally not recognize phds from any specific country? For example, If I got a PhD from a school in Pakistan or North Korea would the United States still legally recognize it?
No. Nor would the United States recognize your degree if you got them from the UK or France, or even from within the United States. The United States does not legally protect or sanction PhD holders as such, and has no role in the awarding of nor forming guidelines for PhD programs (other than funding, directly or indirectly, much of the research that is required). Your comments suggest that you think there are legal issues with falsely claiming to hold a doctorate; there are not, outside of normal fraud concerns for deception (wherein someone relies on you or your expertise to their detriment, based on your ), which can affect legitimate doctorate holder's as well (for example, someone with a doctorate in Music presenting themselves as an expert in Economics, for the purposes of soliciting investments, say). For example there are a variety of performers who do not hold doctorates, but legally have stage names containing "Doctor" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stage_names has a dozen), because they are committing fraud in doing so (a claim of "I liked this song when I thought it was written by a PhD" would be laughed out of court, because holding a PhD has no bearing on musical composition). There are, however, legal issues with falsely claiming to be a member of certain legally regulated and licensed professions in the United States, such as lawyers and physicians. I believe that this is the source of your confusion, as these professions often have protected titles that contain the term "doctor", such as physicians (MD, for Medical Doctor, and dentists(DDS, for Doctor of Dental Surgery). It should also be noted that physicians are almost universally addressed as "Doctor", but very few actually hold doctorates, the MD being a non-academic professional degree that doesn't require doing any new research.
In the US, it is illegal to sell screwdrivers to Gaza without a license, see 31 CFR 595.409. There are numerous rules pertaining to the Palestinian Authority staring here. Dept. of State has a partial list of countries and their associated restrictions, if you want "like Gaza", and note that they warn you that this is not a complete list. If you are specifically interested in weapons-related restrictions, the US Munitions List is here. There is no generic "anti-drone" system, so you would have to look at the specifics of a system to see if it is on the restricted list, or not.
There is a relevant rule, the "posting rule", according to which an acceptance is effective once posted (this is a quirk of acceptances). This would be as soon after 7 May 2016 as Bobby sent his letter, presumably well before the deadline. So yes, a professional lawyer would be needed. If Bobby is in Australia, it might be more complicated; if Bobby is in Norway, it's simpler because they don't have the posting rule.
The United States would be one such country. I'm sure it is not the only one. In the case of countries with constitutional courts there is basically no one to second guess their interpretations which is also true when the apex court in a country provides an opinion. Since no one can overrule many of these courts, they are allowed to do what they want.
If both parties are legal, permanent residents of California, their marriage is recognized under Californian law no matter where it originated (provided that the marriage doesn’t violate Californian law, e.g. if Alice were a minor). Alice and Bob would file for divorce in California and the matter would be adjudicated under a Californian court and under Californian law. After these proceedings, Alice and Bob would still be married in Afghanistan (and maybe other foreign countries? That’s a tricky question, so if someone else can figure it out please leave a comment!) but the US would cease to recognize the marriage. In no case would either a Californian or Afghan court make a ruling under the other’s laws. As far as child custody, property, etc. the divorce would essentially proceed as a normal divorce case, although things could become complicated if Alice and Bob own property in Afghanistan, which would usually still be able to be appropriated by a Californian court but, once again, the matter is complex since Afghanistan still recognizes the marriage. As you can tell, a divorce of this nature is not as complicated as one might think, but nevertheless could create some complicated legal situations. Also, marriage is regulated state-by-state, so other states may have different rules regarding foreign marriages. As always, the best path of action is to consult an attorney who specializes in divorce. Edit: A commenter brought up the issue of whether California would recognize a marriage where both parties weren’t present. While this varies by state, California generally doesn’t allow so-called “proxy marriage” unless one of the parties is deployed in the military.
As long as they have diplomatic immunity, they don't have a residency status. If either parent didn't have diplomatic immunity, then the child is a subject to the jurisdiction and they become a citizen at birth. The short explanation with the reasoning can be found on the uscis website. Namely Children born in the United States to accredited foreign diplomatic officers do not acquire citizenship under the 14th Amendment since they are not “born . . . subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” and If one parent was an accredited diplomat, but the other was a U.S. citizen or non-citizen U.S. national, then the child was “born . . . subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” and is a citizen.
Any duty that exists is not legally enforceable in the courts in the U.S. (there are one or two cases in Canada imposing a similar duty in extraordinary rendition cases). Also, the arguably legal duty to provide diplomatic assistance to one's citizens doesn't apply in countries like North Korea where the U.S. has no diplomats. In practice, the U.S. government will do everything reasonably within its power to secure the release of a U.S. citizen held by a hostile foreign power (even a U.S. citizen who has behaved badly), because that's in the DNA of how the U.S. State Department always acts. But, at this point, short of an extreme Special Operations mission to abduct a prisoner that voluntarily defected from the U.S. while stationed in South Korea, there really isn't anything that the U.S. could do even if ordered to do so.
Sure, but Qatar is not in the jurisdiction of the ECHR! For the ECHR to apply in a jurisdiction, Qatar would need to have signed it or be in the EU or at least have been in it. It never has been. In fact, not even Den Haque would have power over Qatar unless they allowed it to - and that court rules on matters of war crimes... Qatar does not guarantee the same rights you might be familiar with from most western countries. In fact, not even all western countries are the same. In America, you can use the Sieg Heil gesture, in Germany, you can end in jail for it.. Same for Propaganda materials.