Cause of chronic fatigue?
.....a constellation of symptoms that include severe unexplained exhaustion, disturbed sleep, headaches, muscle and joint pains as well as cognitive, sensory and even bowel disturbances. Norwegian scientists have found evidence to suggest that the disease may have an immune cause that can be treated by temporarily removing one class of white blood cells, called B lymphocytes, from the body.
Mathaba Weekly Roundup
Progressive Realist - Foreign Policy Metablog
War Crimes Tribunal Commences Hearing
mathaba.net - Two Judges of the Tribunal Recused.KUALA LUMPUR, 19 November 2011 - The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal ('Tribunal') commenced hearing war crimes charge of Crimes against Peace against George W Bu...Jirgamandering in Afghanistan
( I trust that's a pun related to 'jerrymandering'...redrawing the electoral territory )
From: The Duck of Minerva By: Vikash Yadav
President Hamid Karzai has called another jirga (assembly) to attempt to gain support for the creation of a long-term defensive pact with the United States. The traditional Loya Jirga is a mechanism for legitimizing the creation of a new dynasty or constitutional order in Afghanistan, but it is not supposed to be used in place of the parliament that was created with the new constitution nearly a decade ago. Most scholars would agree that the President of Afghanistan has the right to call a consultative Loya Jirga, but summoning a traditional Loya Jirga after a constitution is operational is much more problematic.Mathaba: Double Vendetta - The Insanity of the Iran Confrontation
mathaba.net - Double Vendetta - The Insanity of the Iran Confrontation Posted: 2011/11/19 From: MathabaVideo on vendettas against any Iranian government which refuses to do what it is told to do by America. The ...The Logic of Iranian Nukes
From: Bernard Finel By: Bernard Finel
Some of my favorite analysts have been having a debate on Iran over at the Yale Journal of International Affairs. Robert Farley opened things up by arguing that essentially their nukes would make little difference:To bully its neighbors or to provide an umbrella over Hezbollah, Iran would have to credibly threaten the use of nuclear weapons, which means — given overwhelming Israeli and American nuclear superiority — that it would have to credibly threaten national suicide.
News & Eventswww.ycsg.yale.edu/center/iaea.html
Ernesto Zedillo presents report to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board ... The report calls for a major boost in the IAEA's budget, noting that from 1984 to ... the IAEA's budget remained essentially flat (except for a modest one-Fortifying the IAEA with more resources and authority must include addressing the Agency's budgetary problems and universalizing the Additional Protocol. Historically, the IAEA has been forced to carry out growing responsibilities with almost completely stagnant financial resources—the amount of material under IAEA safeguards has increased by more than 10 times while the Agency has largely been restrained by a zero real-growth budget.
The most effective way to increase IAEA authority is by universalizing the 1997 Model Additional Protocol (AP). The AP grants the IAEA expanded access to information and locations in states that have ratified the agreement. Without the AP, the IAEA cannot verify the non-diversion of sensitive material from undeclared facilities. In the years since the AP was introduced, many states have rallied for its universality. Today, ninety percent of NNWS with significant nuclear capabilities have either signed, ratified, or had an AP approved by the IAEA Board of Governors.[42] However, several states with significant nuclear activity that present genuine proliferation concern, including the DPRK, Iran, and Syria, currently do not have an AP in force
( Cannot prove a negative : nor is it the treaty that was agreed to : and it should be obvious that the agency cannot carry out its mandate. Funny how all the stories about el Baredi's continuous defence of Iran and the IAEA 'rescue' after the U.S. delayed payment of dues - after requiring more work for nothing - slide off Search results. This is not useful. )
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - Attack Iran and you attack ...
www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ26Ak06.html
26 Oct 2007 – Attack Iran and you attack Russia By Pepe Escobar The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the ...Iran parliament to review ties with UN nuclear body
Iran's Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani speaks during a news conference in Bern October 17, 2011. Larijani visits Switzerland during the 125th Assembly of ...
After the Black Rhino, who is next?
mathaba.net - By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Close on the heels of the news that the Western Black Rhino has been hunted to extinction by Humankind comes another sickening fact to feed our collective revulsion at w...Too Much Violence and Pepper Spray at the OWS Protests
used pepper spray to clear seated protesters from the university quad where they had set up a small Occupy encampment, pro-actively and repeatedly dousing the passively-resisting students with a chemical agent designed to cause pain and suffering in order to make it easier to remove them.
It is hard to look at this kind of attack and think this is how we do things in America.And yet it is all too American. America has a very long history of protests that meet with excessive or violent response, most vividly recorded in the second half of the 20th century. It is a common fantasy among people born in the years since the great protests movements -- and even some not so great ones -- that they would have stood on the bold side of history had they been alive at the time and been called to make a choice. But the truth is that American protest movements in real time -- and especially in their early days -- often appear controversial, politically difficult, out-of-the-mainstream, and dangerous. And they are met with fear.
Junior faculty member Nathan Brown, an assistant professor of English at Davis, says what actually happened was even worse than what's shown on the videos
Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops
OpenWatch.net a global participatory counter-surveillance project which uses cellular phones as a way of monitoring authority figures.
Technologies of Protest and Control
Barak's remark this week is breathtaking in both its honesty and in its utter deviation from an Israeli government line that has not only been sold to the Israeli people, but also to the United States government - especially to Congress, where anything from Bibi Netanyahu's office is treated as gospel.
They have cited as evidence Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, essentially arguing that it proves that Iran's goal is another Holocaust.
( Except ... Ahmadinejad said Israel dishonours the 'Lessons of the Holocaust ' itself by imposing the same conditions upon Palestinians as European Jews suffered )
Meir Dagan, the Mossad chief who retired early this year, calls bombing Iran a "stupid idea". He says:| A military attack will give the Iranians the best excuse to pursue the nuclear race. Khamenei will say 'I was attacked by a country with nuclear capabilities; my nuclear programme was peaceful, but I must protect my country.' |
Now we have Defence Minister Ehud Barak's admission that the Israeli campaign to rush the US and Israel itself into war is based on, at best, hype and at worst, lies. Just like Iraq.
What's a Technocrat ?
New state laws, record deportations clogging federal courts in South
5 Reasons Why 'Occupy Wall Street' Won't Work
The large majority of Wall Streeters will walk by the protesters and shake their heads at the crowds' misunderstanding of what they do.
DOCUMERICA: Images of America in Crisis in the 1970s
You Might Have Missed: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976
Bashar al-Assad: 'Syria will not bow down'
Speaking to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper, al-Assad accused his foreign critics of seeking a pretext for military intervention.He warned that any such intervention would create an "earthquake" across the Middle East.
Vowing that he would personally fight and even die for his country, al-Assad pledged to resist
( Given that the PNAC / AIPAC / War Game Scenarios all call for governments to be replaced and / or countries destroyed / borders redrawn in the 'Middle East'...the reason Iraq / Saddam Hussein had to go...what are the odds ? )
American Narcissism.
The main goal of the 9th India-ASEAN Summit this year was to prioritize a services and investment pact set to be completed by March 2012, which would pave the way for an India-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement.
Myanmar's Suu Kyi to run in next elections
Mario Draghi Doesn’t Realize That Europe Is Already Bearing ‘Huge Economic And Social Costs’
Ethiopia to Invade Somalia...Again
Where You Sit Is Where You Stand, Example No. 671,000,000,000 Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, speaking at General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, CT, November 17, 2011: I'm not going to hollow out the force. Coming out of World War II, coming out of Korea,
Democracy Arsenal
Nov 17
Congrats to DA Founder Suzanne Nossel
Suzanne Nossel, founder of this blog, was just named the new executive director of Amnesty International USA. Congratulations, Suzanne! Josh Rogin has the details: Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) has named State Department official Suzanne Nossel as its new executive director. Nossel, who most recently served at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for international organizations,
Nov 16
Asia Trip Underscores the Need to Ratify Law of the Sea Treaty
While I was reading through the coverage of the president’s big month in Asia, the pressing importance of ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was underscored once again. Reuters reports on comments by Hillary Clinton about ongoing disputes in the South China Sea: She said disputes in the sea lanes, a possible flashpoint in Asia, should be resolved through the 1982 United Nations Con
Nov 15
While We're on the Subject of Republican Foreign Policy...
In all honesty, there is a perverse pleasure in watching everyone catch on to the utter inanity of the Republicans' foreign policy pronouncements -- a superficiality that's been our bread and butter at Democracy Arsenal for years. I have long argued that the right wing's talking-point-thin pot shots at President Obama's policy won't constitute a genuine debate until the opposit
The Not-So-Great Debaters
So I'm a little late to the game here (especially after the phenomenal work of my DA colleagues) but my take on each candidate's performance at the GOP national security debate is up at Foreign Policy this morning. Here's some thoughts on Michele Bachmann's "interesting" performance: Michele Bachmann -- The Loose Cannon: I've been having a tough time trying to figure
Nov 14
Leon Panetta Is Losing It
As regular DA readers are no doubt aware Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been saying some rather outlandish things about the impact of across the board defense cuts on the Pentagon . . . but on Thursday he went completely off the deep end. Lawmakers, Panetta said, needed to understand that U.S. troops “are willing to put their lives on the line to sacrifice for this country; you sure as hell
Nov 12
Republicans on National Security -- Is This the Best You Can Do, Really?
If nothing else, devoting an entire GOP campaign forum to national security and foreign policy -- the CBS News / National Journal organizers called it the "Commander in Chief Debate -- helps accentuate the preparation and seriousness the candidates have devoted to international affairs. Or the lack thereof, since some candidates appeared utterly unserious and unprepared. First, a quick best
Debating Torture
Tonight's coverage of terrorism and the legal issues surrounding it was particularly disappointing. First was Michele Bachmann’s lecture on her view of the issues, where she said that: Water boarding is not torture; There are no prison for terrorism suspects; There are no CIA interrogations; Its as if we are losing the war on terror; and that the ACLU is running the CIA. Sadly, with the excep
GOP Candidates Spar Over Iran, Think Military Action is a Panacea
Not surprisingly, the debate kicked off with a question on Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Mitt Romney declared that if Barack Obama is re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon. But, he said, in a Mitt Romney administration Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. This isn’t the first time he’s made such a sweeping proclamation, but he has yet to explain how exactly he’ll ensure this. Everything the
Amid Real Results, Romney Talks Tough on China
In tonight’s foreign policy debate, Romney reiterated his newest stance on China and trade, saying we need to bring China to the WTO on charges of currency manipulation (see video above). Challenger Jon Huntsman, former ambassador to China, quickly responded to Romney that such a policy would not work. Dan Drezner, who teaches international politics and economics at Tufts University, say
Gingrich's "Anti-Christian" Spring Comments
Tonight Newt Gingrich once again called the the Arab Spring an "anti-Christan" movement. Last month the former speaker said: This is why the current strategy in the Middle East is such a total grotesque failure," Gingrich told about 200 people gathered at the Chesterfield Inn. "People say, 'Oh, isn't this great, we're having an Arab spring.' Well, I don't k
Romney Disagrees with Petraeus, Gates on Taliban Negotiations
In tonight’s foreign policy debate, Romney said he would not negotiate with the Taliban or “terrorists.” That view goes directly against the advice of Robert Gates and David Petraeus. Gates: "We have all said all along that a political outcome is the way most wars end." Petraeus: "This is the way you end insurgencies." There's no purely military solution in Afghanistan. The
Nov 10
If You Want Peace, Stop Clamoring for War
Mitt Romney has taken to the opinion pages once again. “I Won’t Let Iran Get Nukes,” Romney proclaims in today’s Wall Street Journal. With one chest-banging paragraph after another, Governor Romney completely mischaracterizes the administration’s diplomatic overtures and asserts that the U.S. should instead adopt a new policy toward Iran. His plan? “If you want peace, prepare for war.” “Only when
The Full(er) Truth Part 2
Yesterday I commented on the controversy surrounding General Peter Fuller's dismissal after impolitic remarks about the Afghan government, but until Carl Prine blogged about it today I had missed General Allen's comments as to why he had no choice but to sack Fuller: "These unfortunate comments are neither indicative of our current solid relationship with the government of Afghanistan
What to Ask the Candidates on National Security
On Saturday, the National Journal and CBS will host the first GOP primary debate exclusively focused on national security. The National Security Network, DA's institutional home, has put together a thorough list of questions that the candidates should answer. Take a look; if there's one you like, pass it on to CBS and National Journal. Here are the questions: European Economic Crisis You h
Nov 09
G-20 Summit Post-Game Analysis
When we watch the planet's most powerful men and women assembled in an effort to navigate the global economy's current rough seas -- as G-20 leaders did in Cannes last week -- do they deserve our scorn, sympathy, or something in between? If it's political heroics you're looking for, then you are bound to have pretty low regard for these people. For those of us who follow the proces
The Full(er) Truth
Ever since General Peter Fuller made some rather impolitic remarks complaining about Hamid Karzai's lack of appreciation for the US sacrifice in Afghanistan and for being "isolated from reality" there has been a feisty debate about whether he deserved to get fired and what it means for US policy in the region. Let's get things out of the way early: Fuller made politically tone de
Nov 03
Nate Silver Doesn't Think Foreign Policy Is a Non-Factor
Nate Silver's lengthy New York Times Magazine piece on how the numbers shape up for Obama's reelection is a fun read, and will likely generate much interesting discussion. Don't let my headline fool you. I didn't do such a selective reading of the piece, nor am I so stove-piped, that I think foreign policy will be a the factor in the election. But according to Silver, it does matte
The G-20's Best Laid Plans
CANNES-- Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was the inconvenient guest here at the G-20 summit, attending under unhappy circumstances for him as well as his counterparts. Typically, leaders of non-G20 countries would give their eye teeth for a chance to join such rarefied company. But then Papandreou wasn't so much pulled into the festivities as called out on the carpet. In fact, he had le
Your Daily Dose of Defense Drawdown Doomsday-ism
Yesterday, the military chiefs of the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines testified before Congress about the impact of potential budget cuts on the DoD budget - and in the process embarrassed themselves and the good name of the US military. As defense observers are no doubt aware, if Congress fails to come to agreement on deficit reduction measures then the Pentagon will be subjected to a series o
Nov 02
Shadowboxing with Wolves
If you're too transfixed by the prospect of the US losing its seat on the IAEA board of governors, losing Japanese funding through UNESCO for police training in Afghanistan, and potentially losing global patent protection, all over the Palestinians' effort to join the UN and an outdated 1994 law, you'll miss the fun of a new Iran bill coming through the House that apparently attempts t
Oct 31
What Can the G-20 Do In Cannes?
Tomorrow I'm heading to Cannes in the French Riviera. Not for a film festival, but the foreign policy wonk's equivalent: a global world leaders' summit. The same G-20 club of key economic powers that bolstered the global financial system against collapse in 2009 is meeting amidst the current turbulence in the Eurozone. (The Stanley Foundation has set up a page, if you want to see all o
Our False Debate on Cutting Defense Spending
Robert Samuelson has made quite a career for himself saying wrong-headed things about economic policy, deficits and entitlements; and it now appears that he wants to add "saying wrong-headed things about defense policy" to his list of accomplishments. (As an op-ed writer for the Washington Post he clearly is in good company). Today's piece by Samuelson in the Washington Post is trul
Oct 28
The Pakistani Conundrum
Spencer Ackerman is really pissed at Pakistan: It is very difficult to see how non-punitive measures have aided the U.S. in dealing with Pakistan. Massively generous economic assistance, military relief assistance during floods and earthquakes, literally bags full of cash to the military, nuclear-capable fighter jets -- and this is what we get. Fuck that. No more. It's time for the U.S. to st
Oct 26
Anticipating Herman Cain's Foreign Policy
There has been great speculation and fun guessing games throughout the 2012 GOP primaries about what a Tea Party foreign policy would look like. Ideological consistency would, of course, lead to an isolationist-leaning approach. A movement claiming to have been founded out of concern over the growing role of the government and deficit issues would naturally oppose excessive defense spending, &quo
Oct 25
Tell Me Now If You Want Me to Stay; It Don't Matter, 'Cause I'd Stay Here Anyway
My colleague Michael Cohen wrote a piece rightly taking Republican lawmakers to task for criticizing the recent decision by President Obama to remove all troops from Iraq by year's end. What renders the GOP critique of Obama hollow and tendentious is that it's not really Obama's decision at all. By way of background, the Bush administration negotiated a form of a Status of Forces Agr
Oct 24
What's The Matter With (Peter Baker's Profile of) Leon Panetta?
So today the New York Times has a page one profile of new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta - and well, it's a funny thing, apparently the New York Times couldn't find a single person to say a critical word about the Panetta's performance as Sec Def. What I find particularly strange about this is that last week I wrote 1400 words here offering a more critical assessment of Panetta's
A New Low For Republicans On Foreign Policy
At this point one has to almost take for granted that Republicans are going to criticizePresident Obama's foreign policy performance for the most hare-brained of reasons - he doesn't strongly support Israel when in fact he does strongly support Israel; he apologizes on behalf of the United States to other countries when in fact he's never apologized on behalf of the United States; he s
Oct 22
Tunisian Election By the Numbers
It'd be a shame if Tunisian elections for a body to write a new Constitution were overlooked; just nine months after the country's revolution ignited the Arab Spring, the vote looks set to go off smoothly and tell us quite a bit about the possibilities and limitations of progress around the Arab world. Below, a few numbers that may surprise or enlighten: Percentage unemployment, already h
Oct 20
Saving The Responsibility To Protect From Future Libya Wars
Spencer skewers the DC foreign policy commentariat: 1. Why Gadhafi's Death Vindicates "Leading From Behind" (Tom Friedman) 2. Gadhafi's Death Shows The U.S. Was Never Really "Leading From Behind" (Anne-Marie Slaughter) 3. There Is Still More To Do In Libya (Any Washington Post op-ed) 4. On To Damascus, Then Teheran (Weekly Standard) 5. Gadhafi's Death Shows The Pos
Oct 19
What's The Matter With Leon Panetta?
This past Friday, President Obama announced that he would be sending 100 combat equipped soldiers to Central Africa to help the governments of the region combat the Lord's Resistance Army, which is a particularly nasty and nihilistic terrorist organization that operates along the Ugandan border. It's a pretty straightforward intervention and one that is even codified in US law. Yet here is
Oct 18
Getting Obama Foreign Policy Wrong - Part II
The theme this week is the various ways that our foreign policy wonk colleagues distort the Obama Administration's record to fit their own preconceived notions. Yesterday the culprit was Mark Lagon, as he championed the so-called "values agenda" of democracy promotion and human rights. Now we shift to the Realist end of the spectrum, beginning with a World Politics Review piece by
Oct 17
How Critics of Obama Foreign Policy Get it Wrong
Now that President Obama's Republican have started to declare themselves on foreign policy, this has fired a starter's pistol for fellow wonks to draw their comparisons and critiques. I ran across three such pieces that dovetail especially well with one another -- each of the authors voicing different sets of concerns. And from these distinct angles, each also gives short shrift to the Oba
Oct 15
Sanctioning Iran
From reading the last couple days' coverage of the US and international response to the Iranian assassination plot, you can get a pretty good picture of the wide gulf that often separates American domestic politics from international politics -- and, putting it frankly, the disconnect between the right wing approach to foreign policy and the real world beyond our borders. For the Obama adminis
Oct 14
A Glass Abode
At a recent press conference with the President of South Korea, President Obama discussed the alleged plot by Iranian regime elements to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Obama then used that introduction to segue to Iran's hypocritical role in the Arab Spring. Obama also pointedly accused Iran of being "hypocritical" in its reaction to the Arab Spring
Oct 13
Where’s Romney? Trade, Especially With China
Welcome to the second installment of DA’s exploration of where Mitt Romney stands on the foreign policy issues of the day. With Senate passage earlier this week of a bill to pressure China to appreciate its currency and the three long-awaited free trade agreements passing last night, trade is the issue d’jour. Romney has taken notice and begun calling out Chinese trade and currency practices and
Hey Republican Candidates, How About Some Foreign Policy Substance?
As I weighed how to respond to the emerging GOP foreign policy campaign themes and Mitt Romney's big speech, I was torn between my partisan self and my bipartisan self. In the end, I thought both should have a chance to comment. The high-minded bipartisan on my one shoulder will constructively lay out some issues about which next year's two nominees could constructively contend. And then
Oct 12
Ignoring the Foundations of Power
James Traub has an interesting piece in FP on how the conservatives running for president haven't thought much about foreign policy. The piece is worth reading, as it nicely pulls together many of the threads those who watch these issues have been observing for a while. One particularly interesting piece is Traub's discussion of the realignment on foreign policy among different factions of
Interagency Cooperation on Assassination Plot Investigation
Everyone has by now heard the news about the attempted assassination plot on U.S. soil. There are many questions that do not have clear answers – including what was Iran thinking? But certainly towards the top of the list is why some in Congress are trying to do away with the very tools that disrupted this plot? Juliette Kayyem, who before her role at Harvard was Assistant Secretary at DHS, writes
Oct 11
Where’s Romney? Afghanistan Edition
As Mitt Romney continues his journey to the front of the GOP field, I thought I’d start a little feature here at DA that looks at Romney’s position on different issues in depth. Today’s pick: Afghanistan. Dan Balz has a great first look at this issue over at the Post. Romney’s central criticism of the president’s policy on Afghanistan is his failure to “listen to the generals” before making the ca
Oct 10
Some Thoughts After Hearing Huntsman and Romney
First, kudos to my colleagues on that side of the aisle -- especially Team Huntsman -- for turning out substantive speeches that one can actually think and argue about. such a nice change from the debates. (Shhh, don't tell anyone I said so.) However, I drew three over-arching conclusions and they aren't particularly cheery: 1. There are no conservative ideas about foreign policy since
All Children Above Average, National Security Edition
From what I've seen of the speech Jon Huntsman is about to give, I expect attention to focus on his call for a faster pullout from Afghanistan than Obama's timetable, or Romney's, or the Senate neocons' (never), and maybe on the general awkwardness of someone who served in the Obama Administration overseas saying its policies have "weakened America." But -- in a speech th
Oct 08
No Ideas: Evaluating Romney's Speech
This post by DA editor Jacob Stokes and DA contributors James Lamond and Kelsey Hartigan. Today Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy address at the Citadel. It contained eight specific policy proposals. Like Romney’s previous speeches, this one doesn’t have the facts going for it. The address contained more in the way of nice-sounding rhetoric designed to enthuse his audience than it did in terms of
Oct 07
When You Say No-Fly-Zone and R2P, Do You Mean Regime Change?
Josh Rogin published a piece earlier this week with a headline that touted Sen. Joe Lieberman's recent call for a "no-fly-zone" over Syria. (For those familiar with the Regime Change Ratchet*, this would put Lieberman in Step 3). While such a hawkish stance from Sen. Lieberman is hardly remarkable, what is interesting is that Sen. Lieberman, like the Syrian protesters cited in the piece, is actu
Oct 06
Mitt Romney: Nationally Insecure?
Which Mitt Romney will show up at the Citadel to give a ‘major foreign policy address’ tomorrow? Will we see Tea Party-pleasing Mitt who’s proposed getting out of Afghanistan and staying out of the international effort on Libya? War Party Mitt who supports unending war in Afghanistan, a new war in Iran and U.S. troops to Pakistan -- and who just named the Bush old guard to his national securi
Previewing Romney’s Foreign Policy Speech
Tomorrow Mitt Romney is slated to give a foreign policy speech at the Citadel. As a preview, I thought I would read through Romney’s last speech, given on August 30 to the VFW. The address is typical Romney-speak, but a few points jumped out at me as being purposely disdainful – just to put it bluntly – of facts. Here’s a sampling: 1. “American strength turned the Cuban missiles around.” As part
Reid on CT Legislation
For those who missed it this week, Senator Reid sent a great letter to Carl Levin and John McCain, regarding detainee provisions in the 2012 Defense Authorization Bill. In the letter, Reid says that he will not bring the bill to the floor while it has three controversial provisions in it. He specifically cited the provisions that authorize indefinite detention (section 1031), require military cust
CNAS Report Underscores Need for a New Strategy
This guest post by William Hartung, who is director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) summarizes its new report on defense spending as follows: “U.S. Global Engagement Strategy at Risk If Defense Cuts Exceed $550 Billion Over Ten Years.” If the headline is meant to be taken at face value, it is our strategy that
Oct 05
No Country for Young Vets
This Friday, October 7, marks the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. There’s much discussion to be had about U.S. strategy a decade into these wars. But it’s also a time to take a deep look at the human costs. Two pieces out today explore the plight and attitudes of young veterans and underscore the disconnect between servicemembers and civilians that has characterized the last deca
Sep 29
Lone Wolves in Perspective
The arrest of a Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26 year old Massachusetts man has once again brought the scary term “lone wolf” back into the news. Ferdaus, a graduate of Northeastern University in phyiscs was plotting to make to fly homemade “drones” made from remote-control model airplanes packed with five pounds of explosives into the Pentagon and Capital building. He was caught by FBI agents posing as me
The Right Way to Challenge China on Currency
Greg Sargent explains that another bill designed to punish China for currency manipulation is coming down the pike: The battle over the American Jobs Act has sucked up all the oxygen, but there’s another jobs fight you really should be keeping an eye on: The battle over the measure to punish China for currency manipulation. It’s a really interesting story, and it’s going to heat up in a big w
Sep 28
Whistling Past the Graveyard
Fernando Lujan has an op-ed in the New York Times today that is the sort of thing written about the war in Afghanistan that makes me want to repeatedly bang my head against a wall. Based on his experience on the ground in Afghanistan, Lujan is convinced that we can win in Afghanistan. How you ask? By being smarter! “Winning” is a meaningless word in this type of war, but something is happening in
Sep 27
Chinese Strategy Still Up for Grabs
As some search for a new rationale for increased defense spending, China has all but supplanted terrorism and rogue states as the favorite threat to cite. Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg’s tome “A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia” is on track to become the bible for those who argue that the U.S. must engage in a large-scale, immediate and continuous m
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Pakistan? Part II
With the United States and Pakistan having apparently de-friended each other on Facebook, the United States has chosen perhaps the strongest weapon in its arsenal to ratcheting up tension . . . they're now leaking unfavorable stories to the New York Times. Indeed, today's piece by Carlotta Gall about a Pakistani ambush of US soldiers in Pakistan is quite the blockbuster - and appears,
Sep 26
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Pakistan?
Last week, departing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen publicly stated what is perhaps the single greatest open secret about the US war in Afghanistan - that it has become a proxy war between the US and Pakistan over the future of Afghanistan. For much of the previous two years - and well before - the Pakistani government has not only been providing safe haven to Taliban insurgent
Sep 23
Florida 2011: Like 1972 Without the Classy Candidate?
In 1972, my dad was working for a GOP Senator and my mom was raising two kids and dabbling in peace activism. (Back then this wasn't as conflict-producing as it sounds now.) Maybe because I have recently seen Senators Kerry and Leahy both compare today's climate unfavorably to that period, when I saw the crowd at the GOP debate last night boo a servicemember with no rebukes from the podi
Sep 22
Expert-Checking The Security Debate
By Heather Hurlburt Thursday night’s Fox News-Google debate offered presidential hopefuls the chance to present their vision on a range of important issues in foreign affairs. The discussion also revealed several surprising misconceptions about U.S. national security at odds with the views of nonpartisan defense and military experts: Pakistan. Conservatives, whose previous administration wa
Sep 21
Rick Perry's Deeply Clownish Pro-Israel Press Conference
Nothing defines a modern presidential campaign like deep and pathetic genuflection to America's staunch and unyielding defenders of Israel; and apparently yesterday was Rick Perry's turn to prostrate himself. I have to say in an era of deeply clownish campaign performances this performance was really quite something. Andrew Exum has done a nice job of annotating the presser here, but there
Sep 20
Hypocrite, Hypocrite, Two-Faced
Over at the Atlantic, my good friend and colleague Josh Foust has a post up deriding those who advocated intervention in Libya and are not now doing the same in Yemen: From almost every angle, I cannot see why tho se who demanded the world intervene to prevent an atrocity from happening in Libya are not doing the same on behalf of Yemen. Some say that Yemen is prohibitively complicated, but Yeme
Exclusive: Amb. Dobbins Says Rabbani's Death Is Validation of Talks
Today former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani -- who as head of the Afghan High Peace Council was tasked with finding a political solution to the war in Afghanistan -- was assassinated by a suicide bomber. The bomber, who hid the bomb in his turban, posed as a member of the Taliban looking to discuss reconciliation with the government before blowing up himself and his target. This tragic event
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Given the long-looming specter of "September" -- by now a clichéd codeword for the Palestinian push for UN recognition and its ramifications for Middle East peace -- I was grateful for an invitation to join an AIPAC-organized delegation of policy experts for a visit Israel this month. As it turned out, Palestinian issues and the upcoming UN meeting were hardly the only grist for discu
Sep 15
Is The Two State Solution Dead?
Over at Foreign Policy I have a new article looking at the question of whether the Arab-Israeli peace process is dead: In the 18 years since the signing on the White House lawn of the Oslo Accords, which laid the groundwork for a negotiated end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the idea of a two-state solution has gained wide acceptance. According to a joint Israeli-Palestinian poll from March
Sep 14
NSN-POMED Event: Experts Discuss The New Middle East, Iran And The United Nations
Yesterday, the sixty-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly opened in New York, the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors convened for its second day, and reports out of Iran suggested modest yet significant progress on human rights and nuclear talks. Against this backdrop, the National Security Network and the Project on Middle East Democracy hosted a panel discussi
The Delusions of Ryan Crocker
Our new man in Kabul, Ambassador Ryan Crocker is making quite a name for himself - and not in a good way. Yesterday Taliban insurgents waged an audacious and highly coordinated attack on the US Embassy and NATO headquarters that went on for 20 hours and killed more than a dozen people. Ryan Crocker's verdict on the bloodshed and the fact that insurgents were able to launch a brazen assault in
Sep 12
Postcard from Paris: Ten Years Later, French Thoughts Still with America
This guest post is by Leah Pisar, who serves on the boards of the French-American Foundation and the National Security Network. PARIS -- Yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy put a small dent into French protocol and made a solemn visit to his neighbor, U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin, just a few doors down from the Elysée Palace, to take part in a commemoration of the September 11th attacks. (It’s unusual f
Is America Safer?
Over at the Atlantic I have a new piece up looking at the question of whether in fact the United States is living in a dangerous world. Not surprisingly I tend to think the fears of global threats are grossly overstated: For all the warnings of imminent doom, rarely before in America's history has the United States been in less danger than it is today. And understanding that might be the singl
The Washington Post Tries To Rewrite History . . . Again
Here's a question for DA readers: if you were to pick the most extreme over-reaction from September 11th what might it be? Guantanamo Bay? Torture? Warrantless wiretapping? Sure those all would be on the list, but I have a feeling the number one pick for most observers of American foreign policy over the past ten years would have to be the decision to invade Iraq - a war of choice against a co
Sep 09
The Politics of Terrorism . . . Ten Years Later
Over at the Atlantic, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross rather counter-intuitively argues that a decade after 9/11 the United States is less safe from terrorism. Considering that America's key jihadist enemy has been forced out of their safe haven, largely decimated from US military strikes and seen their ideology discredited across the Arab world and considering that the United States has improved in
The Politics of Terrorism . . . Ten Years Later
Over at the Atlantic, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross rather counter-intuitively argues that a decade after 9/11 the United States is less safe from terrorism. Considering that America's key jihadist enemy has been forced out of their safe haven, largely decimated from US military strikes and seen their ideology discredited across the Arab world and considering that the United States has improved int
The Legacy 9/11: The Militarization of Foreign Policy Version
Over at World Politics Review, I have a two-part series on how 9/11 sped up the proces of militarizing US foreign policy: On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the single deadliest terrorist attack in American history -- the work, not of a foreign army, but of al-Qaida, a nonstate actor. The U.S. wasted little time in responding. The Taliban government in Afghanistan that had p
Sep 08
Experts Comment on What's Next for Libya, the Rebels and the Region
As more than 40 years of Muammar Qaddafi's corrupt and tyrannical rule appears to be drawing to a close, the National Security Network held a press call this afternoon with Heather Hurlburt, National Security Network Executive Director; Brian Katulis, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and expert in U.S.-Middle East policy; and Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch Washington Director and
Perry Tries to Split the Difference on ‘Military Adventurism’
Rick Perry’s performance in the debate last night showed he continues to be midway through the transition from Tea Party governor to neoconservative candidate. The tension between those two schools of thought was drawn out by a specific question last night from Politico’s John Harris. Harris asked Perry: “You recently said, quote, ‘I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign po
Sep 06
The Never Ending COIN Boosterism
So to mark the 10th anniversary of September 11th, RUSI has an interesting compendium of pieces looking back on the significance of 9/11 from a national security perspective. John Nagl not surprisingly argues that as a result of 9/11 has now become the most capable counter-insurgency force in history - and used as his evidence the US military escalation in Afghanistan: Barack Obama, who had camp
Technical Problems Persist Despite Much-Hyped Advancements in Iran's Nuclear Program
The power plant at Bushehr was officially connected to the grid this weekend, squeaking out 60 megawatts of electricity during a test run on Sunday at midnight. Iranian officials hailed this achievement, yet again, but failed to acknowledge the repeated technical setbacks the Bushehr plant has faced since construction first broke ground in the 1970s. Bushehr is operated by the Russians, who are
Aug 31
They Never Learn
In an ongoing effort to prove that the US foreign policy pundit class is seemingly incapable of engaging in deductive reasoning, check out Roger Cohen's piece on Monday trumpeting US intervention in Libya. The intervention has been done right — with the legality of strong United Nations backing, full support from America’s European allies, and quiet arming of the rebels. The Libyan people have
Aug 30
Is it the End of History for Neonservatives?
As Heather writes below, Peter Beinart has a very interesting piece up at the Daily Beast on the death of neoconservativism. His basic argument is that the Obama administration’s success at decimating al Qaeda leadership through counterterrorism operations rather than democracy promotion and nation building is evidence that the ideology is broken. Combine this with the culture of limits that is do
Aug 29
"I'm not Dead Yet!"
Peter Beinart has a thought-provoking article up this morning proclaiming the death of neo-conservatism. I think he is at least premature, for several reasons: Conservatives lack a coherent alternative. Yes, Ron Paul is polling well and he has a coherent alternative which we wonks refer to as "offshore balancing;" and yes, neocon standard-bearers Sens. McCain and Graham are getting lit
Aug 26
Is Assad Next?
As events continue to unfold in Libya, commentary has turned to Syria and whether Assad is “next.” In her latest Foreign Affairs piece, Genieve Abdo argues that Assad is likely to stay in power, due in no small part to Iranian involvement. Abdo writes: Assad's chances of staying in power are greater than were those of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptian President Hosni Mubar
Aug 25
Nukes and Dictator Survival
Last night the guest host of The Last Word Chris Hayes did an excellent segment with Steve Clemons on how the overthrow of Qaddafi will affect other despots' survival strategies with regard to nuclear weapons. Bear in mind that Qaddafi agreed in 2003 to hand over the entire contents of his budding yet substantial nuclear weapons program in exchange for being let out of the rogue state penalty
After the Fall, Continued
Last week I wrote about the need to plan for post-Qaddafi Libya. Now the country is in the thick of things. Stabilization must begin even as Qaddafi remains in a bunker somewhere, mourning his lost Condoleezza Rice photo album. The TNC, as well as other actors and the international community, will have to make choices quickly and with imperfect information. To inform that process, Brian Fishman of
Options for Gaddafi
With the world sitting in anticipation for the news of Gaddafi's arrest it is worth taking a look at his options going forward. In June the International Criminal Court accused Gaddafi of inciting his troops to commit mass rape, and indicted him, his son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah Sanussi with charges of crimes against humanity including the murder of hundreds of civilia
Aug 23
Two Sure Strategy Wins in Libya: European Action, Avoiding the Pottery Barn
Just as Tripoli was flooded with rebels, so the web has been flooded with Libya commentary. The battle for who won Libya and/or how it could’ve been done better/not at all is raging. Some are defending President Obama’s strategy for the war. See Nick Burns, Ben Smith and Anne Applebaum in praise of the strategy. Others are, rightly, urging caution. See Spencer Ackerman’s very smart point that the
Aug 21
Waiting for Ghaddafi...
A few thoughts as we watch to see what happens next in Tripoli: Many of the people celebrating in Benghazi and other opposition strongholds would not be alive if not for the UN-mandated, NATO-led military mission. That is the profound success of what the international community has done since March. What the Libyans -- and the international comminity -- make of that remains to be seen. The Libya
OMG, Hillary Said Other Nations' Views Can Be More Influential Than Ours
Will our conservative friends ever realize it's not always about us, or will they keep freaking out any time someone suggests that American positions and declarations might not be the key to every situation around the world. The other day Heather flagged the following quote from Secreatary of State Clinton: "the US stands for our values, our interests, our security, but others have to
Aug 20
International Cooperation On CT Cases
With so much going on this week, one piece of terrorism news went largely under the radar. Mahamud Said Omar, a suspect on charges of material support for terrorism was extradited from the Netherlands to the U.S. after being indicted by a U.S. federal court in 2009 and arrested in the Netherlands later that year. The FBI press release has more details here. What makes this case so interesting is
Aug 18
Before the Fall: Planning for Post-Qaddafi Libya
A while back on this blog there was a debate about how and when to measure whether the war in Libya was worth it. Eric Martin made the observation that: Despite these harbingers of future unrest, there has been a dearth of planning for the postwar transition period. Which organizations/nations will be overseeing that period and acting as peacekeepers? Under whose auspices? On whose dime? For how
Aug 17
What to Leave Behind in Iraq
I have a new piece up at Real Clear World looking at what to leave behind in Iraq. The obvious problem here from the point of view of U.S. policymakers is the justifiably bad political dynamics, both in Iraq and domestically. Getting the Iraqis to make such a request remains a long-shot, however. It would be tough to get through the Iraqi parliament, where a significant portion of the ruling bloc
Aug 16
Rick Perry: Tea Party Governor, Neocon Candidate
With his announcement on Sunday, Rick Perry rode into the 2012 presidential race. Relatively little is known about his foreign policy stances—a few first cracks have been taken by Josh Keating, Josh Rogin, and James Lindsay. Eli Lake also devoted a bit to Perry is his recent piece on the 2012 GOP field. What are the takeaways? Seems to me that, broadly, while Perry was the archetypal Tea Party gov
Clinton Lays Out Core of Admin National Security Strategy
In response to a question about whether we're signalling in Libya and Syria that we don't have what it takes to lead [this is a very rough transcription]: "the US stands for our values, our interests, our security, but others have to be prepared to take the same steps in support of universal values and interests... this is exactly the kind of world I want to see, where everyone else
A new dynamic duo: can they match the ratings?
It'll be well worth checking out the language and body language over at CNN's forum with Secretaries of State and Defense Clinton and Panetta this morning, streaming shortly at www.state.gov and www.defense.gov. The reaction to this likely-to-be-underreported event in the August doldrums, post-debt ceiling stupor that is Washington will give tea leaves on several important things for the
Aug 12
The Real Legacy of David Petraeus
In a few weeks from now David Petraeus will leave the US military to take on his new responsibilities as Director of Central Intelligence. I look forward to this happening because then hopefully I will no longer have to read valentines to Petraeus like the one Joe Klein just published in Time magazine titled "David Petraeus Brilliant Career." I like Joe and we've broken bread a few
Aug 11
On Afghanistan, Should Obama Have Deferred to the Generals?
A narrative is brewing among the GOP candidates that the president made a mistake in announcing a modest drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last June. Herman Cain has the latest version of it. His electoral chances are slim, but his comments are likely be echoed throughout the campaign. Over the weekend Cain told an Iowa TV station, “The surge was working. Why not let it continue to work? T
Aug 10
China’s Wary Communists
The Atlantic’s James Fallows has a piece out in this month examining whether the Chinese public is less happy with the Communist Party and more combustible than it seems. Not much of the content is groundbreaking for anyone who follows China, but it’s interesting to note a series of questions Fallows raises. After listing all the usual reasons used to explain why China’s authoritarian government
Aug 09
What is Leon Panetta Thinking?
So on Friday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who is both a Democrat and a political hire of the President of the United States posted his thoughts on the Pentagon web site regarding the possibility of significant spending cuts for the Pentagon in the just signed debt limit deal: I will do everything I can to ensure that further reductions in defense spending are not pursued in a hasty, ill-con
Aug 08
Why American Politics Is So Dysfunctional
Over at the the Guardian I have a new piece up on the debt limit and what it says about the rot that lies at the heart of the American political system: Even with poll results suggesting that Americans prize compromise and are tired of overt partisanship, the level of division and acrimony in Washington has grown exponentially since Obama took office. The recent debt limit debate is the apogee of
Aug 05
Defense Reductions Done Right
This week has seen a good deal of commentary about looming defense budget reductions, enough that a round-up of salient points is warranted. Any defense spending reductions discussion needs to start with strategy. Joe Nye’s piece in the Times today gets at that point. He proposes a move away from the oft-cited “lands wars in Asia”: We also need to rethink how we use our military power... Opponen
Aug 04
On Rhetoric and Regime Change: This Is How I End Up Sucked In
A recent piece by Micah Zenko highlights an aspect of the interplay between rhetoric and regime change that I want to offer a general comment on. First, the relevant excerpt: On July 11, when asked about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton answered: “From our perspective, he has lost legitimacy, he has failed to deliver on the promises he’s made,” ad
The Best and Worst Foreign Policy Presidents UPDATED
Over at the Atlantic I have a new piece up that looks at the best and worst foreign policy presidents of the last 100 years. (Sorry Heather, the Big Man didn't make the best list). It was a enjoyable piece to write, but it's hardly declarative - and as several people have pointed out to me over the weekend I'm probably far too generous to John F. Kennedy, who makes the best list, a
Aug 02
The Era of Extortion Politics
Over at Politico I have a new piece up arguing that the real consequence of the debt limit deal is to end the need for political compromise: What we have seen over the past few weeks is the continuing erosion of the notion that political compromise, the linchpin of our democratic system, is the key to effective legislating and policymaking. Hostage-taking has replaced deal making in Washington wit
Jul 30
An Open Letter to the Rest of the World
Dear onlookers around the world, As politics in my country becomes dominated by a reckless tantrum over the simple matter of paying our debts, many of us are all too conscious of the doubts and concerns this is raising for the rest of you. Speaking as someone who has spent an entire career advocating for an American foreign policy of benevolent global leadership, I feel I should try to explain ho
Jul 29
Debt Brinksmen Are Encouraging American Decline
CAP's Nina Hachigian surveys the world's reaction to the manufactured crisis surrounding American debt, and comes to some staggering conclusions. On the signal this episode sends for democracy as a form of government: For the Chinese, this has to be a rich but unsettling role reversal. They have been on the receiving end of countless American entreaties to be more responsible themselves.
Jul 28
Gates on Why Foreign Policy Won’t Work for the GOP in 2012
Over at Shadow Government, Will Inboden explains how he thinks the GOP should attack the president on foreign policy issues as we move into the 2012 campaign. The piece attempts to muster a somber and stately tone by quoting former Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying: “I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending
Jul 26
Breivik and the Anti-Muslim Right
I, for one, am shocked, shocked to read that anti-Muslim bigots are defending themselvesagainst charges of culpability in the heinous terrorist acts of Anders Behring Breivik, by hiding behind the narrow reed that they never specifically advocated violence against children. I was even more surprised that my good friend and colleague, Josh Foust, is making a similar argument, claiming that "I
Jul 22
Those Wacky Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee*
As a foreign policy complement to the main insanity over the debt ceiling (see David Brooks' analysis), we have a flurry of ideological and self-indulgent Republican amendments this week to the House Foreign Affairs Committee's authorization bill (see Josh Rogin's reporting). Here's the money quote Josh got from the Committee's ranking Democratic member Rep. Howard Berman: &qu
America First
As the debate rages over whether President Obama has a grand strategy – Dan Drezner explored the issue in Foreign Affairs this issue; Fareed Zakaria also weighed in recently – a few other recent pieces begin to explore what American strategy going forward might look like. In Democracy Journal last quarter, Anatol Lieven of New America reviewed Charlie Kupchan’s book “How Enemies Become Friends.” T
Jul 20
The Libya Intervention: Why Retrospection Is Premature
I welcome David's recent post, and the opportunity it provides to clarify my position, and to move this discussion forward. First, as something of an aside, I would like to set the record straight that I do not contend that our intervention in Libya has actually "harmed" our reputation in the region, but, rather, that it has failed to deliver the boon promised by proponents of US mi
Jul 18
The Libya Intervention in Retrospect
We probably don't have enough intramural debate here at DA, so let me take this opening. Eric aims his critique of the Libya intervention mainly at Shadi. But since I too supported the move, let me say it was for different reasons than the ones Eric hammers in his post. He points out that the NATO campaign against Gaddafi has harmed rather than enhanced America's reputation among Arab pub
Jul 14
The Non-Return of Isolationism
So over the Atlantic I'm beating the isolationist drum again . . . and when I saw beating the drum I mean pointing out that charges of incipient isolationism are a giant canard: Seemingly everyone in Washington is being characterized as an isolationist. That the word has apparently become such a slur is revealing, largely because most of those accused of "isolationism" appear to be
Jul 13
The Bombs that Will Bring Us Together?
Recent polling data casts doubt on claims by advocates of military intervention in Libya that our participation would improve perceptions of the U.S. in the region. Proponents of intervention claimed that this would be achieved, in part, by dispelling notions that the U.S. supports anti-democratic despots that suit U.S. interests. According to the polls, conducted in six Arab countries by James
China, Democracy and Making Government Work
I’m late to this, but over at Democracy in America, there’s a well-informed and balanced discussion about whether China’s growing wealth will push the country’s political system towards democracy and what this means for the relative competitiveness of democracy vs. Chinese-style authoritarianism. The piece is worth the time, and it contains a strong message towards the end about what’s needed for
Ahmed Wali Karzai: Embodiment of a Flawed System
There’s a lot of good commentary out today on Ahmed Wali Karzai, most of which seeks to answer the question: Is this good or bad for the U.S. mission to stabilize the country? Brian Katulis takes a crack: Although it is too early to assess what impact his assassination will have on the rough-and-tumble politics of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai’s killing and the role he played in recent years serves
Jul 08
Sudan Split Is Far From a Guarantee for Peace
The following post is from Amanda Hsiao who blogs on Sudan for the Enough Project. This Saturday, South Sudanese around the world will exuberantly celebrate the birth of the new country of South Sudan. Concerted international diplomacy, including the robust efforts of the Obama administration, helped pave the way for this moment, the culmination of a 2005 peace agreement brokered by the internatio
Jul 06
The Right’s Rigid Response to Warsame
A lot has been made over the handling of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame. Warsame, was arrested in April held by in U.S. custody for two months. He was interrogated by the High-Value Interrogation Group – in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This is reported to have yielded significant intelligence, including information establishing a stronger connection between the Somali-based al Shabaab and Al
Obama Nuclear Arms Reduction Blamed for Proliferation Threat
The world faces mounting threats of nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and potentially Saudi Arabia. Do you want to know why? Well according to Peter Brookes of the Heritage Foundation, one major cause is the US administration's own nuclear arms control policy. (Hat tip to Nonproliferation Review editor Stephen Schwartz.) Peter connects the dots for us in his lead paragraph: Presiden
Jul 01
Ninety Years On, Communism in China
Today the Chinese Communist Party celebrates 90 years of existence (the China Digital Times has a good roundup here). FP’s Christina Larson reports that every public TV in the country is tuned into the festivities, whether people are watching or not. This begs the obvious question: Is it still Mao’s party? The consensus seems to be, no, the Party’s fundamental nature has shifted from an organizat
Jun 29
Douglas Feith and American Narcissism
The other day I argued we should rename the debate over American exceptionalism. Let's refer to the Republican candidates' ideology as American infallibility, since it's distinguished by unwavering belief in the inherent justness of American cause. Think of it as the Superman Doctrine, fighting the heroic "never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way" (these t
Isn't It Possible that Our Military Operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan Are Actually Destabilizing Pakistan?
There is widely accepted (though largely unexamined) conventional wisdom in US national security circles which holds that our military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are serving to stabilize the Pakistani state. Or, as it is more commonly construed, that the withdrawal of a large portion of our armed forces, and recalibration of our strategic objectives, would destabilize Pakistan and, a
Jun 28
UPDATED: [AUDIO] Experts Comment on Pawlenty's Foreign Policy Approach, GOP Divide
In response to GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty's major foreign policy speech addressing the Arab Spring at the Council on Foreign Relations, which only exposed the deepening divisions among conservatives on national security, the Center for American Progress and the National Security Network held a press call today with Dr. Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress
Debating Afghanistan With Daniel Serwer
So this past Friday afternoon Daniel Serwer and I had nothing better to do so we decided to spend about 50 minutes debating Afghanistand and Obama's Wednesday speech - and it just happened that we recorded it. Except for the fact that my lighting stinks, I kept blowing my nose and my hair is doing weird things . . . it's kind of an interesting conversation. Check it out.
Jun 23
A Light At the End of the Tunnel?
So I have a piece up in the Atlantic today on Obama's speech and long-time DA readers will be surprised to find that I'm feeling pretty upbeat about it: Reporter Bob Woodward's 2010 book-length account of the Obama administration's decision to escalate in Afghanistan shows Obama siding with Petraeus in 2009, but only ambivalently and conditionally, and in a way that suggested he wa
Jun 22
Military Advice to the President - Public or Private?
From my perch at care2, I've added some questions to those raised by Michael re: Kori Schake's ideas about the role of military advice in the public debate over presidents' war policies. And then one further thought that I omitted. If you look at Kori's post alongside her fellow Shadow Government bloggers, the "arbitrary deadlines" trope is all the rage. I suppose in the
Kori Schake's Unique Take on Civ-Mil Relations
Over at Shadow Government, Kori Schake is surprisingly happy with President Obama's umpteenth review of Afghanistan policy, but believes that if he goes against the military's advice he needs to explain why: The president has the right to choose policies contrary to their (the military) advice; it's his job as Commander in Chief to weigh the broader costs and trade-offs associated wit
Jun 21
Looking Beyond Troop Numbers
Tomorrow President Obama will announce his plan for starting to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. He looks likely to announce some form of removing the 30,000 "West Point surge" troops by 2012. The media is abuzz with predictions on what the details of final plan will be. Troops matter. But focusing on troops numbers alone ignores fundamental questions about the U.S. strategy in Afghanis
David Brooks' Shot at Foreign Aid
In his trademark fashion, David Brooks crams a lot of issues into his critique today of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan: ambitious government initiatives, social engineering, the poverty-violence link (known in the trade as "greed v. grievance"), the (in)effectiveness of foreign aid, and smart power foreign policy. Whew. Your humble blogger won't attempt to tackle all of th
Jun 17
Still Confused About Afghanistan
About two years ago when I first started writing about Afghanistan here at Democracy Arsenal I wrote a blog post titled "Confused in Afghanistan." Since then my confusion has only grown and this week as I watch from afar the White House debate on Afghanistan it seems to have hit "peak befuddlement" point. I can't, for the life of me, understand how there is even a serious
The Debate on American Infallibility, Not Exceptionalism
Glad to see Roger Cohen's critique of the emerging 2012 foreign policy debate in this morning's International Herald Tribune. As Cohen points out, the Republican candidates are all peddling the same caricature: They're trying to cast Barack Obama as a president who has sold America short, an impostor who has ditched the mystical belief in the unique calling of the United States that i
Jun 16
Curbing “Unwarranted Influence”
Fellow DA’er Heather Hurlburt has a piece out in the new issue of the journal Democracy entitled, “Peace Is Our Profession.” It reviews James Ledbetter’s “Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex” and William Hartung’s “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.” In it, she lays out state-of-play on the defense budget
Jun 15
Ignoring the Obvious: When Pondering Engaging in Armed Conflict, We Look Past the Basics
To state a seemingly obvious point, and one that requires no great revelatory insight or spark of genius to concoct, wars and other armed conflicts are unpredictable, lead to unintended consequences and usually exceed expected parameters in terms of duration, cost and scope. Make this rather pedestrian observation aloud in informed company, however, and expect to be met with rolled eyes and the g
The Isolationism Canard
Over at Foreign Policy I have a new article looking at the emerging fault lines on foreign policy in the 2012 election - and surprisingly enough they seem to suggest that there may be a new wave of national security realism sweeping the ranks of Republican presidential aspirants Republican realism made an unexpected comeback at the debate as the GOP field sought to offer an alternative to Presiden
Jun 14
A Sensible Way Forward for the US in Afghanistan
Today in the Los Angeles Times, fellow DA blogger Michael Hanna and I have a new piece on Afghanistan the lays out the need for the Obama Administration to adopt a viable political strategy for Afghanistan - and one that operates in concert with our ongoing military strategy: As President Obama's July deadline to begin drawing down troops from Afghanistan approaches, the debate in Washington i
Jun 10
How NATO is Like A Boyfriend/Girlfriend That Won't Commit
So you ever know those couples where one of the two really wants to get married, settle down and have kids and the other one just refuses to commit and is evasive about the future of the relationship . . . I think this is a good descriptor of the US-NATO alliance today. Allow me to explain. Yesterday in Brussels, Bob Gates gave a rather incendiary set of remarks that basically attacked NATO allie
Jun 09
Tactician, Plan Thyself
Given my oft-stated concern about what a potential post-Qaddafi period will look like (would there be purges/an insurgency, would it require a peacekeeping/nation building mission, overseen by which groups/nations, etc.), these paragraphs from a recent New York Times piece on the conflict in Libya stood out: ...Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, returning from a brief visit to the rebel
Jun 08
Why Obama Should Not Necessarily Be Listening to Gates on Afghanistan
David Rothkopf has a provocative piece in Foreign Policy that argues the US should get out of Afghanistan - and get out now. While I'm sympathetic with the general argument I think David gets the specifics wrong - a precipitous withdrawal is not the best play right now either for the US or for Afghanistan. There are more effective ways to safeguard US interests, drawdown the US presence and p
George Kennan’s Advice on Afghanistan
As President Obama decides the size of the July 2011 troop drawdown, he’ll need to take a step back and think big-picture strategy. He'll need to balance the realities of the conflict, as well as America’s current posture, with American priorities worldwide and at home. In short, he’ll have to ask: Is the current strategy for battling transnational terrorism and ensuring stability in South Asi
Jun 06
The Mystery of Bob Gates, aka "America's Best Defense Secretary"
Justin Logan and Ben Friedman have a must read in Foreign Policy about the myth of Bob Gates as America's best defense secretary. It's worth reading the entire piece, but this section really jumped out at me: The secretary has an uncanny knack for saying things that get him credit for what he will not do, as defense analyst Lawrence Korb has noted. Gates claimed it's crazy to send grou
Jun 02
The Afghan Troop Number Game
July 2011 has crept up on us, and it’s decision time on Afghanistan. At the end of last year, a number of reports called for a steady slope of reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan going into the 2014 timeline for transition to full Afghan lead. There’s has been no reason why those recommendations should have changed since last fall. But along comes this Reuters analysis, following up on a Wall
Jun 01
Playing Games with American Power
This post by Nina Hachigian, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Yesterday, the House Republicans staged a vote--predetermined to fail-- on a measure to increase the U.S. debt ceiling. Nothing unusual here; this is standard political brinksmanship on Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, this is not a standard political issue. American power and world economic stability are at st
May 31
In Afghanistan, It's the Strategy Stupid
In a piece looking at the outlines of the debate inside Obama's war cabinet about Afghanistan policy Rajiv Chandrasakaran previews the arguments of war opponents - it is too expensive: Of all the statistics that President Obama’s national security team will consider when it debates the size of forthcoming troop reductions in Afghanistan, the most influential number probably will not be how man
May 26
Iraq, Iran - Same Difference? Conservative Cluelessness on National Security
This guest post is by Sara DuBois, Interim Communications Director at the National Security Network. New footage released today shows Tim Pawlenty appearing to mix up Iraq and Iran. After he explicitly establishes that the reporter is “talking about Iran,” Pawlenty responds, “Well I think the situation now in Iran is such that Secretary Gates is negotiating with whether the United States milita
G-Summitry
Since 2009 and the rise of the G20 as the “premier forum for their international economic cooperation” the roles of the G8 and eth G20 have made for some very interesting debates on the future of economic and political global governance issues. On his new blog, the Internationalist, Stewart Patrick offers a great breakdown of dynamics in the various G-Summitries and the return of the G8. Stewart s
May 25
Whose Side is the GOP's On?
Over at Foreign Policy, I have a new piece looking at the behavior of Republicans in Congress over US policy toward Israel - and it's not a pretty picture: The idea that Congress would openly side with a foreign leader against the president of the United States seems too far-fetched to believe. Remarkably, however, something not dissimilar happened in Washington Tuesday, May 24, as Israeli Pri
May 24
Iran and the Bomb: Always on the Brink
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ominously warned Congress today that Iran was on the brink of acquiring the bomb: “Now time is running out, and the hinge of history may soon turn. For the greatest danger facing humanity could soon be upon us: A militant Islamic regime armed with nuclear weapons.” While an Iranian nuclear weapon is certainly nothing to scoff at—Iran’s refusal to address t
May 20
Obama's Strange Middle East Speech
So as a former speechwriter, foreign policy/political analyst and occasional blogger I suppose I have to say something about Obama's big Middle East speech yesterday . . . but truth be told I'm a bit stumped. It was a fine speech, but hardly a major one. There was some tough rhetoric on Bahrain and it was nice to see the President associate the United States more directly with the democrat
May 19
Obama's Big Speech: Should He Apologize?
I have a new piece out in Slate previewing Obama's big Middle East speech today. I suspect Obama will not do what I suggested he do: apologize. You can read the piece here. I will also be live-tweeting the speech. You can follow me here. We can disagree on whether televised apologies are appropriate or whether they're political suicide with a certain conservative demographic. But my basic
May 18
Obama Must Chart a New Course in the Arab World
My colleague and fellow DA blogger Kelsey Hartigan and I wrote a piece for Real Clear World on what President Obama should say in his speech Thursday on the Arab Spring. Here's a quick excerpt: President Obama will give a speech Thursday explaining his vision of what the Arab Spring means for American policy in the Middle East. Coming nearly two years after his Cairo speech, it has the chance
Threats and Responses
Bob Graham, the former Florida Senator who chaired the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, has an op-ed in today’s Post about the threat posed post bin Laden. While his analysis that the current threat posed by AQ to America is from “significant but smaller attacks” is correct, Graham overstates AQ’s capabilities, matching them to AQ's intentions for a WMD attack.
Obama Must Chart a New Course in the Arab World
My colleague and fellow DA blogger Kelsey Hartigan and I wrote a piece for Real Clear World on what President Obama should say in his speech Thursday on the Arab Spring. Here's a quick excerpt: President Obama will give a speech Thursday explaining his vision of what the Arab Spring means for American policy in the Middle East. Coming nearly two years after his Cairo speech, it has the chance
May 16
Looking Past the 'Orchestra Pit' on China
This post by Nina Hachigian, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. I went to an interesting exhibit yesterday, called 91 92 93, on display at the Schindler house in Los Angeles. In it, three artists, Andrea Fraser, Simon Leung and Lincoln Tobier, each revisited a work they had done some 20 years earlier. Tobier’s piece documented the political impact of Roger Ailes, long bef
May 13
How the Death of bin Laden Can End the "Democratic Weakness" Meme
Over at the Atlantic I have a new piece up on how the death of bin Laden can end the stereotype that Democrats are "soft" on national security and give President the political space to chart a new course on national security: In May 2004, a senior Bush Administration official was asked by the Wall Street Journal about the challenges facing John Kerry as he sought to address national secu
May 12
New Middle East Speech: Is there one story the President Can Tell Americans and the World?
Even leaving aside the thorny problem of a Middle East peace plan, the White House has set itself a very difficult challenge in putting a "New Middle East speech" on the agenda: too much demand. Americans are still struggling to decide what to make of events from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya to Syria to Pakistan. The political jockeying over them has paused, well, no, it hasn't, wit
May 09
9/11-Style Commission Needed to Review US Policy on Pakistan
This post by Scott Bates, the former senior policy advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee. Bates is currently vice-president of the Center for National Policy and can be reached at sdbates66@hotmail.com. In a world full of national security challenges, none demands more urgent focus than the conundrum that is Pakistan. For at least a decade, Pakistan has consist
The Pakistani Conundrum
One of the more interesting elements of the OBL post-mortem is the emerging criticism of Pakistani behavior in allowing the world's most wanted terrorist to stay hidden for years in its country. American policymakers and analysts now seem shocked, shocked to discover that Pakistan is an uncertain and unhelpful ally to the United States. Forgive me for saying: where have these people been? Let&
May 06
UPDATED**: Experts Comment on Collecting Effective Intelligence
In the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden and the rampant speculation on the nature of the intelligence used to plan the raid, the National Security Network and the Center for American Progress held a press call this morning with Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Paul Eaton, NSN Senior Advisor; Ken Gude, Managing Director for National Security at CAP; Matthew Alexander, Air Force interrogator who led the
Killing Osama bin Laden Was a Legal Act
I’ve been a bit out of the loop for a few days but I’ve watching with almost stunned fascination the debate that has unfolded over the past few days about the legality of killing Osama bin Laden. In fairness, part of the problem is with how badly the White House has bungled the public information part of this job. I give the White House and the President credit for the execution of this operatio
May 05
May 04
Decision Points: Tora Bora vs. Abbottabad
As deluge of news coverage on the death of Osama bin Laden continues, and some go to great lengths to credit George Bush with putting policies in place that ultimately led to bin Laden's death, it’s worth reminding ourselves that President Bush and his administration had an opportunity to nab bin Laden at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001. But their decision-making during that episode failed.
May 02
Global War on Terror RIP
Let me start off by saying that I am really glad Osama bin Laden is dead. He attacked my hometown, he murdered my good friend, Brock Safronoff and his actions led to the deaths of many more Americans and far more Muslims. Good riddance to him and the blight that he represented on humanity. Now with that out of the way, here's my hastily crafted piece for World Politics Review on why the death
Apr 29
The Trouble with Petraeus Pt. 2
So I hadn't quite realized how unpopular David Petraeus was in Pakistan until I read this piece in the New York Times today: The appointment of Gen. David H. Petraeus as director of the Central Intelligence Agency puts him more squarely than ever in conflict with Pakistan, whose military leadership does not regard him as a friend and where he will now have direct control over the armed drone c
Apr 28
The Trouble With Petraeus
So I'm still having a hard time getting my head around the fact that President Obama has chosen David Petraeus to be his new director of central intelligence. Was Joe Lieberman busy? Here's someone who became a public advocate, rather than advisor, during presidential deliberations on Afghanistan policy; someone who misled the President about the ability of the military to turn things over
Our Wonderful Af/Pak Allies
So while political Washington has completely lost its mind over the President’s birth certificate . . . there’s actually a war going on in Afghanistan. It’s being fought by real flesh and blood American soldiers. And it’s not going well. Yesterday, nine Americans (8 soldiers and 1 civilian) were murdered at Kabul airport by a disgruntled Afghan Air Force officer. Now having spent several hours a
Apr 27
From Where Should We Lead?
Oh, how the right wing blogosphere is crowing over Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece on Obama foreign policy. All their charges of fecklessness fully confrmed -- confessed even! But before we get too excited, let's take a breath and look at what all the shouting is about. As I see it, the question on the table is the following: how can the United States get others to go along with what we wan
Apr 26
No One is Pretending Peace Talks are Easy
Sunday’s Washington Post featured a Jackson Diehl column entitled “The mirage of an Afghanistan exit.” The column has many problems, the biggest being that it fundamentally misrepresents arguments made by proponents of pursuing political solution. Having set up those strawman, he sets about knocking them down. One of the main problems with the column is that Diehl says proponents of broad talks th
The Courage of Obama's Convictions
Over the past two years, I have been generally supportive of the Obama Administration's foreign policy, with the notable exception of Afghanistan policy. But I think Spencer Ackerman has a very smart post that makes one of the most coherent and stinging criticisms of how President Obama approach to foreign policy and national security over the past two years: In both cases [closing Guantamao a
Apr 22
If the War in Libya is to Protect Civilians, Why Aren't We Protecting Civilians?
In his last Twitter communication before he was tragically killed in the Libyan town of Misrata, Tim Hetherington wrote, "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO." It seems odd that there was no sign of NATO air power in Misrata, which has been under siege for several weeks now and has been subject to flagrant attacks against civili
Running Things...It Ain't All Gravy
This Frederic Wehrey piece in Foreign Affairs explores some of the cleavages and divisions in Libya's population/power structures that could come to the fore if and when the Qaddafi regime is toppled - as well as some of the challenges in rebuilding (or building anew) a society left dilapidated by years of inept dictatorial rule: After Libyans, and much of the civilized world, rejoice in the
Apr 20
The Latest Take-Down of Liberal Interventionists
Here is the most ironic passage in Jacob Heilbrunn's National Interest article on Samantha Power as the embodiment of a foreign policy paradigm shift: Power has a penchant for dramatizing history through people rather than considering broader forces. She states in the acknowledgments to “A Problem From Hell” that a friend from Hollywood advised her to create a drama by telling the story thr
Apr 18
Welfare: Bad For America, Good For Europe?
Andrew Exum makes a wry observation about European security. Here's the way this read in today's Washington Post: “The Americans have the numbers of planes, and the Americans have the right equipment,” said Francois Heisbourg, a military specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. Here's the way this should have read in today's Washington Post: “The Americans have
Apr 14
Start Another Fire and Watch It Slowly Die: The Aftermath of Regime Change
Adam Curtis, a documentary filmmaker, traces a loose history of the modern concept of humanitarian intervention in the West and its philosophical underpinnings - punctuated, unsurprisingly, with several compelling documentary film clips. While historians may quibble with certain aspects of his rendition, there was one passage that stood out: The movement had begun back in Biafra because a group
Apr 12
So How's That Strategic Partnership With Pakistan Going?
This is perhaps the least surprising development to come out of Pakistan - recipient of billions of dollars in US military and economic assistance and supporter of the Taliban insurgency killing American soldiers in Afghanistan: Pakistan has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency operatives and Special Operations forces working in Pakistan, and tha
Apr 10
Peggy Noonan on the Virtue of Restraint
In her Wall Street Journal column Friday, Peggy Noonan criticized the international intervention in Libya as an example of excessive activism. Pointing to Dwight Eisenhower and her own mentor Ronald Reagan as model presidents, Noonan dusts off the classic argument against action for action's sake -- 'don't just do something, sit there!' But as much as I admire Eisenhower's l
Apr 07
Further Confirmation That Our Strategy in Afghanistan is Not Working
One of the key elements about US policy in Afghanistan that nearly all sides seem to agree upon is that without success in standing up the Afghan government and without success in getting Pakistan to turn on the Afghan Taliban safe havens in their country - the mission will likely fail. With that as a starting point, it makes reading the latest White House report on Afghanistan/Pakistan acutely de
Why Leon Panetta Shouldn't Be Secretary of Defense
So according to the Washinton Post, the leading candidate for Secretary of Defense is current CIA director Leon Panetta. Hearing this news reminds of this little tidbit from Bob Woodward's, "Obama's Wars" and the debate about escalation in Afghanistan from the Fall of 2009: He [Panetta] told other principals, "No Democratic President can go against military advice, especiall
Apr 05
From the Department of It Must Be Wrong If Obama Did It
Did you know that the Libya intervention is really just part of a larger plot to subjugate the United States to "an ever-broadening regime of redistributive transnational governance?" I didn't think so. Well, it's a good thing we have Stanley Kurtz of the National Review to pierce the humanitarian pretense: Superficially, Power's chief concern is to put a stop to genocide and
Apr 01
Turning That Frown Into A Smile - Why I Was Wrong About Afghanistan
For nearly two years I have been a harsh critic of the war in Afghanistan. For months and months I have railed at the false signs of progress, the failed US military approach to the war, the lack of a coherent political strategy, the shameless cheerleading of war supporters etc - but today that has all changed. What shifted my view? Well, it was actually an op-ed I read in the Washington Post by C
Mar 31
Drezner v. Bradford on the Success / Failure of the G-20
Over at ForeignPolicy.com, two smart experts are going head-to-head on an issue central to my day job: the effectiveness and value of the G-20 as a multilateral forum. The Brookings Institution's Colin Bradford lays out "Seven New Laws of the G-20," the gist of which is to push back against the rush to judge G-20 failure. According to Colin, we need to relax and adjust to new realiti
Recognizing when China acts responsibly
A new piece out today in the Times by Yan Xuetong, professor of political science and dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, argues that the philosophical underpinnings of the Chinese foreign policy establishment are shifting. Deng Xioaping’s admonition to lay low on the international stage is, according to Yan, giving way to a more “Confucian”
Mar 30
Washington's Bipartisan Consensus
Over at Foreign Policy, my old traveling partner Jim Arkedis has an interesting article that seeks to dramatize the differences between liberal interventionists and neo-cons. It's a rejoinder to a blog post by Steve Walt who argues that "liberal interventionists are just 'kinder, gentler' neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionists on steroids." Arkedis's res
Mar 29
Obama's Most Glaring Contradiction Ever
I've really gone back and forth on this question of whether it was right to intervene in Libya (and I think Marc Lynch makes perhaps the most persuasive case for intervention here). Those of us who are skeptical of intervention have to grapple with the fact that not acting could have led to a terrible civilian massacre, which appears to have been averted. On the other hand those who endorse i
Libya Speech -- Echoes of the '90s and '00s, Guideposts for the '10s
For a significant segment of the foreign policy community, the genocides and humanitarian crises of the 1990s were a formative experience. In other words, as we debate the response to Libya, many of us can't helping thinking back to the bloodletting in the Balkans and Africa. Here's the main point of President Obama's speech: had the US and its partners failed to step in and defend ci
Mar 28
Sad truth: Aggression, not repression, hurting Chinese soft power
Last Friday’s Washington Post featured an op-ed by Joseph Nye titled, “China’s repression undoes its charm offensive.” Nye’s argument isn’t as simplistic as the headline, but it’s still based on a faulty premise. The piece begins with Nye explaining how he was asked to give a speech in China on his construct of “soft power.” He says the speech “was before the series of revolutions roiling the Midd
Mar 27
Debating Military Intervention in Libya
So for those of you waiting for myself and Michael Cohen to go tete-a-tete, you will, sadly, have to wait. In the meantime, here's a bloggingheads.tv debate I did with sometime sparring partner and University of Vermont professor Greg Gause. We discuss the pros and cons of intervention in Libya and America's relationships with allied autocrats in places like Yemen and Bahrain. As you might
Mar 25
Friday Afternoon Fun
It’s been a while since my last post, but I thought a fun Friday afternoon post would be a good reentrance to DA. After seeing the announcement for a very interesting event sponsored by CAP and the American Constitution Society titled, “Born in the USA?: The Historical and Constitutional Underpinnings of Birthright Citizenship” a colleague suggested that NSN hold an event on events in the Middle
Libya: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
First, the good. One of the biggest fears about the military operations in Libya is that the United States would be stuck holding the military bag. But the decision yesterday by NATO to assume responsibility for military operations goes a long way toward allaying those concerns - and strikes me as a hugely important diplomatic breakthrough. Now we have a structure in place for sharing responsibili
Mar 24
Confused in Asia
Once again the West’s attention is being pulled westward, away from the crisis and extraordinary show of resilience by the Japanese towards the war in Libya. Just in time, Evan Feigenbaum has a strong think piece – his words – in the Washington Quarterly arguing that America no longer “gets” Asia. Feigenbaum says American policy towards the region is fractured and badly out of date intellectually,
Libya Mission Creep Watch
Today's article in the New York Times about the make-up of the rebel forces in Libya is not a pleasant read: After the uprising, the rebels stumbled as they tried to organize. They did a poor job of defining themselves when Libyans and the outside world tried to figure out what they stood for. And now, as they try to defeat Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s armed forces and militias, they will have to
Mar 22
Using Talks with the Taliban to Fix the Afghan Political System
Earlier today I attended an enlightening event at the Center for American Progress on transition goals for Afghanistan. Among the many insightful points that were brought up by panelists David Kilcullen, Caroline Wadhams and Anand Gopal was the urgent need for work on political reform in the country. There is widespread consensus on the need for political reform. The basic problem is that the gov
On Precedents and Double Standards in Libya and the Wider Region
A few days back, Shadi Hamid made an interesting argument in favor of intervening militarily in Libya that I would like to revisit: One of the main sources of Arab antipathy toward America is our long, tragic history of supporting repressive dictatorships in the region. This five-decade-long bi-partisan policy gave us the self-destructing Arab world that we have now (and also contributed to the r
Happy Anniversary, Iraq War
Over at Foreign Policy, Matt Duss and I have a new piece marking the 8th anniversary of the Iraq war - and the lessons from that conflict that remain frustratingly unlearned: As the United States and its European allies launch attacks against the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddhafi, it seems almost poignant that this third military intervention in a Muslim country in the last decade began
Mar 21
Intra-DA Libya Smackdown
So the folks at bloggingheads decided to make it interesting with an intra-blog showdown between me and Heather - it's probably just preparation for when Shadi and I have the bloggingheads equivalent of Thunderdome smackdown. Until then, watch two foreign policy pundits try to make sense of this whole Libya intervention:
Stumbling Into War
I've been trying very hard to find reasons to be supportive of the current US/UN war in Libya - but it's getting increasingly difficult. And the main reason is that it looks a lot like amateur hour at the White House right now. First of all, from everything that is being reported (and Josh Rogin as usual is doing yeoman's work on this front) it appears that the White House only made th
Mar 20
There's Nothing Easy About War - The Libya Version
There's a lot that Shadi has written below that I find disagreement with, but one paragraph really does jump out: I don't know about you - but I have trouble understanding how people can be okay with sitting back and doing nothing, when, with military intervention, it [protecting civilians] could fairly easily be prevented. We can stop it. Moving to the strict "interests" ration
Mar 19
Is Intervening in Libya in American Interests?
Does the US have a vital national security interest in Libya? It depends on how you define interests. But even if there's no clear-cut 'imminent threat' to U.S. security, that may actually be a good thing. The perception has long been that the U.S. only intervenes when it has "vital interests at stake." But, this time, we're presumably doing it to protect civilians, preve
Mar 18
I've Seen This Movie Before - It's Called Kosovo
Just watching Obama speak and I can't help but note the eerie similarities to what is being done on Libya - and the NATO war in Kosovo. Obama described a situation in which US and UN objectives in Libya are "well-defined" and focused around "protecting civilians." Indeed Obama said "we are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal, specifically the protec
More Questions on Libya; And Even Fewer Answers
This morning Heather and I did a bloggingheads on Libya, which hopefully will be up here soon. It's sort of interesting debate because I think both of us are struggling on what to think about this situation. I think both of us are torn by our desire to see the international community help the Libyan people and prevent a humanitarian crisis and our well-earned skepticism about the efficacy of u
Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Iraq and Libya
While we hold our breath to see whether Gaddafi's cease-fire is real, it's worth taking a long view -- in both directions -- on what happened at the UN last night. 19 years ago and 11 years ago, groups of neighboring states, the US and NATO tried and failed to use the UN effectively to get Slobodan Milosevic to back down. Those efforts -- both of which I was peripherally involved in -- we
Libya, the US, and the Moral Imperative to Intervene
Finally, after much "dithering" - which seems to be the consensus word choice for Obama's sputtering Mideast policy - the US has finally suggested that it can, sometimes, do the right thing, even if it does it three weeks later (I looked back to see when I had written my Slate article calling for international intervention - February 23). The arguments against military intervention
Mar 17
The Questions Not Being Asked on Libya
My friend and blogging mate Shadi Hamid has been passionately beating the drum in support of US military intervention in Libya for the past several weeks - and in the end I hope that his view about the efficacy of intervention ends up being correct and my skepticism is proven wrong. Having said I think the argument that he utilizes below justifying military intervention gets the US strategic equat
Don't Blame the Iraq War Cheerleaders; It Was All Rummy's Fault
So apparently everyone thinks that Don Rumsfeld was a horrible Defense Secretary and his new memoir is a self-serving blight on all humanity. Seems about right to me; and this view is so widely held that even Max Boot agrees. His review of Rumsfeld's book is lacerating. In particular Boot savages Rumsfeld's lack of introspection and his abundant tactical mistakes in waging the wars in Ira
The 'Do Something' Crowd Strikes Again in Libya
Over at World Politics Review I have a new piece up on the strange bipartisan consensus emerging in Washington that we must "do something" to respond to events in Libya: Next week the United States will mark the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq -- widely considered one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history. Meanwhile, more than 100,000 U.S. troops remain mired
Mar 15
The Libyan Rebels Deserve Outside Military Help
There are many good reasons to be cautious about outside international intervention (especially American) on behalf of the Libyan rebels. For that matter, there are always good reasons to pause before getting involved in a violent conflict. In the current case, those reasons have been swamped by recent developments -- i.e. the apparent appeals from the opposition themselves and the support from wi
Investing in International Affairs Is A National Security Priority
This guest post is by Sara DuBois, Interim Communications Director at National Security Network. As the budget debate moves forward, lawmakers in D.C. face tough choices about where to spend U.S. dollars. The international affairs budget, which accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, has been a target of GOP spending proposals. Some in the GOP, especially Republican House leaders
New Concerns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
Lot of changes last night at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station. Two more explosions, one at Reactor No. 2 and the other at Reactor No. 4, which was not operating at the time the quake and tsunami hit. The situation has rapidly deteriorated. Radiation levels appear to have risen dramatically, but readings vary depending on location and may be subsiding. There are six reactors at Fukushima,
New Concerns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
Lot of changes last night at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station. Two more explosions, one at Reactor No. 2 and the other at Reactor No. 4, which was not operating at the time the quake and tsunami hit. The situation has rapidly deteriorated. Radiation levels appear to have risen dramatically, but readings vary depending on location and may be subsiding. There are six reactors at Fukushima,
More Good News From Afghanistan
Where does one begin detailing the tales of woe emanating from the war in Afghanistan? According to the International Red Cross the situation for civilians in Afghanistan has become "untenable" and the problems seem to be particularly acute in the South which is where the lion's share of US-led fighting is occurring. And for all the 'progress' being made in places like Sangin
Mar 14
Decoding Japan's Nuclear Crisis: What You Need to Know
The situation is constantly changing. IAEA Director General Amano cautioned earlier today, “It is very important to bear in mind that we are dealing with a situation that is constantly developing.” The Union of Concerned Scientists is posting smart, timely updates on their blog, All Things Nuclear.Blogs of War has a nuclear crisis monitor that streams the latest tweets on #Fukushima #Radiation #N
Tell Me How This Ends
There has been an increasing chorus of voices urging the US (acting with its allies in NATO, the UN or in tandem with some ad hoc coalition of the willing) to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace, with lawmakers from both parties, as well as foreign leaders, making appeals to implement some variation of such a policy in recent days. To some extent, this impulse is understandable given the inc
Mar 13
Your DA Reminder of the Day: Don't Listen to Paul Wolfowitz
Here's Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 Congressional testimony confidently predicting the likely outcome of the US invasion of Iraq: Some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. First, it’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces
Mar 10
The Politics of Scapegoating
So NSN is doing a great job of exposing the bad policy and McCarthyite posturing behind the King hearings on supposed radicaliation in the Muslim community . . . but over at Politico I take a look at the bad politics: If the goal of House Republicans is to ensure their party remains the overwhelming province of white voters, this week’s House Homeland Security Committee hearings on radicalization
Mar 08
Woops: Defending Defense Cohort Makes Case for Reducing Defense Spending
The United States has the most powerful military in the world. No other country comes close to matching our military might. Yet to read the latest Defending Defense report by Heritage, AEI and FPI, one gets the sense that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could easily overwhelm U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific and that China’s modernization efforts far outpace those of the United States. This d
The Absolutely Crazy Notion That the US Should Intervene Militarily in Libya
I was just saying to a friend yesterday that it seems like American politicians have never truly learned the lessons of the Iraq war - one of which clearly is that when the US intervenes militarily it breeds often dangerous and unexpected consequences. Remember how we were going to be greeted as liberators in Baghdad and would have troops home in six months? Yet, right on cue there are, according
Mar 07
Trends in Multilateral Cooperation III - UN Security Council Reform
I was in South Africa recently to meet with our counterpart experts and discuss basically same question in which I'm always interested: how to spur collective action on big global challenges like climate change, economic growth, and nuclear proliferation. In other words, what really matters the most about the growing clout of rising powers like South Africa isn't the power shift itself, bu
Elevating Those Guns A Little Lower In Afghanistan
Last week I did a radio interview on US policy in Afghanistan and the host asked me, quite seriously, if we needed to stay in the country until we could be sure that the rights of Afghanistan's women were properly safeguarded. As I responded at the time this is simply not a justification for continuing the US war in Afghanistan. Even if our presence in Afghanistan did strengthen women's ri
Mar 02
Afghanistan Round-Up
Work has a way of interfering in regular Afghanistan blogging (plus how many times can you say the current strategy isn't working and young American lives are being squandered). To this latter point, I read with some horror and amusement this Talk of the Nation interview with Bing West, Chris Chivers and John Nagl about the current situation in Afghanistan. I was struck by the fact that outsid
Feb 25
Our Ongoing Crisis In Civ-Mil Relations -- Al Franken Edition
I am taking the liberty of glomming onto adding to Michael's continuing series on civ-mil relations. His last installment takes a step back to keep the revelations from Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings in perspective -- mainly by highlighting more significant manipulations of the Afghanistan policy debate. I saw Sen. Al Franken mentioned as one of the high-level visitors whose buttons the
Feb 24
A No-Fly Zone for Libya?
The world is looking for a proper response to the crisis in Libya. With limited leverage, what will stop Muammar Qaddafi from continuing to murder his own people? John Kerry has led the way among elected officials in proposing specific responses. ICG has offered similiar recommendations. My fellow DAer Shadi Hamid has a piece over at Slate calling for NATO to "quickly move to enforce a no-fl
Our Ongoing Crisis In Civ-Mil Relations - PSYOP Edition
So the bombshell du jour about Afghanistan is a Rolling Stone article that alleges the US military is apparently using soldiers specializing in psychological operations to convince visiting US Senators and think tankers to support increase troop levels and funding for the war in Afghanistan I guess I'm supposed to be outraged about this . . . but honestly I'm not. The notion that PSYOPs wo
Feb 23
The Coming Counterrevolution?
This guest post by Scott Bates, vice-president and senior fellow for national security at the Center for National Policy. Bates was the first senior policy advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee. In 1848 popular revolution broke out in one European land after another, from the Netherlands to Serbia, Poland to Prussia. Monarchies tottered and the old social order
Congressional Moves to Get Out of Afghanistan Begin with a Whimper
As the world and the Washington foreign policy community focused on unrest in the Middle East for the last couple of weeks, some members of Congress moved to stop funding the war in Afghanistan. On the House side, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced a bill that would “end combat operations in Afghanistan and limit funding to the safe orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors.” On
Feb 21
Raymond Davis Worked for the CIA . . . So What?
So today we find out about Raymond Davis what many had suspected - that he was working for the CIA. However, even the details of his status remain highly opaque. The New York Times is reporting that Davis "was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country;" the Wall Street Journal reports that Davis worked for the agency b
How's That Strategic Partnership With Pakistan Working Out?
Greg Miller in the Washington Post has a really interesting article about the success, or lack thereof, of the US drone war in Pakistan: CIA drone attacks in Pakistan killed at least 581 militants last year, according to independent estimates. The number of those militants noteworthy enough to appear on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists: two. Despite a major escalation in the number of unmanne
Feb 18
Jaw Jaw Is Better than Wish Wish
Ahmad Shuja has recently undertaken to hold an "e-jirga," whereby Shuja asks various Afghan professionals and students for their opinions on the wisdom of negotiating/reconciling with the Taliban. The early responses are worth reading, and one hopes that more such discussion will be forthcoming, as a negotiation/reconciliation strategy is at least worth pursuing if nothing else but to g
Feb 17
More On Raymond Davis
So there is a rather interesting article on the Raymond Davis controversy that quotes a number of Congressmen and Senators saying it would be a terrible idea to use US aid to Pakistan as a tool for winning Davis's release. And generally I agree with this sentiment - but to be sure it's not as if aid is providing much of any leverage with the Pakistani government otherwise. Still, this quot
What the Raymond Davis Incident Says About the US-Pakistan "Strategic Partnership"
For more than a year and a half supporters of the war in Afghanistan have steadily peddled the argument that one of the reasons that the US must stay militarily engaged in the region (and especially in Afghanistan) is to support Pakistan, particularly in its fight against radical extremists. The Obama Administration has even hailed a new strategic partnership with Islamabad. But the latest twist
Defending Strategy, Not “Defending Defense”
Washington’s entrenched defense budget hawks are either clueless or willfully ignorant. Following, the release of the fiscal year 2012 budget Monday, the “Defending Defense” trio of The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative released a statement. The first line was “strategy should always guide the defense budget, not vice versa.” True enough. But
Feb 15
The Blindness of Moral Clarity
Please join me in a thought experiment. I'm going to pinpoint what I consider the central falacy of the ultra-conservative foreign policy argument / critique. See if you agree that this theme -- blind spot, I'd say -- runs through a big proportion of what the hard-right says about the stance the United States should take internationally. As David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo and Greg Sc
America's Budgetary Delusions
Over at AOL I have a new piece up on the dueling Republican and Democratic budget proposals . . . and it ain't pretty With the Republicans' latest budget proposal -- and to a lesser extent Obama's -- both parties seem intent on furthering the charade that Americans need and want a smaller government, without making any real effort to get us there. It's the least of both worlds, com
Trends in Multilateral Cooperation - Part II
I had an idea once that the noun United Nations (and its acronym) should always be used in the plural. We should say "the United Nations are," not "the United Nations is." It's a difficult grammatical discipline, and perhaps impractical. But the point remains: the UN isn't really an entity unto itself, but instead an instrument of the 192 nation-states that comprise it
The GOP's Budget Fiasco
The best part about the GOP’s budget day freak-out is that there is concrete proof that conservatives have no alternative vision or plan. And given the civil war that’s currently playing out on the right, that’s not likely to change anytime soon.The federal government is currently being funded through a Continuing Resolution, which is set to expire on March 4. So before Congress can get to the 20
The Pentagon Always Wins
So there seems to be some argument going around that the Pentagon has engaged in some serious belt-tightening with its latest budget request. Honestly, I don't even have to read Gordon Adams take on this to know that is almost certainly not true, but the man's got the goods: $78 billion in savings is a myth. Six billion don’t happen until 2015 and 2015, the mythical budget years, when DOD
Feb 14
Threading the Elections Needle in Egypt
As the revolution moves out of Tahrir Square and into the halls of power, it makes sense to look at historical examples for how a military-backed authoritarian government can transition to democracy. Enter this solid piece in the Wall Street Journal today that looks at Indonesia as model for making that move. The piece illustrates an important point that should inform the discussion about the role
Feb 12
Don't Believe the Hype: The Surge as a Sequel
While myth-making and propagandizing can be useful tools in political contests, such embellishments can pervert policy if taken literally. As a general rule, it is best not to believe the hype - even your own. One recent example of this type of credulity is the conventional wisdom that has coalesced around the "Surge" in Iraq and the supposed benefits that resulted therefrom. According
Feb 11
Credit Where Credit Is Due, Obama Played This Beautifully
First things first; this is an extraordinary day and while it's a bit trite to salute the people of Egypt . . . I salute the people of Egypt. I think President Obama summed it up best in his remarks today: The word "tahrir" means "liberation." It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom. And forevermore, it will remind us of the Egypti
Back to the Top of the Slide
While it is understandable that there is a reluctance on the part of the Department of Defense to use bodycounts to measure progress in Afghanistan, Joshua Foust took note of a pretty damning announcement regarding insurgent numbers from the Afghan Ministry of Defense: The strength of Taliban insurgents and other anti-government elements estimated to be between 25,000 to 35,000 in the militancy-h
That Wacky, Wacky Krauthammer
It's been awhile since I've done a post examining the wackiness of Charles Krauthammer but the man's latest missive in the Washington Post has woken me from my slumber. Krauthammer extols George Bush's Freedom Agenda as well as the virtues of democracy in the Arab World - and helpfully welcomes liberals abroad the neo-con democracy bandwagon: Today, everyone and his cousin supports
Feb 10
A Defiant Mubarak and What Obama Should Do Next
Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refuses to go. Protestors in Tahrir Square are in agony. The Obama administration has just been called out. Now what? According to Mubarak, the issue is no longer a choice between stability and chaos, but instead one of national pride as embodied in the life story of Hosni Mubarak. To give in to pressure and leave power now would, according to Mubarak,
Shifting Deck Chairs on the Titanic
I'm a little late in posting this to DA, but I have a new piece up at Foreign Policy making the case that recent signs of military progress in Afghanistan cannot mask the underlying strategic impediments in our current strategy: Without tangible improvement in creating a capable and effective Afghan security force; without a competent and legitimate central government able to provide good gove
Feb 09
The Progressive National Military Strategy
If President Barack Obama had said in his State of Union address last month that U.S. military policy will “emphasize mutual responsibility and respect” or even hinted at “shifts in relative power,” his political enemies would have wiped the floor with him. But those concepts frame the U.S. National Military Strategy, a document put together by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that was released on Feb.
Feb 08
UN Bashing Redux
In the category of right wing retreads, guess what's near the top of the agenda for the House Foreign Affairs Committee under its new Republican management. Did you guess witholding the dues our country pays to the big bad anti-American United Nations (subject of a January 25 hearing)? No? Well, it does have an eccentric pet peeve feel to it, to be sure. Not to mention serious tone-deafness ab
The Taliban/Al Qaeda Link & the Facile Reasoning of Afghan War Supporters
Over the past 18 months one of the key rationales that has been used to justify the US military presence in Afghanistan is that if the Taliban are somehow allowed to return to power in Afghanistan they will once again provide a safe haven to al Qaeda. Indeed, President Obama, when he announced a troop surge in December 2009 made this exact argument to justify the increased US military presence in
Feb 07
New START Enters Into Force
New START formally entered into force this past weekend when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exchanged instruments of ratification on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. U.S. and Russian inspectors will soon exchange data on missiles, launchers, heavy bombers and warheads and in less than 60 days, inspections will resume. According to my
Running Out the Clock in Egypt
As the heady early days of the January 25 movement start to drag into the dull work of figuring out what’s next, the standoff between protestors and the government has turned into a waiting game. The regime wants to wait out the protestors, ceding as few concessions as possible along the way. The protestors, meanwhile, must struggle to keep up the momentum and pressure they’ve accumulated to exac
Feb 04
Incentives and Isotopes
Yesterday, NSN and the Center for America Progress co-hosted a forum on principled and pragmatic policy options for dealing with Iran. Paul Pillar’s write-up in the National Interest offers an overview of his remarks and a reminder of why the current debate over Iran’s enrichment program isn’t getting us too far. “For all the focus on uranium enrichment, the western side has done little to explor
A Tale of Four Not So Great American "Allies"
I've generally avoided writing anything about the situation in Egypt because it seems there are already enough people who know very little about Egypt publicly saying something - or have a personal agenda in commenting on the crisis. Still I couldn't help but note an interesting linkage between what's happening with the United States in Egypt and three other countries in the Middle Eas
Feb 02
De-Nile is Not Just a River in Egypt
While the world's eyes are fixated on the pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt there is, under the radar screen, even more evidence of the strategic dysfunction and delusion that resides at the heart of US policy in Afghanistan. In a press briefing at the Pentagon yesterday, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the number two military commander Afghanistan, said those safe havens in Pakistan . . . not r
Feb 01
Cairo in Chaos: What’s Next?
As Hosni Mubarak sends mixed signals about his next steps - from an undisclosed location -, what should Americans expect next? Our best Arab ally for the past 30 years has consistently shown himself to be a cagey autocrat, one not to be counted out prematurely, but this may even be too big for him and he may be gone soon. Here are some scenarios that could play out as a result of this week’s cha
Remembrance of a Conversation in Doha
When I spoke by phone to my fellow blogger Shadi Hamid yesterday, he reminded me of a conversation we had this past summer in Doha. I was passing through on an overnight in Doha on my way to Islamabad and Kabul, and had spent the previous two weeks in Egypt. The conversation naturally focused on the perennial issue of Egypt and reform. At the time, the country’s opposition groups were trying to co
Jan 28
What Does Oil Cost?
Right on time, just as DC recovers from the salmon-induced hangover of the president’s State of the Union address, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce begins calling the administration’s plan to shift the country’s energy mix away from oil and coal “unrealistic” and insisting it’s too costly. Is the Chamber right? Let’s examine. If shifting to clean energy is too costly, what does the status quo cost? As
Jan 27
We've Seen This Movie Before
Reading through the Pentagon Papers today I came across this rather unsettling quote from early 1968 - remind you of any wars being fought today? The paper entitled "Alternate Strategies" painted a bleak picture of American failure in Vietnam: We lost our offensive stance because we never achieved the momentum essential for military victory. Search and Destroy operations can't build
Whither the Tea Party on the defense budget?
So will they or won’t they? Amidst the hype during last year’s election season, there was much ink/bytes spilled over the question of whether Tea Partiers would include defense in their budget-cutting fervor. As we come into budget season, it’s time for the rubber to hit the road -- and it’s beginning to look as though the Tea Partiers are going to cave under pressure from their party brethren, as
Jan 26
State of the Union: On Democracy in the Arab World
Last night’s State of the Union address was, unsurprisingly, focused on domestic issues. For someone concentrating on the broader Middle East, the speech’s oblique references to foreign policy did not convey a clear sense of the social unrest and political malaise that have been on display for weeks as demonstrations and acts of self-immolation spread across the region. The only reference to these
Counterterrorism in the State of the Union: A Tale of Two Paragraphs
Given that the State of the Union address tilted heavily toward domestic issues, should come as no surprise that US counterterrorism policy was allotted a mere two paragraphs. That said, the two paragraphs are instructive, and offer a stark contrast in approaches and, ultimately, efficacy. First, the good: Of course, as we speak, al Qaeda and their affiliates continue to plan attacks against us.
Jan 25
The White House's Credibility Gap on Afghanistan Deepens
I've been watching State of the Union speech for for probably 30 years and I've yet to hear a memorable one - and tonight will not break that streak. What a snoozer. Although frankly from a political perspective I thought it was actually pretty effective - makes Obama look like the adult-in-chief who is willing to work across the aisle with Republicans. But from a policy perspective there
Foreign Affairs Portion of the SOTU
The State of the Union Address has been leaked to the National Journal. Here's the foreign affairs portion. What do you think? Text below: Just as jobs and businesses can now race across borders, so can new threats and new challenges. No single wall separates East and West; no one rival superpower is aligned against us.And so we must defeat determined enemies wherever they are, and build coali
Jan 24
What’s Next After the “Palestine Papers”?
Last September when I read Charlie Kupchan’s op-ed in the International Herald Tribune telling the Palestinians that they should “just say yes” and make grand diplomatic concessions in the hopes of jumpstarting the peace process in the Middle East, I didn’t necessarily like the conclusion, but I agreed with it. Kupchan wrote: The Palestinian Authority should make Israel an offer it can’t refuse b
The Price Being Paid
In recent weeks I've been trying quite unsuccessfully to write less about Afghanistan. The reason is simple; how many times can one keep making the same argument over and over again - without seeing any sort of change in strategy - before it becomes simply exhausting. For nearly two years I have been writing about the strategy underpinning the war in Afghanistan both here at Democracy Arsenal
Jan 21
Neocons Make the Sovereignty Argument for China
Nina Hachigian of the Center for American Progress explains how American neoconservatives undermine the argument that China needs to be a responsible global stakeholder: At base, however, Washington and Beijing have divergent ideas about how a great power should conduct itself in the 21st century. In that battle of ideas, China gets support from an unlikely corner: American neoconservatives. China
Wanna Tighten the Screws on China? Focus on Coalition Building
Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington this week amid much hang-wringing about continued obstinacy from China on a range of issues. So the question of the day is: What’s the best way to get China to play ball and become a more responsible power? One school of thought suggests the U.S. continue to ratchet up its responses to Chinese actions. But as Les Gelb points out, too much ratcheting o
Jan 20
Is the Fuel Swap Back? Again?
Could it be? Is the Zombie fuel deal back?With the P5 + 1 talks kicking off tomorrow in Istanbul, rumors of a revived fuel swap are surfacing. Again. Iran has denied claims that it intends to propose new terms for a fuel swap and the U.S. is saying that it’s open to the idea but not sure it wants to be the one to bring it up. It’s hard to remember, but despite all of the hype, the original Tehr
"China as Behemoth" Has a Military Edge
Dan Drezner has a good roundup pushing back on Forbes magazine’s random and stupid article contending that Chinese President Hu Jintao is the most powerful man in the world. (Harry Reid also made a similar mistake, calling Hu a “dictator”.) Drezner tags the “Hu as powerful dictator” line as part of bigger “China as rising hegemon” meme. I’m not sure I agree with Drezner’s argument that the scope
Jan 19
Tactics vs. Strategy in Afghanistan
Over at abumuqawama and registan.net, Josh Foust and Andrew Exum have posted a rather interesting exchange that examines the tactical efforts of the US military in Afghanistan. It's a fascinating debate between two smart people and one that I highly recommend. But, and I mean this not to be insulting to either, it's a digression even diversion from the real issues regarding the current US
Jan 18
On Village Razing . . . and Counter-Insurgency
There's been a lot of back and forth between Paula Broadwell and Josh Foust about the issue of village razing in Afghanistan. Those who need to catch up can follow the debate here, here and here. I won't bother to summarize the entire discussion, but it began with what I think can be charitably described as Paula's less than empathetic response to an Afghan village being destroyed. Wha
Armed Social Work in Action
This might be the greatest, most depressing and yet bizarrely symbolic picture depicting the US effort to stabilize and pacify Afghanistan. Here in an article from the New York Times that references a "humanitarian assistance patrol in Ghazni Province" which handed out "crank-powered radios, books, candy and drinks." But check out the title of the book in the picture below: Th
Jan 17
More Ideas For A Constructive Foreign Policy Debate
I spent last weekend at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School for a conference the Stanley Foundation co-sponsored with three of our favorite colleagues. The main subject was the prospect and challenge of international cooperation amidst pervasive change, but there were a couple of nuggets for the domestic politics of foreign policy. The first came from Rich Williamson, a highly accomplished prac
Debating the Tunisian Uprising on Bloggingheads.tv
Issandr El Amrani and I took to bloggingheads.tv yesterday to debate Tunisia's almost-would-be revolution. What does it mean for the region, and what, if anything, should the US do about it? Issandr's twitter feed and website, The Arabist, has been one of the best places to follow events in Tunisia. A special bonus for viewers: Issandr and I offer predictions on which regime might fall nex
Jan 14
It Isn't All About Us
I cannot recommend enough my colleague Michael Cohen's piece on the need to take account of, and accommodate, Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan as part of our own strategic approach going forward. Cohen's assessment is realistic, thorough and takes care to recognize what Pakistani leaders (rightly or wrongly) views as its vital interests in Afghanistan, without falling into the trap
Pundit Accountability - What I Got Wrong
One of my biggest pet peeves as a denizen of the think tank and blogging world is the propensity of my fellow foreign policy analysts to make mistakes and errors of judgment - and never be held accountable for them. Why should we be above reputational scrutiny for making errors in what, after all, is our primary occupation - analysis? And after all a little humility is probably a very good thing,
Accommodating Pakistan's Interests in Afghanistan
Over at World Politics Review I have a new piece looking at the disconnect between America's political and military strategies for dealing with Pakistan: At the heart of the U.S. war in Afghanistan lies a striking and unresolved contradiction. While the U.S. has sent approximately 100,000 troops to this impoverished, landlocked country to combat a fearsome local insurgency, the actual focal po
Jan 13
A More Civil Discourse -- Foreign Policy Wonks' Edition
As the country gropes for ways to lower the temperature and make political disagreement less disagreeable, I thought I'd look back to a 2006-07 initiative that brought together a bipartisan group of 20 foreign policy experts. The Stanley Foundation's Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide project was the brainchild of Derek Chollet, who is about to move from the State Department Office of Pol
When Pro-Western Regimes Fall: What Should the U.S. Do?
This is the second in a series of posts on the ongoing Tunisian uprising. You can read the first here. One month ago, Tunisia seemed quiet, stable. Quiet and stable is generally what Western governments like to see in the Middle East. But Tunisia may be on the brink of the first genuine Arab revolution in recent memory. Talk of revolution tends to get US policymakers jittery, as it should. There
Tunisia on the Brink of Revolution?
There are revolutions that happen. There are revolutions that almost happen. And then's there's Algeria. Today, we are witnessing a remarkable series of events in Tunisia, long considered one of the most stable Arab countries. But it isn't. It wasn't. As we speak, protests and riots have spread throughout Tunisia, including in the capital. Protestors have taken over a mansion of o
It’s the Optics, Stupid: Why and How Hizbullah is Spinning the Lebanese Government’s Collapse
This guest post by Anthony Elghossain, who blogs at Page Lebanon and is a J.D. candidate at The George Washington University Law School. After months of parading a purportedly imminent “Saudi-Syrian initiative” aimed at averting a crisis, Hizbullah and its allies have withdrawn from, and thus toppled, Lebanon's government. Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, having just concluded
Is President Obama Weak in the Eyes of Arab Leaders?
Neoconservatives are likely to be wrong on any number of issues. But there is one critique of theirs that, somewhat to my dismay, has struck me as more compelling than I would have originally hoped. There is an argument to be made that the United States is weaker – and by this, I mean less admired, less respected, and more likely to be perceived as irrelevant – than it was under the Bush administr
Jan 11
Trends In Multilateral Cooperation - Part I
I have a small backlog of posts starting to accumulate, all having to do with the shape of future multilateral cooperation. I'll start with David Bosco, "The Multilateralist,"and his analysis of the Sarkozy visit in light of the French president's ambitions as host of G-8 and G-20 summits later this year. David raises some great questions about whether Sarkozy's eyes are too
Jan 06
Afghanistan: What Can We Achieve?
Over at Dissent I have a new article that offers an alternative perspective on what the US and NATO should do in Afghanistan. Short version: adopt a political strategy: The U.S. war in Afghanistan started off with rousing optimism in the fall of 2001, but by the end of the decade has devolved into a quagmire for U. S. troops and potential disaster for the Afghan people. For all its twists and turn
Jan 04
What Does It Mean To Support Terrorists?
Thanks to a New York Times op-ed Monday by Georgetown law professor David Cole, debate has been renewed over last summer's SCOTUS decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project and the question of what constitutes "support" for terrorists and can be prohibited. Can you, for instance, outlaw efforts aimed at steering terrorist groups toward seeking redress via peaceful means? The news
Dec 29 2010
The White House's Growing 'Credibility Gap' on Afghanistan
A couple of months ago I wrote an article for Foreign Policy that argued only the US military is optimistic about the situation in Afghanistan. I noted that the apparent disconnect between public statements by the military and pretty much everyone else in Afghanistan is "increasingly bringing into question the very credibility of U.S. military statements about military progress in Afghanistan
Dec 22 2010
New START Reflections and Kudos
The issues of nuclear weapons and arms control are basically where I got my start (sorry) in foreign policy. My formative experiences as an advocate were in the early-80s nuclear freeze movement. The core argument was pretty straightforward: there was no valid military or security rationale for having the tens of thousands of n-weapons already in the US and Soviet arsenals, never mind adding a lot
Dec 21 2010
New START Daily Wrap: Day 7
Cloture invoked: “victory for common sense” ahead. Hours ago, the Senate voted 67 – 28 to close the floor debate on New START and move towards a final vote. Senators now have up to 30 hours to wrap up the floor debate, though Hill observers expect the final vote to come sometime Wednesday. Five senators were absent for today’s vote—and at least three, Sens. Wyden, Bayh and Gregg—plan to vote f
Words of Wisdom from America’s Military Leaders. Again.
Over the past week, leading uniformed officials have continued to urge the Senate to ratify New START. There is a reason the tide has turned and additional GOP senators have gone on record to say they will support New START: The treaty has the entire support of the United States military leadership. Despite desperate attempts to drag this debate into partisan waters, New START has the bipartisan
Afghanistan Misson Creep Watch Redux
So apparently a few senior members of the US military have lost their minds: Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there. The proposal, described by American officials i
Dec 20 2010
New START Daily Wrap: Weekend Edition
President Obama sent letters to Senators Reid and McConnell about the U.S. missile defense plans. President Obama reiterated, "Regardless of Russia's actions in this regard, as long as I am President, and as long as Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy the effective missile defenses to protect the United State, our deployed forces
New START Daily Wrap: Day 6
Military leaders continue to urge swift passage of New START. Admiral Mullen reiterated the military’s unanimous call to ratify New START as soon as possible. “The sooner it is ratified, the better,” Adm. Mullen said in his letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA). Gen. Scowcroft on GOP obstructionism: “It’s baffling to me.” General Brent Scowcroft (ret.), the f
New START Daily Wrap: Day 3
18 European Foreign Ministers: New START Matters. The foreign ministers wrote: New START will "have a positive impact on American, European and wider international security. Its impact on international security goes far beyond Europe - it is global. That is why we all share an interest in seeing the new treaty ratified and implemented." Killer amendment, killed? After complaining tha
Dec 17 2010
The Short Life and Timely Death of Pop-Centric COIN
Over at the Nation, I have a new piece looking at the evolution of counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan - from McChrystal-esque hearts and minds to Petraeus-style, kinetic action: What is happening in Afghanistan is an embrace of the aggressive approach to counterinsurgency once publicly dismissed by FM 3-24 advocates. This is not to suggest that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan have given
The Civilian Side Needs Advocates
Dan Drezner has a good roundup on the challenge of breaking the civilian agency “feedback loop,” which he aptly characterizes as, “State loses operational authority and capabilities because of poor funding, which leads to more tasks for Defense, which leads to even more lopsided funding between the two bureaucracies, which leads to an even greater disparity in responsibilities, and so forth.” Wha
Dec 16 2010
New START Daily Wrap: Day 2
Military leaders continued to express support for prompt ratification. Today the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Cartwright, dismissed GOP attempts to delay New START and urged prompt ratification of the treaty at a White House press conference, insisting, “We need START, and we need it badly.”Sen. Isakson appeared to break with Sen. Kyl, suggesting that the junior senat
The Afghan Strategy Review That Wasn't
So I just got done reading the White House's Afghan Strategy Review and it is as depressing as it is unserious. In general, this is a report intended more for public consumption than a serious reading of the situation in Afghanistan; and frankly its goal is more to deceive the public than to level with it. (Considering that now 60 percent of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not wo
New START Myths Debunked, Missile Defense Edition
As the Senate moves to offer the advice and consent of Congress, legislators need to distinguish between dangerous myths and reality. Here are the facts: Myth: New START limits our ability to deploy missile defenses. Reality: New START preserves our ability to deploy effective missile defenses. New START does not limit U.S. missile defense systems or in any way diminish our ability to protect a
Dec 15 2010
New START Daily Wrap: Day 1
Key procedural vote on New START passes strongly. The final vote count was 66-32, which represents a two-thirds majority of the 98 senators who were present-enough to ratify the agreement, and far more than the 51 votes that were required to begin debate. Nine Republican senators -- John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Robert Bennett, Lisa Murkowski, Scott Brown, George Voinovich, Susan Collins, Olympia
Kyl: Doing My Job Would Be Offensive to Christians
About a month ago, Sen. Lugar (R-IN) sharply rebuked members of his own party for attempting to delay the ratification process for New START. "Every senator has an obligation in the national security interest to take a stand, to do his or her duty. Maybe people would prefer not to do his or her duty right now," he said. "Sometimes when you prefer not to vote, you attempt to find re
The Emerging Consensus on Afghanistan
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Paul Eaton and DA's own Heather Hurlburt have written an op-ed in Politico laying out eight points of agreement that constitute a growing consensus on the way forward in Afghanistan. Basically, if the think tank community had done an interagency review, here's what it would have looked like: As the Obama administration prepares to release its third strategy review of the w
Dec 13 2010
Richard Holbrooke: A Memory and A Charge
Before he went into the Obama Administration, Richard Holbrooke served on NSN's advisory board. He is already being remembered as a brilliant diplomat and a larger-than-life figure. We had the chance to see him in a rather different light -- as mentor and guide to those who came behind him, something I also saw in his outreach to foreign policy students at Brown University, where he was an a
Dec 11 2010
Rooting for Dick Holbrooke
Democracy Arsenal being what it is -- and with the founding mother who started it off -- if DA was capable of having sentiments of its own, it would really be pulling for Ambassador Holbrooke to pull through. In fact, counting on him to do so.
Dec 10 2010
China's Nobel Ceremony Loyalty Test
A good post from Mark Lagon on China's reaction to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo, and particularly what it means for China's international image. As Mark notes, there was a lot of potent symbolism in Oslo in terms of who was absent from today's award ceremony. The ceremony was noteworthy for its empty seats, especially those for Liu himself or any relative
How Afghanistan Is Like The Ex-Girlfriend That Broke Your Heart
Over at abumuqawama, Andrew Exum has just returned from Afghanistan and in his trip report he makes a rather startling discovery "We have two "Achilles heels" in the current strategy: Afghan governance and insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan." Huh, you don't say? Calling these two Achilles heels is a bit like asking Mrs. Lincoln,"other than that how was the play?" M
Leaders Urge Senate to Ratify New START Before Year's End
Yesterday, more than 30 leading civil, scientific and religious leaders sent a letter to Sens. Harry Reid, Richard Durbin and Charles Schumer urging them to move New START forward before the end of the year. “Failure to act on the New START treaty this year would undermine the country’s national security interests, as both our military leadership and numerous former Republican officials have note
Dec 09 2010
The Montgomery Burns Party
The mind truly reels: Republican senators blocked Democratic legislation on Thursday that sought to provide medical care to rescue workers and residents of New York City who became ill as a result of breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke from ground zero. And what's the reason - concerns that the bill's $7.4 billion provisions won't be paid for with other budget offsets. This by th
Thoughts on Responsible Transition
The folks over at CNAS have a new report on how the US can responsibly transition its military forces out of Afghanistan. To be sure I like to read anything on Afghanistan that makes the argument for moves away from a large-scale US military presence to a smaller footprint. But that laudable recommendation can't hide the fact that Responsible Transition fails to seriously engage on the most im
American Exceptionalism . . . Again
David Rieff is exhausting! I mean that in both a good and bad way. Obviously he's an interesting writer with some compelling ideas about humanitarian intervention and foreign policy in general - and when it comes to writing stem-winding, but thought-provoking blog posts the man should get an award or something. But when it comes to the issue of American exceptionalism (an issue on which he and
"Ratcheting" is not a policy
In a stunning preview of what’s to come during the 112th Congress, six U.S. senators sent a letter to President Obama today, asserting that they intend to “continue ratcheting up” the pressure on Iran and that they will “strongly oppose any proposal for a diplomatic endgame in which Iran is permitted to continue [enrichment or reprocessing activities] in any form.”The letter reads like a love lett
Dec 08 2010
How Not to Deal With Iran
Kudos to Kelsey Hartigan for her critique of this week's 5-senator letter to President Obama on the Iranian nuclear program, which is indeed wrongheaded and counterproductive. The signers of the letter published Monday by Josh Rogin's The Cable (Sens. Lieberman, Kyl, Casey, Gillibrand, and Kirk) lay out red-lines that leave the president scant room to reach a feasible diplomatic solution.
Dec 07 2010
Tripping Over the Trip Wire
There is a fairly pervasive consensus amongst counterterrorism scholars that intelligence and law enforcement remain the most effective and efficient tools available to disrupt terror networks (with limited application of military force serving an ancillary role in an optimally balanced approach). Operating within the framework of that preferred counterterrorism approach, support and cooperation
Dec 03 2010
GOP Support for New START: "Counting the Chickens"
When all 42 Republican Senators signed a letter to oppose any legislation other than tax cuts and stopgap spending measures, they purposefully excluded the New START treaty from this list, signaling a willingness to bring it to a vote. “All we’re trying to do is prioritize,” said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Corker noted the letter deliberately excluded reference to blocking action on ratification of
Feeding Extremism
Much of what has come out of the WikiLeaks release can be filed under “confirming what we already knew.” But some there has been some interesting data revealed that supports what a lot of what public qualitative analyses have already been saying for a while. In that category is the impact that torture, abuses, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have had on recruitment. We have heard for years from terr
To Negotiate, Or Not To Negotiate...
Will Inboden looks for the larger lessons behind the current stand-off with North Korea / China and says it's time for a bipartisan truce within the US foreign policy community on the question of when to negotiate. Voicing his support for the administration's rejection of China's invitation to six-party talks with the North Koreans, he beckons us to join him in sober and conciliatory r
Explosive Wikileaks Excerpts: Lebanese Defense Minister Gives Advice on How Israel Can Defeat Hezbollah
If you don't think the Wikileaks cables matter that much, you may want to change your mind now. These latest revelations have the potential to push Lebanon on the brink of civil conflict. This is big. The sites with the full cables on Lebanon appear to be currently unaccessible. So I've gone ahead and copied the cables below, which a friend of mine just passed along to me. The most relevan
Nov 30 2010
National security conservatives coming home?
Throughout the day, key Republican figures have signaled that they will likely join Sen. Lugar (R-IN) in supporting New START, which has the full backing of our military leadership. Countless military and national security leaders have urged the Senate to ratify New START before the end of the year. GOP luminaries like Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, George Shultz, Jim Baker and Ji
Nov 29 2010
The Wikileak That Didn't Bark
This Wikileaks mess is a disaster, a huge setback for and distraction from serious national security challenges, and Bradley Manning has a lot to answer for. Meanwhile, anyone else noticed the difference between this week's focus on the steady diplomatic grind involved in foreign policy versus the spitball-throwing that passes for FP debate most of the time? The structure of the situation does
About Wikileaks . . .
I had vowed not to write too much on the Wikileaks yesterday, but in rather predictable fashion Glenn Greenwald has roused me into action. He writes: Beyond specific disclosures, WikiLeaks' true crime here is to strike a major blow against the U.S. Government's authority generally and secrecy powers in particular; how one views the American Government's behavior in the world is likely
The Taliban "Impostor" and Political Reconciliation in Afghanistan
Today's revelation in the New York Times that one of the Taliban officials with whom the Afghan government was meeting in peace talks with was actually an impostor is the proverbial hanging curve ball of Afghan-related snark. Sure I could write a post about how this goes to show that the US and NATO - even after 9 years of war - has little understanding of the enemy with whom it's fighting
Why Would Someone Vote in A Rigged Election?
I find it somewhat remarkable that Arabs, in large numbers, vote in elections that are dubious at best and perhaps even "meaningless" (yet another piece of evidence that should put to rest the notion that Arabs are predisposed to authoritarianism). I wrote about the odd but rather intriguing phenomenon of "free, sort of fair, and meaningless elections" in this recent piece for
The Arab World's Ideological Stalemate?
On my Egypt Air flight yesterday to Cairo, I witnessed one of the more intriguing in-flight exchanges that I can remember. A bearded, well-dressed man sitting a few seats behind me began shouting at the flight attendant. He was complaining that the in-flight movie was inappropriate. What are these “offensive images?” he asked. These included a 15-minute stretch of the movie where at least one woma
Nov 28 2010
Today's Elections in Egypt: What if, anything, did they mean?
I’m in Cairo covering today’s elections (you can follow me on Twitter here for live updates). I spent the day going from one polling station to another talking mostly to Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters and campaign workers. I’m not sure what to say. I apologize if I gave some people the impression that these elections were elections, in any real sense of the word. They were not. And I think it’
Nov 27 2010
Covering the Egyptian Elections from Cairo
I arrived in Cairo two days ago to cover the lead-up to tomorrow's critical parliamentary elections. Over the next couple days, I will be blogging regularly here at Democracy Arsenal, trying to make sense of Egypt - one of our most important regional allies - during an uncertain phase of transition. Be sure to check in regularly. I will also be live-tweeting. You can follow my updates here.
Nov 24 2010
Jon Kyl's Greatest Hits
The junior senator from Arizona, Jon Kyl, has refused to answer to the overwhelming military and bipartisan support for New START. His fellow Republicans have called him out, but he has continued to hold our national security hostage, citing “unresolved issues.” Here is a look at how Jon Kyl has repeatedly shifted his position on New START and blatantly sought to delay the ratification process.
Debating Middle East Democracy on Bloggingheads.tv
Last week, I appeared on Bloggingheads.tv with Gregory Gause of the University of Vermont to discuss democracy in the Middle East (or, um, lack thereof). The link is here. Some of the issues we debated were whether Arab democracy is in America's interest, what Islamists would do in power, and whether Egypt today is anything like Iran in 1978. Here it is:
Nov 22 2010
The Second Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan
This one comes from Mark Sedwill who is the Senior Civilian Representative with NATO in Afghanistan and the former British Ambassador to the country. According to Sedwill: In Kabul and the other big cities actually there are very few of these bombs. The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities. It's a very family-orientated society
The Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan
The week after the Tet Offensive, in February 1968, reporter Peter Arnett recorded a conversation with a US military officer in which he described the destruction of the provincial capital of Ben Tre as necessary because "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." It was a quote that came to symbolize the degree to which the US war in Vietnam had become increasingly divorced fro
Jackson Diehl Meet Jon Kyl; Jon Kyl Meet Jackson Diehl
Jackson Diehl has a particularly strange op-ed in the Washington Post today that complains President Obama's foreign policy is stuck in the past because he currently seems focused on two issues that were fairly prominent in 1983 - the Middle East Peace Process and international arms control (namely the New START treaty). Let's dispense with the obvious point - this is a silly argument. Di
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