The Reverberations of American Weakness
Myopia is epidemic in Washington, and always has been. So too is compartmentalization. When a crisis occurs in Syria, anyone who’s anyone within government stumbles over themselves to get into the...
View ArticleAnother Such Isolation and We Are Undone
Secretary of State Kerry held a town hall yesterday, delivering remarks to students on “Making Foreign Policy Less Foreign” and then taking questions. The last question came from a woman named “Yulia,”...
View ArticleThe President Sees a Different Reality in Northeast Asia
Peter’s take on President Obama’s retreat from reality on the consequences of Russia’s annexation of Crimea is paralleled in Northeast Asia. On the plus side, the president’s team should be given lots...
View ArticleWhat China Really Thinks of North Korea
As a kind of secretive hermit state, North Korea clings to its remaining ally in China. Yet the recent leaking of sensitive documents from the Chinese military to the Japanese media might suggest that...
View ArticleAssessing John Kerry
Almost all secretaries of state believe they shine but for most, their legacy is at best basic competence. Amidst all their ceremonial trips, with hindsight it is clear that for the majority, their...
View ArticleTime to Give Iran the Human-Rights Test
I’m not necessarily opposed to diplomacy with rogue regimes, but the idea that “it never hurts to talk,” as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Undersecretary Nicholas Burns, and Bush-era Deputy...
View ArticleReform Conservatism, Foreign Policy, and Epistemic Closure
The rise of the “reformicons”–reform conservatives–is one of the more encouraging developments in the conservative movement’s introspection during its time (mostly) in the wilderness. It hasn’t said...
View ArticleObama’s Luck on the World Stage
When it comes to global security, it may seem counter-intuitive to suggest that Barack Obama is one of the luckiest American presidents on the world stage. After all, Russian forces invaded Ukraine...
View ArticleNorth Korea’s Lessons for Iran Diplomacy
It has now been more than 20 years since the Clinton administration signed its supposed breakthrough nuclear agreement with North Korea. The purpose of U.S. diplomacy was to prevent North Korea from...
View ArticleOn Obama’s Team, Personnel Is Not Policy
Back in 2006 as North Korea was preparing a long-range missile test launch, then-Professor Ashton Carter, a Clinton administration veteran, proposed the following in a Washington Post op-ed co-authored...
View ArticleHuman Rights Hypocrisy Charge Doesn’t Fly
Hard on the heels of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the use of torture by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. has come under attack from foreign nations accusing...
View ArticleNorth Korea No Funnier Than the Nazis
One of the memes that has popped up in the last day in the wake of Sony Pictures backing down to North Korean cyber terrorism is the comparison between The Interview—the film at the heart of the...
View ArticleCan Obama Learn to Punish Tyrants Instead of Rewarding Them?
By publicly fingering North Korea as the culprit behind the Sony hack attack, the FBI has put President Obama in a quandary: What to do about this cyber-attack which has caused grave damage to the...
View ArticleVandalism or Terror, North Korea is Obama’s Responsibility
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Nation,” President Obama set off a minor controversy by referring to the North Korean cyber attack on Sony Pictures as an act of “cyber vandalism” rather than one...
View ArticleWhy Was North Korea Removed from the Terrorism List?
I’ve been offline for about two weeks because of work-related travel, and so I wasn’t able to chime in on the debate with regard to North Korea and its alleged hacking of Sony. But, while according to...
View ArticleThinking Long Term on North Korea
Pyongyang is spluttering with predictable outrage over the sanctions announced last week by President Obama in retaliation for the hack attack on Sony, claiming it had nothing to do with the huge data...
View ArticleAnti-Israel Feeling in Britain Reaching Dangerous Levels
Beyond Europe, the only country the British now dislike more than Israel is North Korea. That is the finding of a new survey by the foreign policy institute Chatham House. Even Iran is viewed more...
View ArticleThe U-2 Flies Again: The Pentagon Keeps the Dragon Lady
The Pentagon has released its budget request for 2016, and among the items being digested by the D.C.-based defense community is the reprieve of the storied U-2 spy plane. First built in 1955, the U-2...
View ArticleHow to React to Algeria’s Diversion of Humanitarian Aid?
Within both the United States and Europe, foreign aid has become a feel-good operation more successful at creating jobs for bureaucrats and consultants in Washington and Brussels than in achieving real...
View ArticleUpdate the State Sponsor of Terrorism List
At the rate President Barack Obama is going, the State Sponsor of Terrorism list will be empty by the time he leaves office. Today, only Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria remain on the list, and Obama seems...
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