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Category Archive: U.S. Foreign Policy
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Japan’s Yen for RMB (and vice versa)
Two indications in the news today of the diminishing influence of America on the world, both self-inflicted: a currency agreement between Japan and China, and the slipping of Iraq back toward chaos. I want to look at them both this week, but today, let’s start in the Far East. Multiple reasons lay beneath the decision by China [...]
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Silver Linings, Golden Opportunities in US Defense Cuts
Artist’s concept of CVN-78, a new class of aircraft carriers. Photograph by U.S. Navy. Gloom and doom from one side, glee and visions of sugar plum fairies from the other: As usual, the Pushmi-pullyu beast that is America’s political elite has it exactly wrong as it weighs the dire (or wondrous) implications of “Draconian” cuts [...]
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2012 and the American Psyche
Destiny is a big, pretentious concept. Yet today, most Americans understand what their politicians refuse to concede—at least publicly: We’ve lost control of our destiny. Globalization, the fairy dust proffered by everyone from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to Thomas Friedman, turns out to have some significant downside risks. Can we manage them? At the [...]
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Pentagon’s ‘War Over Future Wars’ Is Underway
As Republicans and Democrats engage in high stakes horse trading on the congressional deficit reduction “super-committee,” the generals and admirals are circling their wagons, preparing detailed arguments on how their particular specialty is the one capability 21st Century America cannot live without. The “super-committee” – officially the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – emerged [...]
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Keeping Terrorism at Bay
References to GWOT – as the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon liked to refer to its Global War on Terror – today carry certain freight. Firstly, the misapplication of military force and grand strategy that is the primary foreign policy legacy of the Bush administration has discredited the phrase. With the exception of military and intelligence officials who [...]
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Europe According to …
Something to chuckle about while we wait for the Europeans to fulfill their latest promise to come up with a plan to have a plan about a plan to save the European Union. (With thanks to alphadesiner.com) . Europe according to Greeks Europe according to Britain Europe according to Germany Europe according to France [...]
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Why Occupy Wall Street Has Legs
A new survey by National Journal found that about 59 percent of adults agree with the protesters. Only 31 percent disagree. People, even those who might normally write off the movement at Zuccotti Park as a left-wing fringe or a bunch of rent-a-marchers, see something different this time. The core complaint in the disorganized chorus of other [...]
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Drones on the Radar
After a few years of being one of the few people writing about the potential ethical implications of drone warfare, I’m happy to say that a serious scholarship is blossoming. Twice in the past month, The New York Review of Books, that gigantic, guilt-inducing pleasure to read, has done substantive reviews of recent work on [...]
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India and Pakistan: Ten Years Later, Did America Back the Wrong Horse?
Ten years ago, as U.S. special forces and intelligence agents coordinated airstrikes and a Northern Alliance offensive against the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence agents began evacuating their “assets” from the country, including the very Taliban and al-Qaida operatives the U.S. sought in connection with the 9/11 attacks. (I dubbed it the “Airlift of Evil” back then, [...]
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A Wider Debate in Israel?
The deal that will free Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held by Hamas since his abduction in 2006, should be welcomed by everyone. As always with these deals, the trade in question is disproportionate: 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences for terrorist murders, for one Israeli. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu may well [...]
