BLOG… Post #115: Sanctions and Defiance in North Korea 23 Apr 201627 Feb 2017 Part 1: Sanctions—A Failed Strategy (Note: This is the first of a two-part commentary on North Korea. The second part will discuss the North’s latest weapons programs, which have evidently…
American Politics and the World… Post #113: Nuclear Insecurity 5 Apr 201627 Feb 2017 The fourth Nuclear Security Summit, hosted by President Obama, has just ended. The focus was on terrorism, a perfectly reasonable topic. But the larger question, not taken up by the…
BLOG… Post #107 – Is US-Russia Engagement Still Possible? 11 Feb 201627 Feb 2017 President Obama’s failed attempt to “reset” US-Russia relations raises the question whether or not engaging Russia in the fullest sense is still possible. I think not, at least for the…
BLOG… Post #105: Time for a Reset in US-Saudi Relations 27 Jan 201627 Feb 2017 The growing rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran is reportedly causing great consternation in US policymaking circles (www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/us/politics/us-struggles-to-explain-alliance-with-saudis.html). Once again, US officials are called upon to decide whether to…
BLOG… Post #102 – Endless War, Undeclared and Undebated 27 Dec 201527 Feb 2017 The death of six US soldiers in Afghanistan on December 21 at the hands of a Taliban suicide bomber brings to twenty-one the number of US combat deaths there in…
BLOG… Post #99: After Paris, What? 21 Nov 201527 Feb 2017 In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, the community of security experts in the US and abroad seems already to have formed a consensus about what happened, why it…
BLOG… Post #97: Arming Dictators: An American Tradition 29 Oct 201527 Feb 2017 Last week the Obama administration announced another military aid package for Pakistan: eight F-16 fighter jets. Once again considerations of human rights and democratic values have been sacrificed to strategic…
BLOG… Post #96: Truth and Consequences 21 Oct 201527 Feb 2017 A recently discovered piece of Vietnam War history has new meaning today. At the same time that Richard Nixon was telling the public that the US air war in Vietnam…
BLOG… Post #89: China’s Insecurity 27 Aug 201527 Feb 2017 Several developments in China over the past few weeks have shown us a country quite different from the one often portrayed by outsiders—an emerging superpower, with global economic reach and…
BLOG… Post #88: Consorting with the Devil 19 Aug 201527 Feb 2017 Throughout the Cold War, and doubtless right down to the present, professional people with skills relevant to “national security” have been secretly recruited to work for the Central Intelligence Agency…
BLOG… Post #86: With Friends Like These 6 Aug 201527 Feb 2017 The Pentagon Papers record a last-minute conversation between President Dwight Eisenhower and President-elect John F. Kennedy on Inauguration Day. The subject was the war in Indochina, which already was going…
BLOG… Post #84: The Engagement Critics 15 Jul 201527 Feb 2017 One of the predictable outcomes of any US effort to reset relations with an adversary is that allies start whining about their vulnerability and demanding some sort of compensation for…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 
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