American Politics and the World… Post #130: Notes from the First Debate 28 Sep 201627 Feb 2017 Now that a few days have passed since the first Clinton-Trump debate, I want to offer a few evaluations. Prior to the debate, pundits said that Trump needed to moderate…
BLOG… Post #121: Unintended Consequences and the Warfare State 7 Jul 201627 Feb 2017 “The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences.” So wrote Prime Minister Tony Blair to President George W. Bush in 2002, as Bush prepared to invade Iraq (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/06/full-text-annotated-tony-blairs-2002-iraq-memo-to-george-bush). …
BLOG… Post #120: Is Brexit the End of the World? 27 Jun 201627 Feb 2017 To judge from a New York Times front-page article that appeared two days after the British vote to withdraw from the EU, the entire post-World War II global financial and…
American Politics and the World… Post #118: Cowgirl Diplomacy? Foreign Policy Under Hillary Clinton 24 May 201627 Feb 2017 America’s mainstream media, ever attracted to the splashy rather than the serious, has a new topic to occupy the time until Election Day: President Trump. What will he do first? …
BLOG… Post #117: Evaluating Obama’s Foreign Policy Record 15 May 201627 Feb 2017 So you’re not excited by Donald Trump’s announcement of his first foreign-policy acts as president: building the Mexico Wall, the No-Muslims Wall, the End-of-NATO Wall, and the China Trade Wall. …
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 #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 #91: Rethinking Syria 10 Sep 201527 Feb 2017 The horrifying images from central Europe of tens of thousands of Syrian and other refugees seeking new homes in the west underscore several conclusions about the human interest these days.…
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 #83: Saving the Iran Nuclear Deal 7 Jul 201527 Feb 2017 A US-Iran agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and US sanctions appears to be slowly nearing completion. President Obama wants to add to his legacy of engaging adversaries with an agreement…
BLOG… Post #73 – The Iran Framework: A Case Study in Engagement 8 Apr 201527 Feb 2017 We have every reason to celebrate the so-called framework agreement with Iran. It exemplifies the best of President Obama’s foreign policy, namely, engaging adversaries. Remember when candidate Obama’s argument for…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 
You must be logged in to post a comment.