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…
BLOG… Post #70 – When It Comes to Foreign Policy, Obama Has the Upper Hand 13 Mar 201527 Feb 2017 The President and quite a few members of Congress are at a standoff over two important issues of foreign-policy process. Many in Congress, from both parties, dislike his proposal for…
BLOG… Post #62 – Human Rights: The Rising Record of Abuses 12 Jan 201527 Feb 2017 The terrorist attacks in Paris and the ongoing abductions of Boko Haram in Nigeria bring to mind this fact of life: systematic, large-scale abuses of human rights are on the…
BLOG… Post #47 – Mission Impossible 29 Sep 201427 Feb 2017 The New York Times editorial board has finally awakened to Obama’s “strategy” in the “war” (as it is officially called now) against ISIS. It is essentially the same strategy that…
BLOG… Post #45 – America on Crusade: Now It’s Obama’s Turn 14 Sep 201427 Feb 2017 George F. Kennan, one of America’s greatest statesmen, warned in his classic American Diplomacy (1951) and many times thereafter of the country’s tendency to universalize its self-conceptions and its aims,…
