The US needs a more restrained approach to its national security, but not all arguments for restraint – and not all policies of restraint – rest on solid foundations.
For the first year of the Trump Administration, the Washington D.C.- based denizens of the U.S. foreign policy establishment assured themselves that although Donald Trump had tipped over the...
This post comes from James Goldgeier, professor of international relations at American University, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a co-director of the Bridging the...
The following is a guest post by Mason Richey, an associate professor of international studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. I am Trump; I am Trump. Trump I am. That...
Finally after a busy teaching term I've got a chance to add some thoughts to the great post and articles by Jon Western and Joshua Goldstein on humanitarian intervention. Bottom line: I think Jon and Joshua make a robust case that not only can intervention work, but that the international...
I was lucky enough to play a small part in a Radio 4 documentary that went to air yesterday on the 70th anniversary of the surprise attack by Imperial Japan on Pearl Harbor. Here it is on iplayer.
The second phase of the transition of security responsibility from ISAF/NATO to Afghan Security Forces has begun (the first phase began in July 2011). This means that roughly 50% of the population will now be under the protection of Afghan troops.Some of the areas being handed over are still...
The chasm between Pakistani and Western reactions to last week's NATO attack on Pakistani forces seems to be growing if official actions/statements, media reports, conversations with friends on all sides, and ad hominem twitter flame wars are any indication.It goes without saying that Pakistanis...
The term "Indo-Pacific" has been used since the mid-seventies, mainly to refer to a biological ecosystem. In the last few years, however, "Indo-Pacific" has come to describe a set of interrelated maritime security challenges from the East China Sea to the Arabian Sea -- particularly as India's...
On this weekend, I thank HBO for this early Festivus present:Nice plug for the personal being political. Told you Game of Thrones was all about feminist theory...
I remember once when I was exploring the Indian hill station of Shillong in Meghalaya, I read a random factoid in a guide book which said the town was geographically closer to Hanoi than Delhi. It was not actually very difficult to believe that in the remote states of Northeast India, the...
Theory Talks interviewed PTJ. Go check out the results. A sample: I don’t have some kind of extraordinary experience fueling my interest… It’s an old insight about how the United States, if you’re a citizen of the US, you can kind of ignore the rest of the world—it’s the privilege of empire or...
President Hamid Karzai has called another jirga (assembly) to attempt to gain support for the creation of a long-term defensive pact with the United States. The traditional Loya Jirga is a mechanism for legitimizing the creation of a new dynasty or constitutional order in Afghanistan, but it is...
David Bosco has a terrific post (and a promised series) on "Can Conservatives Learn to Love Multilateral Organizations?" (Short answer: no, especially not in an election year). It is a timely entry after the recent Republican debates on US foreign policy, during which the candidates did their very...
With approximately 1000 World War II veterans dying every day, and the absolute numbers from more recent wars increasing steadily, it's important to give some thought to what we offer those who have served or are serving... and to what they offer us. On the first score, a new report from Rand...
When I was young (ca. 2001), I was very much in Matt Drudge's target demographic, and for various reasons (I like tabloids, I like celebrity gossip, and I like to keep up with the echo chamber without subscribing to Fox News), I've stayed a loyal Drudge reader for years.Drudge is a window into the...