I am not supposed to be worried about nuclear war with Russia. With North Korea maybe. I am told Kim Jong Un isn’t rational and can’t be trusted, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps China. It’s ten feet tall, after all. Never mind that our...
"The blob" has become a common term during the Democratic Primary. The DC foreign policy establishment, so the argument goes, has an overwhelming effect on all who engage with it, sucking them in...
I got an alert from the Foreign Policy app on my phone the other day: Tunisia had fired its UN ambassador after he opposed Trump's Israel-Palestine "peace plan." Tunisian foreign policy doesn't...
Restraint in US foreign policy is having a moment. That's a good thing. But I worry it's unclear whether restraint is a means or an end, and what that end would be. Without resolving...
In fall of 2014, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his plan to maintain US superiority against rising powers (i.e. Russia and China). His claim was that the US cannot lose its technological edge – and thus superiority – against a modernizing Russia and a rapidly militarizing China. To ensure this edge, he called for the “third Offset Strategy.” The previous two offset strategies were premised on Cold War rivalry and the belief that one can outspend the other through arms races. The first offset desired to gain dominance over Soviet Russia’s feared advantage in manpower...
In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting and President Obama's address to the nation, Donald Trump has called for banning Muslims from entering the United States. This is counterproductive racist and awful. We need a credible candidate from the Republicans in 2016, not a reality television star who is a disgrace to the nation and its founding principles. Let's leave aside the morality here, which on its face is terrible, but recall what ISIS wants us to do which is turn this a religious war between the West and Muslims. ISIS wants us in our response to their provocations to eliminate the...
[I've been debating whether to post this...it's a "transcript" of a talk I gave yesterday here at the University of Puget Sound. It's a bit basic as it was intended for a general audience of, primarily, undergraduate students. I wrote this up for friends who wanted to hear the talk but were unable to attend. It's a bit disorganized too. So be warned it's kind of ramble-y and general. Also, I haven't provided source information or links. If you want any, please ask!] It’s been a few days since the Paris bombings, and we have some more information about what happened, which has prompted me to...
So, I started yesterday with news that Republican governors, including my own here in Texas, were seeking to deny Syrian refugees in to the state. By the end of the day, more than 25 governors, including one Democrat, had joined in the hysteria. I think a lot of us see this as a betrayal of American values and completely idiotic from the perspective of grand strategy. We are basically telling millions of refugees, most of them Muslim, that we don't care about them. ISIS thanks us for that recruitment message. If only we were Scotland and showed the Syrian refugees that we could be...
The Paris terror attacks have brought the issue to the fore in awful, dramatic fashion. It's inevitable that the topic will feature in tonight's Democratic debate and the wider campaign. With world leaders set to convene in Paris in a few weeks time for the global climate negotiations, French vulnerability to terrorism has taken on added significance. While ISIS does not pose an existential threat to the United States, attacks on civilians are a more tangible security threat than potential peer competitors that politicians ignore at their peril. The attacks, which claimed the lives of more...
While last night's debate was focused on the domestic economy, there was a bit more discussion of foreign policy than in the previous debate (i.e. none). So let's see what the candidates had to see! Once again, I'll be working off of the Washington Post's transcript. I'll ignore the snarky back-and-forth about defense spending because there was no substantive content there, which means that the first real discussion of foreign policy concerned trade policy and the recently completed TPP: BAKER: ...Mr. Trump, can I ask you about... TRUMP: ...Yes... BAKER: ...the U.S. just concluded an...
Following on my last point which tried to understand the logic of ISIS's role (if indeed it is responsible) in the bombing of a Russian charter plane int he Sinai, let's turn our attention to the confusion surrounding the recent activity in the South China Sea. In an (alleged...more on this later) effort to counter China's claims of expanded territorial waters and recent island building in the South China Sea, the US Navy sent the destroyer USS Lassen within 12 miles of Subi Reef, a part of the Spratley archipelgo claimed by several regional actors. China responded by asserting its...
So, this is third installment of my series on defending Obama's foreign policy, part of an extended set of remarks for a debate with Colin Dueck that one day, weather permitting, we shall have. In part 1, I laid out the legacy of the Bush years and in part 2, I identified the Obama administration's strategic inclinations and achievements. Here, in part 3, I try to identify lines of critique from Dueck and other folks critical of the Obama administration's policies. On Russia, Defense Spending, and US Standing Finally, let me say three things about Russia, US defense spending, and US standing...