When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, U.S.-Russian relations were strained and delicate. Arms control agreements had all but disintegrated and acrimonious conflict had largely displaced cooperation. Indeed several observers, including Mikhail Gorbachev, even went so far as to proclaim the emergence of a new Cold War.
In his new book The Future of Power, co-founder of neo-liberalism theory Joseph S. Nye outlines a synthesis of his more than two decades of scholarship on the future of world power politics.
Nearly 20 percent of the constituents of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) live under the poverty line, and nearly 15 percent are unemployed. During this August congressional recess, Rep. Jackson, Jr. should be at home, meeting with constituents and proposing to them how he will help them cope with their difficult circumstances. Instead, the politician is proudly gallivanting around Israel, in one of three separate congressional delegations heading there this month on all-expense-paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation.
Glenn Carle has spent his whole professional life operating in the grey world of intelligence. As a case officer for the CIA for over two decades, he spent time in many of the Agency’s most critical outposts, from Nicaragua to Lebanon to Iraq. Yet at the end of his career, when he was “surged” to direct the interrogation of a suspected high-level member of al-Qaeda, he was confronted with the policies of an administration that crossed a line that made him certain that he must stand up against what he knew to be wrong.
North Korea is of perennial security concern to both its neighbors and the United States. In late 2010, satellite data indicated that North Korea possessed a uranium enrichment facility, and now a potential third nuclear test is underway.No Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security is one of the few books to date in the English language that provides a detailed, beyond-the-Beltway account of North Korea’s history, leadership, and nuclear development.
Events in Libya and Syria have again brought to the forefront the question of armed humanitarian intervention or the “responsibility to protect.” Is it ever legitimate to supersede the principle of national sovereignty with a military intervention aimed at protecting citizens from their government? And if the answer is yes, what circumstances would justify this course of action and how should it be carried out?
No one thinks that Republicans are truly concerned with excessive military spending, but with their posturing about spending cuts, they may have unleashed something they can’t control.
Leon Panetta, the new Pentagon chief, got through his confirmation hearings the newfangled way: by revealing as little as possible about what he’d do in office. He tipped his hand a bit more last week by calling “completely unacceptable” the across-theboard military cuts planned in the event the next debt deal fails.
Hard-right commentator Debbie Schlussel claimed Norway’s “HAMAS Youth” got what was coming to them.
When you destroy someone’s property, you usually have to pay compensation. The United States is responsible for much of the destruction that has taken place in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. But instead of offering compensation to the Iraqis, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has demanded that the Iraqi government pay the United States compensation in dollars for the cost of U.S.-led war. The Iraqi response was to kick Rohrabacher out of Baghdad.