India and the Future of the Planet
India’s economic and energy production model is not a threat to the world, but it is a threat to India itself, particularly its most marginalized people.
Respond to Putin’s Illegal Invasion of Ukraine with Diplomacy, Not War
There’s no “national interest” worth risking nuclear conflict. But urgent diplomacy and humanitarian aid — and Russia’s own antiwar movement — could stop the suffering.
Putin’s Cold, Cold Strategy
Russia’s aim is to create a frozen conflict in Ukraine, but time is not on Putin’s side.
It’s Settled That Israel Is Committing Apartheid. Now What Should We Do About It?
Movements for justice and Palestinian rights laid the ground for recent declarations by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. Now we have to follow up.
To ISAF, Committing Atrocities Means Only Having to Say You’re Sorry
The definition of insanity is continuing air and drone strikes and expecting the results to be different each time.
Pivoting Toward the South China Sea?
The highly publicized dispute between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal in recent weeks has become yet another reminder of the ongoing tensions in the South China Sea. The upheaval began when a former U.S. coast guard ship refitted by the Philippines navy attempted to detain Chinese fishermen off the shoal.
Review: Eclipse of the Sunnis
The destruction of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 created a power vacuum in the center of the Middle East. Nearly a decade of sectarian warfare and chaos ensued as militants from various communities fought mercilessly for control of Iraq. Ethnic, tribal, and religious divisions proved to be stronger than any unifying national Iraqi identity after the Ba’athist regime collapsed. Ultimately, the Shiites, who comprise 60-65 percent of Iraq’s population, won control of the state.
How the Nazis Stole Storytelling
The Nazis unintentionally kick-started avant garde film.
Conflicting Sudans Have Corruption, Militias, and China in Common
South Sudanese politicians are using security as an excuse to dodge transparency on oil revenues.
Review: The China Threat
In her new book The China Threat, the distinguished American diplomatic historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker combed manuscript collections, searched through oral histories, conducted interviews in both Beijing and Washington, and reviewed numerous other published documents to present the memories, myths, and the realities of the 1950s and 1960s.
Will Stuxnet Start Another Arms Race?
As with nuclear weapons, cyber-defense lags behind cyberwarfare.
Law of the Sea Treaty Ratification Faces Unsettled Waters
Given the wide range of its supporters – everyone from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces to Greenpeace – one would think that Senate ratification of the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) would be a slam dunk.
The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War
I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. I was the only North American speaker at an all-day conference, having been invited in connection with the appearance into Russian of my book Drugs, Oil, and War. As a former diplomat worried about peace I was happy to attend: as far as I can tell there may be less serious dialogue today between Russian and American intellectuals than there was at the height of the Cold War. Yet the danger of war involving the two leading nuclear powers has hardly disappeared.
Praying at the Church of St. Drone The President and His Apostles
Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief. The last two presidents may not have been emperors or kings, but they — and the vast national-security structure that continues to be built-up and institutionalized around the presidential self — are certainly one of the nightmares the founding fathers of this country warned us against. They are one of the reasons those founders put significant war powers in the hands of Congress, which they knew would be a slow, recalcitrant, deliberative body.