The Bush-negotiated, NAFTA-esque trade agreement with Korea that President Obama is pushing makes him look more Clintonian than ever.
Tax Cuts and Trade: Is Obama Triangulating?
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North America
Catfood Commission Provides Opening for Defense Cuts to Go Mainstream
For the most part unconscionable, the Deficit Reduction Commission’s recommendations also included cuts to the Pentagon’s budget.
Are Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Once Joined at the Hip, Headed for Divorce?
Love and marriage, love and marriage, nonproliferation and disarmament go together like a horse and carriage. But have they become a house divided against itself?
Make 1325 Real for Women’s Peace and Security
October 31 marked the tenth anniversary of the momentous UN resolution on women, peace and security—UNSCR 1325. This set a new international standard that requires all parties—the UN, states, and armed militias—to ensure that women participate fully in peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction. If this really worked, it would transform our militarized world.
Republican Senate Rejection of START Could Actually Work in Disarmament’s Favor
The Obama administration could punish Republicans, were they to reject new START, by withholding promised funds for the nuclear weapons industry.
Tea Party at the Pentagon?
It’s a cold morning in January 2011. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rand Paul (R-KY) wake up early to put on their Revolutionary War costumes. They’re joined by a miscellaneous group of anti-government protestors, libertarian activists, and all-around hotheads. With their supporters in tow, the tea party movement’s Adam and Eve drive to the Pentagon and use their congressional passes to get into the building. They proceed to the office of Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, where the Pentagon plans the future of the huge weapons systems that dominate military spending.
Metropolitan Diary (Apologies to Times): Military Groupies Merrily Convene in D.C.
The convergence of a military conference and green conference paint an Army chaplain in an unflattering light.
Ballot Box Blues: The Most Dispiriting Election of a Lifetime (Mine)
By the time you read this, I’ll already have voted — the single most reflexive political act of my life — in the single most dispiriting election I can remember. As I haven’t missed a midterm or presidential election since my first vote in 1968, that says something. Or maybe by the time you’ve gotten to this, the results of the 2010 midterm elections will be in. In either case, I’ll try to explain just why you don’t really need those results to know which way the wind is gusting.
A Progressive-Tea Party Foreign Policy Coalition? Don’t Hold Your Breath
Once “official,” Tea Partiers drop their flirtation with defense cuts and libertarian non-intervention in favor of good old American exceptionalism.
Obama’s Trip to India: Don’t Rush into a Bilateral Investment Treaty
The U.S. and India should not sign a treaty that will only serve the short-term interests of large corporations, and undermine the authority of governments to protect their people from financial crisis.