I’ve always thought that Bashar Al-Assad often has an uncomfortable look on his face, as if he never envisioned he would be Syria’s president, and never quite got accustomed to the idea. This make sense, inasmuch as he only seemed destined for the role after his elder...
The threat of a reckless, dangerous, and illegal US or US-led assault on Syria is looking closer than ever. The US government has been divided over the Syria crisis since it began. Some, especially in the Pentagon and some of the intelligence agencies, said direct...
Missile defense hasn’t outlived its usefulness because it never had any.
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. peace movement came up with a catchy phrase: “What if the schools got all the money they needed and the Navy had to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier?” Well, the Italian Navy has a line of clothing, and is taking a cut from a soft drink called “Forza Blu” in order to make up for budget cuts. It plans to market energy snacks and mineral water. Things are a little rocky in Europe these days.
The definition of insanity is continuing air and drone strikes and expecting the results to be different each time.
America has a problem with portion control. U.S. restaurants serve enormous entrees, convenience stores sell “Big Gulp” cups of soda, and Americans routinely compete to see who can eat the most hot dogs or pizzas or chicken wings in ten minutes. It’s not just the quantity. It’s also the quality. Americans get as much as one-third of their calories from junk food. No wonder that Americans are fatter than citizens of any other developed country, with the obesity rate twice that of many European nations. The Pentagon has the same problem with portion control.
That NATO missile defense in Europe as protection from Iran, not Russia, is a tough sell.
Institutions rarely vote themselves out of existence. Not if they still have money in their budgets. Large institutions in particular have an almost genetic propensity to cling to life even after their reasons for being have vanished. That’s why I don’t expect NATO, which will gather in Chicago later this month, to suddenly declare game over and disband – even though the alliance’s rationale has become wafer-thin. The Soviet Union is no more, al-Qaeda is a spent force, and NATO members are rushing for the door in Afghanistan. Indeed, most of Europe is cutting back on military spending, and the debt-saddled region has a diminished appetite for intervention.
Most of the deaths in Libya occurred after the UN Security Council authorized the NATO sorties.
In this strategic dialogue, Michael Berube and David Gibbs reply to each other’s initial essays on the legacy of the NATO intervention in Libya.