Publications

The campaign to reach “global zero” — the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide — has become a cause celebre among an array of retired statesmen, as well as an important policy priority of President Obama himself. But this effort is handicapped by its adoption of several seriously wrong-headed assumptions, positions and ideas that U.S. media outlets have tended to swallow without careful scrutiny.

As the high-speed downhill drama of the Winter Olympic Games wraps up in Sochi, one issue has faded from public view amid the spectacle: Russia's corrosive culture of corruption.

This is notable because before the Opening Ceremony, the Sochi Games had come under unflattering scrutiny. Myriad mishaps that have accompanied the Games — from bizarre toilets to brown water to malfunctioning door locks — went viral. Now those issues have disappeared.

"What's Next for Syria?" the New York Times headlined its latest editorial on the subject this week. Its answer reflects the mushy-headed thinking that all too often emanates these days from America's "paper of record."

When Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991, the EU proclaimed that the "hour of Europe" had arrived. Unfortunately, the lofty proclamation was followed not by decisive action, but by policy paralysis and political bickering, with tragic human consequences.

For decades, Turkey has served as a stalwart ally of the West and NATO's representative in the Middle East. But the times may be changing, as Turkey's exploration of new political and economic opportunities in Asia calls into question its traditional relationship with the West.

College students call something that has gone completely wrong an “epic fail.” Today, the foreign policy of U.S. President Barack Obama fully merits this label. In the last few months, it has become exceedingly clear not only that the administration has no idea how to relate the use of force to diplomacy but also that it is safer to be America’s adversary (or even its enemy) than to be its ally.

In recent years China’s attempts to alter the status quo in its territorial disputes with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam have seized global headlines. The games of brinksmanship being played by Chinese naval forces in the Western Pacific have put the region on edge, propelling Asia into becoming “the most militarized region in the world.” Yet while the world’s attention has been focused on the maritime arena, it is China’s neighbor to the south, India, that has quietly become the world’s largest importer of arms.

Rare is the moment when an unscripted comment from a Secretary of State symbolizes all that's wrong with America's foreign policy, but it appeared the other day in the context of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama threatened to veto any bill imposing new sanctions on Iran. “For the sake of our national security,” he said, “we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.” But there is no way to know if diplomacy is succeeding if the terms of the deal with Iran are kept secret, and the mystery shrouding the agreement only encourages those seeking definitive action through sanctions.

An authentic revolution is now occurring in Ukraine, with uprisings in the capital city of Kyiv (Kiev) and throughout both Western and Eastern Ukraine. This groundswell of popular unrest underscores not only the loss of legitimacy suffered by Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, but also the danger of the country’s potential disintegration if a resolution is not reached soon.

The loss of the region to enemy forces caused resentment and despair. The central question asked was: "Why did we fight and die"? Veterans groups and soldiers were outraged, the public was in an uproar and the political leaders were tone-deaf.

That state of affairs refers not to Iraq in 2014, but to another American foreign intervention long ago: the 1745 battle of Louisbourg in what is today Nova Scotia, Canada. The American side lost 561 men — mostly from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire — in that battle and its aftermath, only to have the British trade the city back to France three years later.

That President Obama attempted to put a positive spin on his Administration's beleaguered foreign policy in his fifth State of the Union Address should have come as a surprise to no one. From the Middle East to Asia, recent months have witnessed a United States in strategic retreat and a growing list of adversaries emboldened by America's perceived weakness. So it was to be expected that the president's speech on Tuesday evening entailed a significant burnishing of his meager accomplishments abroad.

If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? The answer clearly depends on how high the bridge is, but what the question really asks is if carelessly following others is in fact sensible.

The question comes to mind when debating whether to protect critical national infrastructure against large scale electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, events. Although EMP is a well-documented security issue, and one of the very few things that experts believe can dramatically alter our modern way of life, the U.S. government has sadly followed the lead of too many others and done little. This inaction could well prove fatal.

Transnational criminal syndicates, terrorist organizations and Islamic extremists are increasingly turning to wildlife trafficking to bankroll their operations. Specifically, elephant and rhinoceros ivory accounts for an increasing share of the budget of Somali militant groups and al-Qaeda affiliates. So far, the White House and international agencies have failed to effectively address this emerging threat.

Vladimir Putin must be worried.

Six-and-a-half years ago, Russia's president successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee at its meeting in Guatemala to have his government host the world's biggest sporting event. Mr. Putin's arguments (and his pledge to spend a hefty $12 billion on the event) carried the day, with Sochi beating out Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea, to serve as the site of the 2014 Winter Games. The decision was a major political victory for Russia, then still struggling to re-emerge on the world stage.

Is an Israeli military attack against Iran truly off the table? Conventional wisdom certainly seems to think that it is. In the aftermath of the signing of an interim nuclear deal in Geneva this past November, the foreign policy cognoscenti in Washington, and elsewhere, have been vocal about the fact that they believe the bell has effectively tolled on the possibility of Israeli military action.

Starting next Monday, Iran will formally implement an interim agreement with the West. President Rohani has described the accord as the world "bowing to Iran's might, power and resistance." The Islamic Republic has agreed to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities for six months in return for what has been called "modest" relief from the crippling international sanctions imposed for most of the last decade. But the West, by rolling back the sanctions regime, has given Tehran an opportunity to reinvigorate its economic and diplomatic ties with the rest of the world, and Western countries have eagerly exploited the opening to do business with Iran. Re-legitimizing business as usual before Iran makes any significant concessions on its nuclear program not only sends the wrong message, but impairs the West's ability to negotiate effectively.

In recent months, the world's attention has been focused on China's provocative behavior in its Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute with Japan, and for good reason. That dispute demands our utmost attention, and poses a tangible risk of for interstate conflict in the years to come.