In that year of happy memory, 1972, George McGovern, the Democratic nominee, declared he would chop defense by fully one-third. A friendly congressman was persuaded to ask Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to expatiate on what this might mean. The Pentagon replied the...
North Korea has just pulled off an impressive dual feat -- the successful test both of an intercontinental ballistic missile and an atom bomb in the 6-kiloton range. Pyongyang's ruler, 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, said the tests are aimed at the United States. So it would...
"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." So said Richard Nixon in his interviews with David Frost. Nixon was talking about wiretaps and surreptitious entries to protect lives and safeguard national security in a violent and anarchic war decade....
If last week's hearing for Chuck Hagel raised questions about his capacity to be secretary of defense, the show trial conducted by his inquisitors on the tribunal raised questions about the GOP. Is the Republican Party, as currently constituted, even capable of...
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" is Newton's third law of physics. Its counterpart in geopolitics is "blowback," when military action in one sphere produces an unintended and undesirable consequence in another. September 11, 2001, was...
"Chuck Hagel is out of the mainstream of thinking ... on most issues regarding foreign policy," says GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. Neocon William Kristol concurs: Hagel is "out on the fringes." But where, exactly, is the mainstream on foreign policy in 2013? Since the Bush...
In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst. Who is Chuck Hagel? Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980...
With the truce in the week-long Gaza war, Barack Obama is being prompted by right and left to re-engage and renew U.S. efforts to solve the core question of Middle East peace. Before he gets reinvolved in peacemaking, our once-burned president should ask himself some...
The stunning resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, days before he was to testify on the CIA role in the Benghazi massacre, raises many more questions than his resignation letter answers. "I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,"...
"It would be unconscionable to go to war if we haven't had such discussions," said Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, of reports the Obama White House has agreed to one-on-one talks with Tehran over its nuclear program. Sen. Lindsey...
