Will there be autocracy in Iraq or renewed civil war? The country seems headed for either one or the other, as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tightens the noose on Iraqi democracy and sectarian bombings resume. Mohammed Shayaa al-Sudani, Iraq's human rights minister,...
The foiling of the second attempt by Yemeni terrorists to blow their underwear and any airplane near them to smithereens has led to praise for an American government that motivated the plot in the first place. Ever since the barbaric attacks of 9/11, the American...
American foreign policy has become so militarized that pressure groups can now seemingly order up a government armed intervention like customers at a fast food restaurant drive-through window can order up a burger and fries. The latest example is the U.S. Special...
The one constant in American history is that government bureaucracies grow and proliferate rather than shrink and dwindle. Despite its secrecy — or perhaps because of it — the intelligence community is no exception. After 9/11, changing over to fight against...
Continued U.S. economic sluggishness, induced by a massive national debt in excess of $15 trillion, should be causing soul-searching in the American foreign policy community about which unnecessary alliance commitments can be shed to save money. Yet, predictably,...
Now that the second of two counterinsurgency wars, Afghanistan, seems on the road to de-escalation — mainly out of flagging American public support for the quagmire — it is a good time to ask what type of military the United States should have in the future. Although...
So many government efforts run aground on problems with poor incentives. When the U.S. government intervenes overseas, those poor incentives are compounded by trying to impose Western values and institutions, usually by force, on peoples with starkly different...
In response to Barack Obama’s unintended public candor about his greater post-election flexibility on missile defense negotiations with Russia, Mitt Romney reflexively declared in an interview with CNN that Russia is the United States' "number one geopolitical foe,"...
Attorney General Eric Holder is to be lauded for looking into the constitutionality of the New York City Police Department’s wholesale snooping into the lives of people based purely on their Muslim faith. Because Holder is a busy man, he could save a lot of time by...
The recent “unpleasantness” in Afghanistan — the killing spree by a U.S. soldier, the burning of Qurans, and desecration of Taliban corpses — has made the quagmire there even more unpopular with the American public, thus causing even superhawks, such Rick Santorum and...
