Ivan Eland

The U.S. missile defense program, which contributed to the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations that helped generate the Russian-Georgian conflict, has benefited from that conflict and may cause a further downward spiral in the relationship between these two great powers. Along with the recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia and repeated rounds of an expanding NATO … Continue reading “Missile Defense May Cause Downward Spiral in US-Russian Relations”

Despite significant U.S. and Georgian culpability in the crisis in Georgia, most U.S. politicians and media painted Russia as the diabolical "evildoer." As if the Russian military incursions into Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia – the latter two are autonomous regions of the former that do not want to be part of that country – … Continue reading “Crisis in the Caucasus”

Assuming the federal government has, after almost seven years, finally identified the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks in 2001 – admittedly a generous assumption given that for most of those years, it pursued, hounded, embarrassed, and ruined the career of the wrong man – larger dangers remain. As is normally the case with issues surrounding … Continue reading “The US Government Is the Real Bioterror Threat”

Many opponents of the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq have always argued that this conflict is an irrelevant and even counterproductive sideshow to the real "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan. In fact, Barack Obama led the parade to initiate a troop surge in Afghanistan after having opposed it in Iraq. The more hawkish … Continue reading “We Don’t Need a War on Terrorism”

The media, egged on by John McCain and his campaign, are going to twist the arm of Barack Obama until he cries "uncle" and admits the U.S. troop "surge" has worked in Iraq. So far, Obama has not cracked under the pressure and, for reasons of political expediency, admitted this dubious proposition. The smart political … Continue reading “Did the Surge Work?”

After having begun a series of investigative stories criticizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May 2008, CNN reporter Drew Griffin reports being placed with more than a million other names on TSA’s swollen terrorism watch list. Although TSA insists Griffin’s name is not on the list and pooh-poohs any possibility of retaliation for Griffin’s … Continue reading “Are 400,000 Terrorists Trying to Attack the United States?”

The chauvinistic American news media have focused on evil Iran’s missile tests and the indignant Bush administration reaction, while missing some key causes of the event. As if the Iranians had started the entire dust up, the media reported Gordon Johndroe, the White House spokesman, barking, "The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the … Continue reading “An Aggressive and Hypocritical US Policy Toward Iran”

During the tenure of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Army was the military service in the doghouse. Under his successor, Robert Gates, it appears to be the Air Force. Recently, Secretary Gates took the unprecedented step of firing the top civilian and military leaders of the service for its snafus with nuclear weapons and … Continue reading “Can the Air Force Be Reformed?”

President George W. Bush recently visited Slovenia for a summit between the United States and the 27-nation European Union. Slovenia is the only success story emanating from the violent ethnic break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s after the Cold War ended. The reasons for its success, and lack thereof in some of the other … Continue reading “Lessons for Iraq from the Former Yugoslavia”

Recently, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans filled the streets of Seoul near the U.S. Embassy to protest the South Korean government’s decision to resume imports of American beef. The imports had been halted since the much overblown scare of "mad cow" disease of 2003. The accusation that the American beef is so tainted is … Continue reading “Ungrateful Allies”