Playing for Time on Iran

Recently, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta finally said it. The U.S. is “fighting a war” in the Pakistani tribal belt. Similarly, observers are starting to suggest that “war” is the right word for the American air and special operations campaign against al-Qaeda in...

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Till Death Do Us Part

"Do you do this in the United States? There is police action every day in the United States.... They don't call in airplanes to bomb the place." – Afghan President Hamid Karzai denouncing U.S. airstrikes on homes in his country, June 12, 2012 It was almost closing...

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The Ultimate No-Fly List

Last week, touching down in India on his way to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described reality as you seldom hear it in the confines of Washington and, while he was at it, put his stamp of approval on a new global doctrine for the United States....

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Praying at the Church of St. Drone

Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief. The last two presidents may not have been emperors or kings, but they — and the...

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The Golden Age of Special Operations

They have a way of slipping under the radar, whether heading into Pakistan looking for Osama bin Laden, Central Africa looking for Joseph Kony, or Yemen presumably to direct local military action against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. I’m talking, of course, about...

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How Much Does Washington Spend on ‘Defense’?

As the country’s big wars on the Eurasian continent wind down, American war-making and war preparations fly ever more regularly under the radar. There has, for instance, been much discussion about the Obama administration’s policy “pivot” to Asia — the only warlike...

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