The Army We Don’t See

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In late March, I was taken aback by a news story about a drone attack on American troops at a joint base with Kurdish forces in Syria. Though five U.S. soldiers were wounded, there was only one death and, as Eric Schmitt reported in...

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The Zombie Domino Theory Returns

An especially damaging development in the history of U.S. foreign policy was President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s promulgation of the domino theory. Adoption of its assumptions led directly to America’s disastrous military intervention in Vietnam. Although the simplistic...

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The Flight From the US Dollar

On March 20, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. In his article in the Russian media preceding the meeting, XI enthused that "China-Russia trade exceeded 190 billion U.S. dollars last year, up by 116 percent from ten...

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Nuking the Promise of America

Originally posted at TomDispatch. I turn 60 this year. My health is generally good, though I have aches and pains from a form of arthritis. I’m not optimistic enough to believe that the best years of my life are ahead of me, nor so pessimistic as to assume that the...

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