Charles V. Peña

As Americans celebrated the Fourth of July, North Korea shot off some of their own fireworks by test-firing four short-range missiles (that could reach South Korea and Japan) and a long-range missile that some analysts believe could reach parts of the United States with a light payload. This latter missile was the Taepo Dong-2, and … Continue reading “Wile E. Coyote’s Fourth of July”

In a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Peter Beinart – former editor of The New Republic, who has declared that only liberals can win the war on terror (the self-proclaimed subtitle of his new book) – offers up a weak mea culpa for “mistakenly” backing the Iraq war but lauds President Clinton’s “multilateral … Continue reading “Why Liberals Can’t Win the War on Terror”

In the span of less than a week the first group of U.S. National Guardsmen were dispatched to help patrol the Mexican border, and Canadian authorities arrested 17 Muslim men accused of plotting bombings in major Canadian cities and training militants. Both are reminders that a high priority for U.S. homeland security must be to … Continue reading “On the Border”

On late Sunday and early Monday, U.S. air strikes in the Kandahar province in Afghanistan killed 20-80 suspected Taliban militants (a coalition statement confirmed 20 Taliban killed, while other sources reported as many as 60 more unconfirmed killed). The targets were a religious school and mud brick homes in the village of Azizi, where the … Continue reading “Cycle of Violence”

On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush intended to offer "new ways to of getting out of the current delicate situation in the world." It was the first direct correspondence from an Iranian president to a U.S. president since the 1979 Islamic revolution, when the U.S. embassy in Tehran was … Continue reading “Collision Course With Iran”

According to the new National Security Strategy of the United States of America promulgated in March 2006: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. In the world today, the fundamental character … Continue reading “It’s Not About Democracy”

According to New Yorker columnist Seymour Hersh, the Bush administration is contemplating "the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against [Iran’s] underground nuclear sites." Presumably, the B61-11 nuclear bomb can be configured with yields low enough to be categorized as a mini-nuke, i.e., sub- or only a few kilotons. Currently … Continue reading “Iran: The Nuclear Option”

Three years into Operation Iraqi Freedom one thing should be apparent: Iraq was not a cakewalk. Maybe the fight against the Iraqi military on the open battlefield was a cakewalk, but everything since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003 – taking a victory lap by landing aboard the … Continue reading “The Good, the Bad,
and the Ugly”

It is fashionable to believe that the intelligence community “failed” on 9/11 and that if it is “fixed,” future terrorist attacks can be prevented – and by implication, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks could have been prevented. Such thinking assumes that intelligence can be perfect, but as James W. Harris – former chief of the … Continue reading “Fixing Intelligence”

When the Bush administration first took office, its intention was to transform the U.S. military to meet the challenges of the 21st century. In February 2001, President Bush said to troops and personnel at Norfolk Naval Air Station: "We’re witnessing a revolution in the technology of war, powers increasingly defined not by size, but by … Continue reading “Defense Transformation at the Crossroads”