These are just a few random observations about the current conflict in Georgia. Americans are ill suited to being a global power. The great majority of Americans are mostly bored by conflicts involving strange, foreign lands. If we’re not bored, we’re easily misled by the media into assuming we know enough to have an opinion, [...]
Archive for the ‘foreign policy’ Category
Some Thoughts on The Georgian War
Posted in foreign policy, Georgia, Ossetia, Russia, Russian Army on 16 Aug 2008 | 3 Comments »
Empty Promises
Posted in Caucuses, foreign policy, Georgia, Russia on 14 Aug 2008 | 1 Comment »
Stratfor has a very persuasive analysis of the entire situation in Georgia, in particular how it is not the beginning of a new balance of power but rather the manifestation of an already-changed one. It shows that the predictable US response is likely to do little to help Georgia, while hurting US credibility: By invading [...]
Regional Powers and Global Threats
Posted in foreign policy, Georgia, Medvedev, Putin, Russia, Saakashvili, Spheres of Influence, Unipolar on 11 Aug 2008 | 11 Comments »
Tom Piatak makes an important observation about the historical context forgotten by those who see in today’s Russia the same kind of threat that existed in the former Soviet Union: The border dispute between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia has inspired much breathless commentary, including Andrew McCarthy at NRO proclaiming this the “Soviets’ rebirth.” Before [...]
A War for Georgia?
Posted in Abkhazia, Caucuses, foreign policy, Georgia, Ossetia, Russia, Separatists on 8 Aug 2008 | 7 Comments »
America is reaping the whirlwind after its policies in Kosovo and the Caucuses. In the quest of certain factions to reinstitute the certainties of the Cold War, we seem to have forgotten that Russia is rightly concerned more with its neighbors and Russian co-ethnics in neighboring states than we ever would be. Bush continued the [...]
Kissinger on Russia
Posted in cold war, foreign policy, Kissinger, Medvedev, Putin, realism, Russia on 8 Jul 2008 | 10 Comments »
Kissinger reminds us that Russia is moving in its own way towards the rule of law and that we should not needlessly provoke her: Speeches denouncing Russian shortcomings and gestures drawn from the Cold War have occurred frequently. Proponents of such policies assert that the transformation of Russian society is the precondition of a more [...]
Attempted Anbar Redux in Afghanistan
Posted in afghanistan, counterinsurgency, foreign policy, Iraq, marines, Small Wars on 11 Jun 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Interesting article about Marine operations in Afghanistan. Veterans of the successful (for now) Sunni Awakening strategy are trying to recreate those results in Southern Afghanistan. As in Iraq until very recently, locals fear to work with the US and Afghan troops because they are “here today, gone tomorrow” leaving peasants to the tender mercies of [...]
Bacevich on Iraq
Posted in al qaeda, Bacevich, counterinsurgency, foreign policy, Iraq, Petraeus, strategy, surge, Terrorism on 8 May 2008 | 4 Comments »
Andrew Bacevich–West Pointer, conservative, father of KIA 1st Lt. Bacevich–criticizes the war in a way that should be persuasive to conservatives, including conservatives like me who initially supported the war for punitive reasons. Namely, it’s now clearly a waste of resources and a strategic error to continue on this course. It’s important not to continue [...]
The Nightmare of Foreign Policy “Idealists”
Posted in Campaign, Election, Foreign Affairs, foreign policy, Idealism, International Relations, Iraq, iraq war, McCain, Military History, Neoconservatism, Neoconservatives, Politics, realism on 10 Apr 2008 | 2 Comments »
Most of George Bush’s foreign policy mistakes have been caused by what may be termed excessive foreign policy idealism. Though Bush is rightly criticized for his incompetence and failure to learn from events, no amount of competence would have saved him from the pathetic, ongoing insurgency in Iraq. This outcome was a natural consequence of the situation that [...]
Kosovo Op-Ed Published in Orlando Sentinel
Posted in foreign policy, kosovo, Medvedev, Orlando Sentinel, Putin, Russia, Serbia on 3 Mar 2008 | 3 Comments »
Below is a link to my Kosovo Op-Ed in the Orlando Sentinel. The comments on the on-line version are surprisingly pro-Serb. I guess people everywhere are fed up with wars being waged over half-baked abstractions like Democracy and Self-Determination. Here’s an excerpt: No one believes that the Kosovar Albanians will act as tolerant stewards of a multicultural [...]
The Unserious Seriousness of Obama
Posted in Change, Election, foreign policy, Hope, Iraq, obama, Yes We Can on 22 Feb 2008 | 4 Comments »
What can we say about Obama and his contradictions? He’s the man they faint over like the Beatles. He is also the guy that earnestly discusses health care policy and other wonkery. He made a deadpan comment about that Bill Clinton’s dance moves (or lack thereof) would prove if he’s black. Yet, he’s the Harvard lawyer who eschews [...]
Kosovo Today…. Who Will Be On the “Chopping Block” Tomorrow?
Posted in Albania, foreign policy, islam, kosovo, Orthodoxy, Serbia, Terrorism on 20 Feb 2008 | 7 Comments »
I love this map. Events far away in Kosovo implicate a very practical question: Do we want countries and their borders to be up for grabs every time one of their ethnic minority groups resorts to terrorism? Or do we want, instead, to encourage all nations, even nations that are commited like most will be to remaining an “ethnic state” [...]
Winging It
Posted in foreign policy, Huckabee on 29 Dec 2007 | 3 Comments »
George Bush “winged it” on foreign policy. He didn’t know who Musharraf was in 2000. But he did do something sensible: he hired accomplished people of diverse views to advise him including Powell, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, etc. On paper at least, this looked like the way to go, but unfortunately the neoconservatives alone had a [...]
Pakistan and Reality
Posted in Bhutto, foreign policy, Neoconservatism, Pakistan, Terrorism on 29 Dec 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Andrew McCarthy reminds us why Pakistan is messed up, that feel-good slogans about democracy miss the point, and the Bhutto assassination is merely business-as-usual. Auster notes that our language in dealing with atrocity is impoverished by the logic of liberalism, which does not like to call evildoers evil. Ace explains the fundamental contradiction of Democratic [...]
Big Government Foreign Policy
Posted in Bret Stephens, Condoleeza Rice, foreign policy, Isolationism, Israel on 22 Nov 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Republican and Democratic Presidents’ Israel policies resemble liberal policy errors in other areas. Liberals start with a well-meaning intervention, say, urban renewal. This leads to a variety of unforeseen problems. Then the same policymakers have solutions to those problems, such as welfare, AFDC, and an army of social workers. In time, this response leads to still other problems; [...]
Hillary’s Foreign Policy
Posted in Election, foreign policy, Hillary Clinton, tagged al qaeda, Anti-Terrorism, China, Counter-Terrorism, Foreign Affiars, foreign policy, George Bush, GWB, Hillary Clinton, Idealism, Iran, Iraq, iraq war, Israel, Jimmy Carter, Kissinger, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, obama, President Clinton, realism, Russia, Terrorism on 21 Oct 2007 | 10 Comments »
If Obama’s foreign policy is sometimes incoherent, Hillary’s is simply Bush-lite. Her recent essay in Foreign Affairs reveals herself as someone who does not depart substantially from the globalist paradigm of Bush and President Clinton, with the main difference being her greater faith in “diplomacy.” In a world where many nations’ interests involve knocking America down in [...]
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