Bad guys stick together. This is especially true when they seek external dominion and need help getting good guys out of the way, or when their tyranny is challenged, and they need help crushing domestic opponents, or when ruinous policies or military facts put them at the mercy of predators and protectors. Whether their relationship…
Trump Should Beware of North Korea’s Peace Overtures – Kim Jong Un Can’t Be Trusted
If CIA Director Mike Pompeo wins Senate confirmation to become secretary of state, as expected, one of his first challenges will be working to make President Trump’s planned meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un a success. That may prove to be mission impossible. An obvious question arises: Is North Korea responding favorably to…
Beware Russia’s ‘Help’
Don’t buy that Russia really wants to help the U.S. deal with North Korea. Russia insists negotiating with North Korea is “the only correct approach” and is offering to help the United States get negotiations started. Look out. Russian “help” in global hotspots usually means trouble. Russia’s “defensive” military operations in Ukraine (and before that…
Defeating ISIS Isn’t Enough: Trump Urgently Needs a New Syria Policy
In Syria, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, millions of people remain displaced and countless souls are physically and psychologically scarred. Throngs of children are without families or homes, entire villages and farming communities no longer exist, and cities are in ruins. Fallout from the seismic Syrian civil war and upheaval besets the…
Next Move in America’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Campaign
Faced with the rapid progress of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs – along with escalating provocations – President Trump’s foreign policy team has engaged in an intensive effort to put “maximum pressure” on the regime and its enablers. A powerful next move would be to call attention to North Korea’s severe human rights violations….
Obama’s First Months as Commander in Chief and On the World Stage: A Retrospective As We Assess Trump’s Early Foreign Policy
As we assess Trump’s early foreign policy moves and first international tour, it helps to look back upon Obama’s. Here, then, are passages from A Perilous Path: The Misguided Foreign Policy of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Chapter 2: “Change Comes to American Foreign Policy.” [Dotted Lines indicate that passages are being skipped.]…
A Promising Start
President Donald Trump’s foreign policy team deserves credit for its work on China and North Korea. With hostilities, atrocities and weapons programs escalating around the globe, there was reason for relief when the Obama/Clinton/Kerry chapter in American foreign policy came to an end. But, based on Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric, there was also reason to…
The Futile Pursuit of Negotiations with North Korea
North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs have advanced so far and so fast that they are an existential threat to Japan and South Korea and soon will threaten the continental United States. What better reminder that we shouldn’t wait until the threat is grave to put intense pressure on extremist aggressor regimes. Calling North…
America Faces a World of Trouble
Americans, their new president and his team, and the 115th Congress face a world that, in former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s memorable words, is “exploding all over.” New Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted in his confirmation hearing that the world order “is under the biggest threat since WWII.” Hostilities, atrocities and weapons programs…
Syria Is at a Tipping Point, and So Is American Foreign Policy
The cataclysm in Syria — the atrocities, humanitarian crisis and escalating hostilities — could hardly get worse. But it could. US Syria policy — the moral and strategic errors, deferral to Russia and Iran, and enabling of Assad — could hardly get worse. But it could. Fallout in the region — the opportunities for Iran,…