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,…
Putin Had His Cake and Ate It Too, Thanks to Obama
When President Obama accuses President-elect Trump of not taking the Russian threat or our democratic allies seriously, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a very clever man, but he wasn’t internationally powerful until the United States gave him what he wanted during the Obama administration. Obama and both…
The Obama Administration’s Feckless, Heartless North Korea Policy
It is past time to take North Korean crimes against humanity and the North Korean military threat very seriously. The North Korean people have endured unimaginable and worsening horrors for too long, and the North Korean regime is demonstrating alarming progress in its decades-long quest to possess deliverable nuclear weapons. Let us contemplate the Kim…
Since the Iraq War
Since the Iraq War, many, if not most, Americans have succumbed to the either-or assumption that either we refrain from an active foreign policy or we’ll end up with “boots on the ground.” They recoil from attempts to influence events and ideas in dangerous parts of the world, fearing that influence will translate into military…
Latest US/Russia Deal on Syria was a New Low in American Foreign Policy
Even those of us who have long spoken out against the Obama administration’s moral and strategic negligence in Syria, and the way it handed Russia the lead in that land of suffering were astounded by recent developments. President Obama and Secretary Kerry not only succumbed to another Russian plan that handed Assad another unearned advantage;…
A Preview to Obama’s Final UN Speech
President Obama’s September 2009 speech at the United Nations General Assembly implicitly rejected both the idea that the United States has done anything exceptional for political freedom, and the idea that political freedom is an appropriate priority for US foreign policy. The speech instead emphasized shared “interests” and “collective action”; indeed, the words interests and collective appeared…
Why I Wrote ‘A Perilous Path’
At about the time of President Obama’s first inauguration, I began to compile material for a book on the foreign policy speeches of presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush. I felt no urgency. But as the foreign policy approach of President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was articulated and put into…
Obama’s Reluctant, Specious Return to Deterrence
The Obama administration is playing an impossible game of catch-up. Having degraded America’s defenses and alliances, deemphasized America’s democratic principles and priorities, and delayed taking responsibility, it finds itself in a world so dangerous and hostile that it has no choice but to respond. With the world, in former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s own…