John Mearsheimer recently gave a lecture at the University of Sydney with a blunt and pessimistic assessment of Sino-American relations, one that should seem very familiar to those who have read his magnum opus, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Mearsheimer argues that the likelihood of military confrontation between the United States and China is [...]
Archive for the ‘International Security’ Category
China’s Rise and the West Pacific: Prelude to Tragedy?
Posted in China, International Security, Uncategorized, tagged Mearsheimer on August 19, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Rule Brasilia? Rising Powers at Sea
Posted in International Security on February 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Brazil’s São Paulo, courtesy eid.pt Since at least the time of Alfred Thayer Mahan, great powers have identified maritime trade as a vital national interest, and turned to naval expansion to protect it. Though land power remained the final arbiter of territorial control and outcomes of great power conflicts, even continental powers such as Germany or [...]
Bill Kristol and the Conservative Anti-War Movement
Posted in International Security, Iran, tagged Bill Kristol, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, US-Iran Diplomacy on February 12, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Yes, you saw me place “Bill Kristol” and “anti-war” in the same thought. Like most things relating to Bill Kristol, however, this is a dishonest formulation. This is classic Kristol, same as the old. Bill claims that “military action is likely at some point over the next couple of years if there’s not regime change [...]
Are Iranian Reformists as Gung-ho as Ahmadinejad?
Posted in International Security, Iran, tagged Iran, Iranian nuclear program, US-Iran Diplomacy on January 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Another response to Dan Trombly, who’s done a wonderful job walking us through American policy implications in Iran. Dan’s basic gist — with which I agree — is that regime change as a way of resolving the nuclear issue is more fantasy than strategy. (On my tumblr account I’ve dissected the Mousavizadeh article he links [...]
On Timing and Attacking Iran
Posted in International Security, Iran, Middle East, tagged Iran, Iranian nuclear program, US-Iran Diplomacy on January 4, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I’d like to take a minute to respond to Dan’s thoughts below. I’d first make one minor addition, which is that Saudi Arabia actually has told Israel it can use its airspace for an attack. (That is, if you can believe the London Times.) I’m glad to see you’re doing a little series on this, [...]
Dept. of the Shockingly Predictable
Posted in International Security, Middle East, North Korea, tagged North Korea on December 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The destination of that seized North Korean ship carrying 35 tons of weapons? Surprise! — it was the Middle East: Thai officials said they were enforcing United Nations Resolution 1874 passed in June following North Korean missile and nuclear tests. It was the first known airborne arms cargo from Pyongyang to have been seized since [...]
History is the Reason We’re Washed Up
Posted in International Security on December 22, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Randall L. Schweller, writing in The National Interest, offers a vision of our increasingly “entropic” history, tinged, it seems, in the gray lenses of post-modern theory. What’s our future? Chaotic banality, as ennui producing extremists desperate for meaning, and jaded, disconnected, apathetic citizens are ”swirling in a cloud of information overload.” The result of entropy will be a historical [...]
He Can’t Be Serious
Posted in International Security, tagged disarmament, nuclear policy, Obama, proliferation on December 20, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Among Barack Obama’s most endearing qualities is his apparent grasp of what the French call nuance. In an era when political discourse is conducted on the “soundbite” level of children’s advertising, the President has shown a refreshing capacity for talking to his fellow Americans like the thinking adults most of us still are, whether the [...]
Turning The Tide on Tehran
Posted in International Security, Iran, tagged Iranian nuclear program on December 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In case you’ve missed them, I want to highlight a number of important developments regarding America’s Iran policy in the last few weeks. With the year 2009 having shown us numerous fruitless attempts at diplomacy with the Iranian regime, and wonderful display of the regime’s barbarism after presidential “elections” in June, policymakers are trying to [...]
A War By Any Other Name…
Posted in International Security, Uncategorized, tagged drones, KSM, terrorism on December 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda mastermind, has become the center of controversy about America’s new, clean, transparent and constitutional approach to the “war on terror,” – or “struggle against violent extremism,” as the speech re-branded it. However much credit Obama deserves for closing Guantanamo, American policy has yet to properly integrate law and strategy into [...]
