Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era
One of Michael Mandelbaum’s tasks in his highly provocative new book, Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era, is to locate the principal inspiration for American foreign policy debacles over the last quarter century.
He finds it in the American foreign policy establishment that has surrounded him over the last decades during which he has been the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.
He will be talking about his work at a book forum to be held at noon on April 20 several blocks down Massachusetts A...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 12, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: John Mueller Source Type: blogs
America's Contradictory Yemen Policies
Reuters has an investigation today of the ways in which the Saudi-led War in Yemen has empowered Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s local affiliate. While it’s been relatively obvious to observers for some time that AQAP had benefitted from the conflict, the extent of their newfound control and wealth as detailed in the article is fascinating.
Thanks to the seizure of the city of Mukalla, AQAP now controls Yemen’s third largest port, a position that Reuters estimates has allowed them to earn up to $2 million per day in fees and taxes. Extortion of businesses, including around $1.4 million from the ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 8, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
Small Steps in the Middle East
Here in America, you’d be forgiven for believing that things are on a downward spiral, as Donald Trump’s disturbing success in various primaries raises the real, and terrifying prospect that he will be the Republican nominee. So if constant media coverage of the primary season depresses you, you could do worse than consider recent developments in the Middle East, where something truly unusual has been happening in the last few weeks. With a fragile ceasefire in Syria and diplomatic negotiations in Yemen, things actually appear to be improving.
Though these developments are tenuous – and each has many problems - they ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 9, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
What the President Should Do: End U.S. Support for the War in Yemen
Possibly the strangest foreign policy decision the Obama administration has made was their decision to support the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The White House has made quiet counterterrorism operations a key plank of its foreign policy agenda, and the administration includes a number of officials best known for their work on human rights issues, most notably Samantha Power. As such, the President’s decision to supply logistical, intelligence and targeting support for the Saudi-led coalition’s military campaign – a campaign which has been horrifically damaging to human rights inside Yemen, as well as detrimental to U.S. c...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 1, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
Back-Dated Travelogue, Day 4: Tel Aviv
I wrote:
So it turns out that Tel Aviv is a really cool city. Probably the first “planned community” in the Middle East.
Cool shot of the ancient port city of Jaffa, contiguous with Tel Aviv:
Several study sessions. Mosaics. Independence Hall (Israeli version.) Falafel. Wandering the shuk (market). Bialek house. Amazing Yemeni restaurant for dinner.
Busy day in a busy, bustling city. (Source: Musings of a Dinosaur)
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - January 28, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Family/Personal Source Type: blogs
Stop Reassuring Saudi Arabia, a Worse Threat to the Middle East than Iran
Secretary of State John Kerry recently traveled to Riyadh to reassure the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that the U.S. stood with them. “Nothing has changed” as a result of the nuclear pact with Iran, he insisted.
Washington’s long relationship with Riyadh was built on oil. There never was any nonsense about sharing values with the KSA, which operates as a slightly more civilized variant of the Islamic State. The royals run a totalitarian system which prohibits political dissent, free speech, religious liberty, and social autonomy.
At a time of heavy U.S. dependence on foreign oil a little compromise i...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 26, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
The Syrian Civil War Just Became Even More Complex
Just when you thought the Syrian civil war couldn’t get any messier, developments last week proved that it could. For the first time in the armed conflict that has raged for nearly five years, militia fighters from the Assyrian Christian community in northern Iraq clashed with Kurdish troops. What made that incident especially puzzling is that both the Assyrians and the Kurds are vehement adversaries of ISIS—which is also a major player in that region of Syria. Logically, they should be allies who cooperate regarding military moves against the terrorist organization.
But in Syria, very little is simple or straightf...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 19, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
America's Invisible Wars: Event January 25th
On January 14th, the White House announced that Gen. Joseph Votel - the current head of U.S. Special Operations Command – will take over as the head of U.S. Central Command, a position which will place him in charge of America’s wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. The symbolism of the appointment could not be clearer. As Foreign Policy noted,
“With 3,000 special operations troops currently hunting down Taliban militants in Afghanistan, and another 200 having just arrived on the ground in Iraq to take part in kill or capture missions against Islamic State leadership, Votel’s nomination underscores the central role...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 14, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
U.S. Military Should Do Less, Not Spend More
Much is said these days about the mismatch of missions and resources for the military. A recent Rand Corporation report warned that failing to deploy a large enough Army could “lead to a failure of the U.S. strategy and subsequent regret.”
But as I point out in National Interest online, “the solution is not to spend more. It is to reassess foreign policy objectives. Better to scale back an over-ambitious strategy than to waste scarce resources pursuing dubious goals.”
For instance, Rand pointed to 2007-2008, when the Bush administration decided to increase combat forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The report ex...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 15, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Where Do K-1 Visa Holders Come From?
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were killed last week in a gun battle with police after they committed a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Malik entered the U.S. on a K-1 visa, known as the fiancé visa, accompanied by Farook. Their attack is the first perpetrated by somebody on the K-1 visa - igniting a debate over increasing visa security.
The government issued approximately 262,162 K-1 visas from 2005 to 2013 – 3177 or 1.21 percent of the total to Pakistani citizens.
Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) SECURE Act identifies 34 countries as particularly terror-prone. There were 32,363 K-1 visa, 12.34 pe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 7, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Russia Follows U.S. Script to Intervene in Syria and Embarrass Washington
Vladimir Putin opened a new game of high stakes geopolitical poker, backing Syria’s President Bashir Assad. But Washington has no complaint. America has been meddling in Syria’s tragic civil war from the start.
Russia’s dramatic backing for Syria’s beleaguered Assad government formally buries any illusion that “what Washington says goes,” even in the Middle East. Moscow has begun bombing regime opponents. Sounding almost like the George W. Bush administration, the Putin government insisted that it was fighting terrorism and there really wasn’t a “moderate opposition.”
In contrast, Russia’s intervention ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 5, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
With "Friends" Like Saudi Arabia, the United States Doesn’t Need Enemies
One striking feature of the first debate featuring the top tier GOP presidential candidates was how many of them described Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf as “friends” of the United States. And clearly that is a bipartisan attitude. Obama administration officials routinely refer to Saudi Arabia as a friend and ally, and one need only recall the infamous photo of President Obama bowing to Saudi King Abdullah to confirm Washington’s devotion to the relationship with Riyadh.
It is a spectacularly unwise attitude. As Cato adjunct scholar Malou Innocent and I document in our new book, Perilous Partn...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 28, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
The Bad and Ugly of the GOP’s Foreign Policy, Part 1
The GOP’s Cleveland debate was spirited, but shed little light on foreign policy. There are important differences among the participants, but few were exposed.
For instance, elsewhere Donald Trump opined that Crimea was Europe’s problem and asked why Washington still defended South Korea. These sentiments deserved discussion.
No multi-candidate forum can delve deeply into such complex issues, however. Even those Republicans giving formal foreign policy addresses have come up short. The GOP contenders have been largely captured by a reflexive, even rabid interventionism which ignores consequences and experience.
Leading...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 11, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Iran Cannot Dominate the Middle East
On July 24, Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC, pictured at right) remarked on the radio that the consequences of the Iran deal bear comparing to the consequences of the Munich Agreement signed in 1938, except that
The consequences of this deal make Hitler look - is a minor player in the context of the challenge to the rest of the world.
I wish I had seen this comment in time to include it in a piece I published yesterday at the Washington Examiner, highlighting the fact that Iran cannot dominate the Middle East, with or without a nuclear deal, with or without an extra $100 billion, with or without nuclear weapons. Pittenger’...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 5, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Justin Logan Source Type: blogs
How Drones Encourage Dumb Wars and Corrode Democratic Government
My article in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine argues that because U.S. wars seem so cheap, they tempt us into making war too casually. I explain that while this tendency isn’t new, recent technology breakthroughs, which allowed the development of drones, have made it worse. We now make war almost like people buy movies or songs online, where low prices and convenience encourage purchase without much debate or consideration of value. I label the phenomenon one-click wars.
If we take occasional drone strikes as a minimum standard, the United States is at war in six countries: Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Afg...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Benjamin H. Friedman Source Type: blogs
