U.S. Foreign Policy Articles
Top Story - Column
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
06 Feb 2012
Column
Arguably the greatest strategic gift offered by America to the world has been our consistent willingness to maintain a high entry barrier to the “market” that is great-power war. However, a case can be made that the greatest threat to this component of global stability is now a U.S. national security establishment intent on pressing the boundaries of this heretofore sacrosanct responsibility.
By Shehzad H. Qazi
02 Feb 2012 |
Briefing
On Nov. 26, NATO helicopters mistakenly killed 26 Pakistani soldiers at the Salala checkpoint. In the aftermath of the incident, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security began a comprehensive review of relations with the U.S. After nearly two months of deliberations, the PCNS is set to release its recommendations, with both positive and negative implications for the scope of future ties.
By Robert Farley
01 Feb 2012 |
Column
Most of the time, when confronted with the shortcomings of the national security system in place since 1947, we choose to muddle through with minor revisions. On rare occasions, when the institutions that make up the national security bureaucracy are fundamentally out of sync with the nation's strategic environment, we have the opportunity to redesign them. There is reason to believe the U.S. now faces such a moment.
By Steven Metz
30 Jan 2012 |
Briefing
As the United States disengages from Iraq and Afghanistan, the argument that technology is rendering land power obsolete has been resurrected. The appeal of substituting standoff military methods for a balanced capability means that as the U.S. military downsizes, land power may take a disproportionate cut. But before committing to such an approach, Americans must think carefully about its implications.
By Robert Farley
25 Jan 2012 |
Column
Pundits and commentators have begun to fall over themselves declaring the necessity of launching military campaigns against Syria and Iran. The catalyst for this enthusiasm is the success of NATO’s aerial campaign in Libya. Unfortunately, the rediscovered enthusiasm for intervention demonstrates only that the foreign policy punditocracy is committed to serially mislearning the lessons of airpower in war.
By The Editors
25 Jan 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, Boubacar N'Diaye, an associate professor of black studies and political science at the College of Wooster, discussed the WASCI.
By Crispin Burke
24 Jan 2012 |
Feature
Once fashionable within the Washington beltway, counterinsurgency has come under withering criticism, as violence in Afghanistan escalates and the Pentagon tightens its belt. But despite the temptation to avoid future counterinsurgency interventions, contingencies don’t always conform to strategic theory. Like it or not, manpower-intensive stability missions have a peculiar way of finding us.
By Steven Metz
24 Jan 2012 |
Feature
Americans often assume that insurgency is a modern phenomenon, invented by Mao Zedong and refined by his emulators. The notion permeates official thinking, including Department of Defense definitions and doctrines. In reality, insurgency has existed ever since states and empires began attempting to impose their will on people too weak to resist with conventional military means. Its strategic significance, however, has ebbed and flowed over time.
By Bing West
24 Jan 2012 |
Feature
Authored in 2006, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps’ counterinsurgency field manual essentially enshrined counterinsurgency as nation-building in U.S. military doctrine. But in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we learned that this approach required a prodigious effort without commensurate returns. The COIN doctrine’s failure in actual practice is due as much to its misguided premises as to any failures in their tactical application.
By Michael J. Mazarr
24 Jan 2012 |
Feature
For the past several years, the widely accepted view among defense analysts had been that counterinsurgency, or COIN, represented the future of U.S. defense planning and operations. Now things have become far less clear. But if COIN is no longer considered the future of U.S. military operations, what definitive lessons, if any, have we learned from its decade of prominence?
By Andrew Exum
24 Jan 2012 |
Feature
Defense policy analysts and pundits are arguing about whether or not counterinsurgency is dead or alive. The real debate -- the one that risks getting lost in the noise about counterinsurgency’s vital signs -- concerns the future of the U.S. Army. As the U.S. military ends its role in Iraq and winds down in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army, alone among the armed services, has no compelling narrative for how it fits into the nation’s defense.
By Nikolas Gvosdev
20 Jan 2012 |
Column
With the possibility of a clash between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program looming, one cannot help but wonder: Is it worth it for Iran, now grappling with increasingly onerous sanctions, to continue its pursuit of a nuclear capacity? By all indications, Iran's leaders believe so, based on their read of recent history, by which only nuclear weapons provide a deterrent to U.S. intervention.
By Robbie Corey-Boulet
19 Jan 2012 |
Briefing
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to West Africa this week to highlight the Obama administration’s efforts to promote democratic institutions and credible elections. But in Liberia, a staunch ally that receives more than $200 million annually in American foreign assistance, the conversation prior to the visit concerned the U.S. effort to combat the criminalization of homosexuality overseas.
By Eric Sterner
18 Jan 2012 |
Briefing
Conventional wisdom holds that it is in Iran’s near-term interest to calm tensions with the West, particularly the United States. But it’s worth considering the dynamics at work in Tehran’s relationship with the rest of the world. In fact, the Iranian leadership’s incentives may run counter to our expectations, making a continuation or escalation of tensions more, not less, likely.
By Robert Farley
18 Jan 2012 |
Column
Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama released a new strategic document intended to provide guidance for cuts in the growth rate of the defense budget. Though the planned cuts had already been announced in principle, the strategic priorities laid out in the document make it official: There’s going to be a knife fight at the Pentagon. Unfortunately, the American public won’t be watching.
By Catherine Cheney
18 Jan 2012 |
Trend Lines
Myanmar's release last week of political prisoners, combined with a government ceasefire with a rebel group, led the White House to announce its plans to send an ambassador to the country for the first time since 1990.
By Nikolas Gvosdev
13 Jan 2012 |
Column
President Barack Obama’s strategic guidance to the Defense Department is a first attempt to begin prioritizing defense missions as well as geographic regions that are most vital to U.S. interests. However, in order to preserve some core U.S. foreign policy objectives, it will be important that further clarification take place. In particular, two areas of concern should be included in the discussion.
By Jake Meth
12 Jan 2012 |
Briefing
Increased hostility from Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) over the past few months has led the U.S. to pursue relationships with Egypt’s ascendant civilian political forces. Islamist parties, which are dominating the elections for the lower house of parliament set to conclude this month, are poised to become Washington's primary interlocutors as the military recedes from power.
By Robert Farley
11 Jan 2012 |
Column
With Iran making loud noises about restricting freedom of the seas in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz, the rescue of an Iranian vessel by the U.S. Navy this week represented a vindication of the Navy’s operant guiding doctrine, which conceptualizes seapower as positive sum, rather than zero sum. The rescue shows us that national and international ends are not necessarily in conflict.
By Catherine Cheney
11 Jan 2012 |
Trend Lines
A power-grab by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban raises concerns over human rights and limit democratic checks and balances, but it is premature to conclude that the government is moving toward dictatorship.
By Richard Weitz
10 Jan 2012 |
Column
Both the Obama administration and its opponents have exaggerated the significance of the Pentagon’s new Defense Strategic Guidance that was issued last week. The truth is that the Strategic Guidance and the thinking behind it represent not revolutionary change but a retrospective doctrinal blessing of Pentagon policies that have been guiding the U.S. military’s evolution for several years already.