Something weird is going on in American politics. (Yes, I know…) Julian Assange, who rose to fame by leaking the bloody and erratic day-to-day secrets of American foreign policy, is now reviled by the Left and enjoys a Strange New Respect on the Right. In both cases, the sentiment is fueled by partisan bias. As […]
The Bankshot Case for the American Voter
Rarely does the American voter cover himself in glory, but it’s also rare that he abjectly debases himself as much as he has this year. This year, American voters have brought us to a truly grim choice: a choice between a uniquely power-hungry career politician and the world’s most petulant billionaire. A woman for whom […]
What Opening a Restaurant Taught Me about Politics and Business
For me, this presidential election calls to mind Henry Kissinger’s remark about the Iran-Iraq War: it’s a pity they can’t both lose. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch a single debate, and though I’ve watched the campaign from afar, I live in Washington, DC, so there’s no point in voting either way. […]
“Aleppo Moments” and Libertarian Foreign Policy
I had a few reactions to Gary Johnson’s televised admission that he didn’t know what Aleppo was. The first was “how refreshing to see someone on television admit that he doesn’t know something!” It’s an open secret in the think tank/pundit-sphere that the first rule of talking about politics on TV is to proceed as […]
The Foreign Policy Pundit’s Dictionary
Daniel Larison and Ben Denison have pieces up decrying the focus on American “leadership” in foreign affairs commentary. It’s a tendentious and vacuous term that’s annoyed me for years, which got me to thinking: there are lots of tendentious and vacuous foreign-policy terms that have annoyed me for years. In the spirit of Ambrose Bierce, […]
Is There a Noninterventionist Case for Conscription?
American policymakers use the U.S. military too promiscuously, and even as promiscuity goes, too stupidly. They do so because they face few impediments to doing so, and a number of powerful inducements. If you’re interested in creating more impediments, or removing some of the inducements, you get desperate. Desperate enough to consider how conscription would […]
Fifteen Years of “Never Forget” Foreign Policy
Quick show of hands: Who had ideas on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, that in retrospect were completely, utterly batty? The rest of you are lying. Many of us considered joining the military, but envisioned the mission as involving waking up September 12th, destroying and displacing the Taliban–or whoever it was–then fast-roping into Tora […]
Why Does Washington Agree on Foreign Policy?
On taxes, or abortion, or immigration, or the Second Amendment, or environmental degradation, or any of a hundred other high-voltage issues, Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem capable of disagreeing thoroughly and broadly, or even comprehensively. At times it seems like there is no detail too small to argue about. It’s not that way on […]
Evaluating Terrorism Using Risk Analysis
Insurance companies, which are in the business of not evaluating risk wrong over time and across categories, pay good money to people who work for them as actuaries. These actuaries are trained in the evaluation of different sorts of risk, and work to make sure that the insurance companies are more than covered should any […]
Hillary Will Prolong the Syrian War
Economics may be the dismal science, but international relations is right up there. Even in the wake of that stomach-churning picture of the shell-shocked Syrian boy, ask an international security specialist what he or she thinks about the Syrian civil war, and you’re likely to end up with a list of general research findings like […]
