A version of this essay first appeared at The Hamiltonian Republican. This is Part II of a two-part series. III- A NEW NIXON DOCTRINE As mentioned at the beginning of this essay, the world post-2014 has undergone tectonic shifts in ...
I- NIXON’S WORLD AND OURS Most readers will be familiar with the not-often-observed legal responsibility of the President of the United States to provide Congress with an annual report on his administration’s foreign policy initiatives, called the “National Security Strategy.” ...
A time-honored tradition in the foreign policy commentariat is the habit of anyone who studies foreign policy for a living–from undergraduates at USC to PhD’s in International Relations and former Undersecretaries of State for Communications Policy– to put on their ...
As of late January 2017, the US-backed Iraqi forces have declared Eastern Mosul liberated from the grasp of the Islamic State. Mosul has been a key stronghold of the Islamic State since its capture in 2014, providing revenue in the ...
On April 6th, Donald Trump ordered an attack on Syrian regime assets, “retaliating” against its most recent use of nerve agents against his civilians. The attack came in the form of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles strikes, which, according to the ...
For most of the American foreign policy commentariat, myself included, the greatest and most horrendous legacy of a Trump Presidency was always going to be President Trump’s clownish mismanagement of foreign affairs, which many believed would lead to a breakdown ...
Since Donald Trump’s surprising (depressing?) election victory, even more attention has been focused on Russian interference in the US election. The Obama administration officially accused Russia of interfering in the election on October 6th, and the reaction–by the US government, ...
One morning in 2010, foreign governments and American officials around the world were faced with the possibility of a multipronged scandal. Each of the 251,287 US diplomatic cables leaked by Bradley Manning to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange potentially held an ...
If history has taught us anything beyond that conflict is inevitable, it’s that wars often prove self-correcting. In other words, a particular war can be so devastating that the pendulum then necessarily swings in the direction of peace and non-intervention. ...
Alma Velazquez The disheartening outcome of the Colombian plebiscite is another example of a common negotiation pitfall: two-level games. Ending Colombia’s century-long conflict with the FARC may involve mostly domestic players, but it is expected to please both an opposition ...