Memorial Day is the most important holiday in many ways, because it is a reminder of who in fact are the most important citizens in any society: those who defend it.

The Armed Forces can't and shouldn't try to run the country, as that would destroy the ideals of the rule… Read full post »

 For Tom Nichols of the Naval War College, and his critique of IR theories he emphasizes that I think is valid and important to always remember, and a great class too.

There is a school of international relations theory and practice of ancient vintage that would in theory not care about… Read full post »

"Diplomacy is the art of saying Nice doggie! till you can find a rock." Unknown.

"Jee-jaw(diplomacy) is better than war, war, war." Dwight David Eisenhower, aka Ike.

As to context, Ike said Jee-Jaw, i.e. diplomacy, talk, talk, talk, is better than war, war, war, and Ike was smart, and more impor… Read full post »

For Megan, Eric, and Barry Rich, my children, and Robert Tucker of SAIS, who trained me in analyzing American foreign policy.

That's the long and short of it now with the Arab Spring, that our American ideals of democracy, human rights, freedom and all that other good stuff, are beginning to… Read full post »

 For the work of George Liska, who called himself a "romantic Realist," and Robert Tucker of SAIS, and Wayne Sandholtz and Stergios Skaperdas of UCI.

The elites in America who supported the European integration project dating back with the Shuman Coal and Steel Community are long in the tooth or… Read full post »

 The title doesn't mean that the President would be accepting the offer as is from Speaker Boehner, just that he put the budget in play, and for good reason.

It is known as the "Fiscal Cliff," as to the reason, in which if nothing is done truly massive cuts in the… Read full post »

Whether Prvt. Manning committed a crime I cannot say, although I have doubts that a private could have, all by his lonesome, gotten into such a mess, if of course now he's expendable, like he was to his father, which is the real reason this happened in the first place.

Manning's… Read full post »

Being President of the United States is really rather a lot to think about, for those who always like to throw brickbats at politicians.

In the post is presented the limiting case of war with North Korea, Iran, and Syria, minus a war with Russia and China, which has a different set… Read full post »

By modern Presidents, let us say the pos-WWII era.

That would mean Truman, Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, if we don't really know enough quite yet to evaluate Obama in the way that historians do, since we don't have the source material… Read full post »

The North Koreans had by all accounts, including a Chinese source regarded as a proxy for the DPRK, prepared a nuclear test, in addition to their satellite test.

If the satellite test was really tempting fate, in terms of totally flouting the accord President Obama had signed with them, to test… Read full post »

 It's being reported that Ambassador Ryan Crocker is stepping down from his post in Afghanistan, which on top of the open post in Pakistan leaves a big gap in American foreign policy in South and Central Asia, because Ambassador Crocker was as good as they come, something worth remembering as to… Read full post »

 http://simmsandassociates.com/

I worked with an old climbing partner and friend in his law office from October until last week as a paralegal/researcher type, and general gopher too, and of all the things that I saw, this would be the case you don't forget, reinforced by a headline in the paper… Read full post »

When President Obama began campaigning for office, as to national security policy, he could have hardly been more clear as to his premises, agree with them or not, or what mix of agreements and disagreements one could take from that.

The premises were totally stated upfront.

As to the premises that… Read full post »

 "War is a matter of life and death of the state; it must be pondered deeply." Sun Tzu.

It's pretty obvious that there's a lot of tension over what to do next with Iran and it's nuclear program.

It's worth prefacing the analysis that follows by stating that, first, the… Read full post »

Before one weeps too much over the sense of betrayal of some Germans to the announcement of the creation of a "Jewish Homeland" by British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour in late 1917, not a state note, although it was almost bound to become one, it is worth remembering who the most… Read full post »

 The Euro developed out of a currency peg known as the "Snake" in the 1970s, and Greek attachment to the Mark underlying what became the Euro is unlikely to just vanish.

A currency peg can be a source of economic difficulty, if it's pegged in a way that isn't attached to… Read full post »

There's not a more serious foreign policy matter before the United States than Iran right now, save for the possibility of a North Korean attack on South Korea. We could prevail in both contingenicies simultanteously, but it would push us hard to do so, which is a reason for really thinking… Read full post »

Now that the grand jury has seen evidence that Zimmerman was beaten pretty decently by Trayvon Martin, while however Zimmerman was taking Adderall and another psychiatric medicine, we can see what this was all the way around: a tragedy.

Glad we didn't execute anyone for the crime yet, if when you… Read full post »

A "Cheap Greek Vacation" is the one totally guaranteed consequence of a Greek exit from the Eurozone, now more likely it would seem like, given the ongoing and significant depositor withdrawals(more than $800 million in three days) from Greek banks by those who already haven't run to the exits (… Read full post »

For the great American foreign policy scholar Robert Tucker of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies who I had the privelege of studying under, and whose mentor at SAIS was Robert Osgood, also of SAIS, and who wrote the classic book embedded in the title of the essay: Ideals and… Read full post »

In the literature on international relations, there is a subset that debates the issue of alliances as to being good things or bad things, especially because of WWI.

NATO meeting this week in Chicago is an alliance, which most argue we correctly value as an addition to American power, and… Read full post »

I have to confess I very seriously wondered if I would wake up this morning, and see that Israel had celebrated its Independence Day by bombing Iran.

Maybe that's sort of pushing it a little bit even from an Israeli point of view, as to gloating, but per the title, note… Read full post »

 I wrote an article in Fall 2008 entitled "The Idiocy of Wall Street Applauding its Own Demise" which predicted that taking the bailouts would be regretted for the loss of power to the government by the private sector, like with people reflexively calling for Dimon's head at J.P. Morgan and at… Read full post »

For MEB, always.

Now, I will confess that I was a little miffed when I heard Jamie Dimon take a shot at financial pundits as to getting paid too much, when he earned $24 million last year or so, and I lost another oh... $25,000 on this blog.

I also like the… Read full post »

A lot of people viscerally dislike banks, probably in part because no one likes depending on other people that much, and banks people depend on rather a lot.

When you add to that a natural social class resentment towards those who move money around, as opposed to people who do manual… Read full post »