... domestic affairs and are unfit or inexperienced to handle world affairs. In essence, Democrats always have to defend against the accusation of being foreign policy weaklings. This accusation is never leveled against Republican candidates (even when a particular ... ... (Democrat-as-global-appeaser) has existed for quite some time, but it was surely exacerbated by 9/11 and the new emphasis on national security. It was a major part of the lead-up to the 2004 election, when some analysts warned, ‘if Democrats are to have any hope of returning to power in 2004, or even of running competitively and keeping the ...
... and immolation, understanding this process (and more importantly the failure of the intelligence community and state department to make inroads against it) requires one... ... seems more myth than reality.
Reality in America, if you are not able to hook into upward mobility and access privileged success, is a fairly dull and even depressing situation:... ... beyond anything the West could ever think plausible.
Against this backdrop, it is inexcusable that American agents find themselves at a loss to understand the appeal of that...
There is no stronger example of the schizophrenic nature of American foreign policy toward Russia than comparing statements written in the formal National Security Strategy (NSS) of President Obama with actual testimony given by the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. In 2010 the NSS asserted that the U.S. would endeavor to ‘build a stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia, based on mutual interests.’ What’s more, the NSS called Russia a 21st century ...
... In this particular case reality better supports the Russian side: it is more accurate to describe Putin’s hostility toward America as one far more deeply rooted in frustration. But instead, America characterizes Russia as having an unstable mania ... ... becoming a de facto ‘fascist’ state. In reality no such explicit initiatives can be found backing up such radical accusations. More calm analyses find Russia simply not accepting being told what to do on the world stage and that general position ...
... that is an innate contradiction to American values. As such it will inevitably always be a threat to U.S. interests and global security. By all indicators, Russia is a threat not just to itself and its immediate neighbors but to the entire world, masking ... ... enthusiasm quickly faded and subsequently placed the Democratic Party as squarely pessimistic and adversarial in its attitude toward Russia as the Republicans. Indeed, in today’s environment of divided government having a problem with Russia seems ...
... ease the far more standard approach to foreign policy formulation is to determine a country’s own national interests and security dilemma and craft an independent position that can best achieve optimal goals for said country.
And that, not ironically,... ... endorse another country trying to force-influence its foreign policy. So why should Russia? It is this very simple and straightforward question that seems to never be asked by what are otherwise august media institutions and impressive political think tanks ...
... ‘abhorrent’ techniques used on terrorist targets after 9/11 to glean greater intelligence and information. Since that release there has been an orgy of oscillating... ... comes to this period that is supposedly now over, the one we used to call the Global War on Terror. So the 'shock' must be to learn that the US did, you... ... obtained. Well, alright, maybe I cannot prove that was actually the case, a direct causal link, but I am pretty sure SOME information EVENTUALLY came out because of the...
Anyone who has worked through post-mortems on the Iraq war is familiar with the pitfalls associated with ‘groupthink’ ... ... information. Others pointed to embedded preconceptions within the Intelligence Community itself, making it impossible to jump off ... ... ‘factor wars’ designed to show that one favorite causal factor is more important than another, concentrating instead ... ... to develop degree programs focused on intelligence and national security, they have followed the military-friendly school model,...
... most interesting and intense historical and cultural impacts, possibly going back thousands of years. Organizational cultural conditions will instead leave you diving into budget concerns, internal turf wars over specific issue-areas, and the changing dynamics of micro-subjects that might... ... conditions are the things that reveal the most about the contemporary prioritizing of intelligence communities, much more so than fascinating turns down history lane. More... ... importantly, there seems to be a disconnect in our discipline where the more important security/intelligence countries are dominated by grand strategic cultural analyses....
... states have made attempts to explicitly fuse drones and targeted killing to already established norms, ethics, and rules of war, the United States has focused more on drones being something of a semi-covert tool of political means. In other words, drone ... ... undefined. The U.S. has a diplomatic habit of positioning its interests as something higher than pure foreign-policy and national security priorities. In so doing, it creates a de facto expectation whereby it has exclusive rights to exceptional behavior on ...