DeSantis’ Slippery Ukraine Maneuvering

Ron DeSantis expands on his Ukraine position in response to a questionnaire from Tucker Carlson:While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence,...

Republicans Rally Behind the Stupidest Possible War

The “peace president” is at it again:Now a candidate, Trump is reviving his hawkish instincts toward the drug lords. He has already vowed to deploy US special forces to take on drug cartels, “just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate.”In one policy video...

Biden’s Lackluster Diplomatic Record

Stephen Walt is underwhelmed by the Biden administration’s diplomatic performance to date:I raise this issue because the Biden administration took office vowing to put diplomacy at the center of U.S. foreign policy, yet it has relatively few diplomatic achievements to...

Get US Troops Out of Syria Now

The White House says that Biden is “absolutely” committed to keeping US troops in Syria:Kirby added that Biden is “absolutely” committed to keeping American troops in Syria, where they are stationed to fight back any remnants of ISIS forces.US troops have no business...

Daniel Larison on China and ‘Our African Friends’

Near the end of an Associated Press report on Vice President Harris’ visit to Africa this week, John Kirby, a national security spokesman for the White House, was quoted saying this:John Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said this past week that...

Abandon the Pursuit of Primacy Before It’s Too Late

The AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered submarines has come under a lot of fire in Australia this week: Stephen Wertheim makes a compelling case that the Iraq war was the result of pursuing a strategy of primacy, and the US has still not abandoned that pursuit:After the...

The Trouble With AUKUS

The AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered submarines has come under a lot of fire in Australia this week:Ex-Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating condemned the center-left Labor government’s deal with the US and UK to obtain nuclear submarines, saying the nation’s military...

It’s Time To Stop Enabling Allied Dependence

In a new paper for the Cato Institute, Justin Logan gets to the heart of why US allies don’t take on a larger share of the burden for their own security: The only way to produce more equitable burdensharing is to make allies doubt the strength of the US commitment:...

Iran and Our Rotten Foreign Policy Debates

Dennis Ross just can’t get enough saber-rattling against Iran:Instead, Blinken or President Joe Biden should announce that although the U.S. favors diplomacy for resolving the threat of the Iranian nuclear program, the Iranians continue to demonstrate that they don’t;...