Robert Kagan is a foreign policy scholar, author, and commentator affiliated with the Brookings Institution. A leading neoconservative voice on American foreign policy, he was a prolific contributor to The Weekly Standard from its founding in 1995 through 2016, writing extensively on U.S. interventionism, the Iraq War, and the role of American power in the world. His influential books include *Of Paradise and Power* and *The Jungle Grows Back*.
President Bush’s speech before Congress Thursday night conveyed both the determination and the reassurance the American people needed. But what gave the president’s address historic significance was the courageous and visionary mission he set for his administration and for the nation. For Bush…
With Muammar Qaddafi still at large, continued fighting in parts of Libya, and an uncertain future ahead for that country’s long-oppressed people, one hesitates to make too many categorical judgments about the remarkable turn of events there. A few things can be said, however.
"America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.” This was the core sound bite in President Obama’s speech announcing the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and it was an extraordinary statement. Of course, such sentiments have been uttered many times over the years. George McGovern’s…
The looming battle over the defense budget could produce a useful national discussion about American foreign and defense policy. But we would need to begin by dispensing with the most commonly repeated fallacy: that cutting defense is essential to restoring the nation’s fiscal health. People can be…
One wonders whether Russia's invasion of Georgia will finally end the dreamy complacency that took hold of the world's democracies after the close of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union offered for many the tantalizing prospect of a new kind of international order. The fall of the…
YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED from this week's festivities that the Democrats now control both houses of Congress. Bush administration officials certainly have. Their minds have been concentrated by the prospect of congressional Democrats holding hearings on just about everything--but especially on Iraq,…
It's all up to the president now. The James Baker public relations blitz will of course continue, and the members of Baker's Iraq Study Group will go to book signings and be regulars on morning TV, and maybe even go on a nationwide tour like the Rolling Stones. Alan Simpson will continue to…
In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the…
Foreign policy realism is ascendant these days, we are told. This would be encouraging if true, because our foreign policy must indeed be realistic. But what passes for "realism" today has very little to do with reality. Indeed, if you look at some of the "realist" proposals on the table, "realism"…
President Bush has a little over two years left in office. The central question facing him is this: What kind of Iraq will he bequeath to his successor? Will it be an Iraq in a state of collapse, a horrible and metastasizing mess dumped on the doorstep of the next president? Or an Iraq on a path…
I JUST WANT TO MAKE clear that I am not a Straussian. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Some of my closest friends are Straussians, and I have long admired the work of Allan Bloom, Harry Jaffa, Harvey Mansfield, and Thomas Pangle--though not, I must say, Leo Strauss himself, since I have…
THE PURPLE INK on 11 million Iraqi fingers had not yet dried after an unprecedented, almost miraculous exercise in democratic freedom--and already there were querulous American critics working hard to make light of the whole thing. "Experts Cautious in Assessing Iraqi Election," ran the headline on…
THE CURRENT DISCUSSION about drawing down American troops in Iraq--whether "immediately," "rapidly" or "as soon as possible"--would be amusing were it not so dangerously divorced from reality. There could be no greater mistake than drawing down the U.S. force now, at a moment when there is real…
REP. JACK MURTHA has had a distinguished congressional career. But his outburst last Thursday was breathtakingly irresponsible. Nowhere in his angry and emotional call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq did the Pennsylvania Democrat bother to ask, much less answer, the most…
THE DAY AFTER IRAQIS WENT to the polls, the London Independent commented, "In the long term, it is possible that yesterday's elections in Iraq may be seen as marking the start of great change across the whole region." Needless to say, the editors hastened to add that it would be "utterly wrong, now…
I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him. John F. Kerry, May 3, 2003 Those who…
WE DO NOT KNOW how close the American effort in Iraq may be to irrecoverable failure. We are inclined to believe, however, that the current Washington wisdom--that the United States has already failed and there is nothing to do now but find a not-too-damaging way to extricate ourselves--is far too…
AT HIS PRESS CONFERENCE Tuesday night, President Bush eloquently made the case for staying the course in Iraq. The next day, at City College in New York, Senator Kerry agreed: "It would be unwise beyond belief for the United States of America" to cut and run, and to "leave a failed Iraq in its…
A YEAR HAS PASSED since the invasion of Iraq, and while no sensible person would claim that Iraqis are safely and irrevocably on a course to liberal democracy, the honest and rather remarkable truth is that they have made enormous strides in that direction. The signing on March 8 of the Iraqi…
WITH ALL THE TURMOIL SURROUNDING David Kay's comments on the failure to find stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in Iraq, it is time to return to first principles, and to ask the question: Was it right to go to war?
IT WAS A SAD SPECTACLE: Sitting next to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, visiting emissary from the world's largest dictatorship, President Bush last week performed a kowtow that would have made Bill Clinton blush. Following a script dictated by Beijing, and translated into English by senior national…
President Bush, we suspect, is going to overrule the Pentagon's attempt to exclude from the bidding for Iraq reconstruction contracts certain countries that have opposed U.S. policy in Iraq. He might as well do it sooner rather than later, so as to minimize the diplomatic damage done by the…
U.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN POLICY contains a host of formulations, complications, and nuances, all of which (at least most of which!) we are happy to discuss. But let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees.
WHEN GEORGE W. BUSH first entered the White House, the conventional wisdom was that his inexperience and lack of vision in foreign policy would be compensated for by his wise and experienced cabinet. This may or may not have been a reasonable view at the time. Right now, however, it is clear that…
THE FRONT PAGE of the November 7 Washington Post says it all. The first headline, in large type: "Bush Urges Commitment to Transform Mideast." Below, in slightly smaller type: "Pentagon to Shrink Iraq Force." And below that: "Iraqi Security Crews Getting Less Training." It's a jarring…
"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days…
DESPERATION BREEDS ILLUSIONS. The latest illusion, embraced reluctantly by the Bush administration and enthusiastically by its critics, is that the burden of establishing and maintaining security in Iraq can be substantially shifted off American shoulders and onto someone else's--whether it be the…
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER Condoleezza Rice gave an important speech a couple of weeks ago, in which she called on the United States to make a "generational commitment" to bringing political and economic reform to the long-neglected Middle East--a commitment not unlike that which we made to rebuild…
LET US BE THE FIRST TO SAY IT: We owe a debt of gratitude to France, and particularly to its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. He has clarified the present geopolitical situation and put an end to illusions. This week M. de Villepin cast aside months of diplomatic pretense and revealed…
READING THE AVALANCHE of op-ed articles on U.S. policy toward North Korea, especially from liberals noted for their dovishness on the subject of Iraq, you can't tell whether our leading foreign policy experts are dumb or dishonest. Why, they ask in feigned puzzlement, is President Bush not…
PRESIDENT BUSH'S resounding victory in last week's midterm elections was, among other things, a remarkable expression of national support for the course the president has steered in the war on terrorism. And, of course, that includes the president's Iraq policy. Time and again as he toured the…
NOW WOULD PRESIDENT BUSH please appoint an independent blue-ribbon commission to investigate the government's failure to anticipate or adequately prepare for the terrorist attacks on September 11? When we offered this suggestion two weeks ago, the Bush administration, led by Vice President Dick…
IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION going wobbly? Is the president preparing to back off the bold pledges he made to the American people four months ago in his State of the Union address? The president warned us then that the clock was ticking in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was working hard to acquire weapons of…
NOW WOULD PRESIDENT BUSH please appoint an independent blue-ribbon commission to investigate the government's failure to anticipate or adequately prepare for the terrorist attacks on September 11? When we offered this suggestion two weeks ago, the Bush administration, led by Vice President Dick…
IF PRESIDENT BUSH knows what's good for the country--and we think he does--he will immediately appoint an independent, blue-ribbon commission to investigate the government's failure to anticipate and adequately prepare for the terrorist attacks of September 11. Make George Shultz and Sam Nunn…
IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION going wobbly? Is the president preparing to back off the bold pledges he made to the American people four months ago in his State of the Union address? The president warned us then that the clock was ticking in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was working hard to acquire weapons of…
IF PRESIDENT BUSH knows what's good for the country--and we think he does--he will immediately appoint an independent, blue-ribbon commission to investigate the government's failure to anticipate and adequately prepare for the terrorist attacks of September 11. Make George Shultz and Sam Nunn…
WHY WERE WE WORRIED about Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to the Middle East? After all, for one crucial week, Powell ended up providing diplomatic cover for an ongoing Israeli military operation that has made significant strides against the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian…
RIGHT NOW the Bush administration seems to be lost in the wilderness without a moral or strategic compass. This is a stunning development, for less than three months ago the president set forth a grand and clear vision for American foreign policy. We would fight terrorism and the regimes that…
Why were we worried about Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to the Middle East? After all, for one crucial week, Powell ended up providing diplomatic cover for an ongoing Israeli military operation that has made significant strides against the terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian…
U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan is happy with President Bush's apparent Middle East policy switch. So is European Union president Romano Prodi, French president Jacques Chirac, and the British foreign ministry. The New York Times editorial page is very happy. And, really, that's what American…
RIGHT NOW the Bush administration seems to be lost in the wilderness without a moral or strategic compass. This is a stunning development, for less than three months ago the president set forth a grand and clear vision for American foreign policy. We would fight terrorism and the regimes that…
YESTERDAY, in Madrid, the American Secretary of State virtually obliterated the distinction between terrorists and those fighting terrorists: "I think we are all in agreement and the world is in agreement that the solution will not be produced by terror or a response to terror." Quite a departure…
IN MILITARY TERMS, Palestinian terrorists are losing badly in the current Israeli operation to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. Palestinian militants, far from welcoming martyrdom, as the American press insists must be the result of the Israeli offensive, are instead…
SECRETARY OF STATE Colin Powell's trip to the Middle East is shaping up to be a disaster. Vice President Cheney's recent trip marked a detour from the Bush Doctrine; the president's recent statements pressuring Israel to stop its campaign against terrorism, a retreat; the secretary's trip so far…
ON THE EVIDENCE of the past couple of weeks, there's one person above all on the Bush foreign policy team whom we can trust to wage the war on terrorism effectively--without debilitating self-delusions, without crippling moral confusion, without self-defeating serpentine maneuvering, but rather…
U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan is happy with President Bush's apparent Middle East policy switch. So is European Union president Romano Prodi, French president Jacques Chirac, and the British foreign ministry. The New York Times editorial page is very happy. And, really, that's what American…
NOT SINCE Secretary of State Warren Christopher returned from Europe with egg on his face in May 1993 has a high-ranking American official had such a bad week abroad as Vice President Dick Cheney just spent in the Middle East. At least that's the way it looks from the outside. Christopher, you'll…
ON THE EVIDENCE of the past couple of weeks, there's one person above all on the Bush foreign policy team whom we can trust to wage the war on terrorism effectively--without debilitating self-delusions, without crippling moral confusion, without self-defeating serpentine maneuvering, but rather…
NOT SINCE Secretary of State Warren Christopher returned from Europe with egg on his face in May 1993 has a high-ranking American official had such a bad week abroad as Vice President Dick Cheney just spent in the Middle East. At least that's the way it looks from the outside. Christopher, you'll…
THE FULL SWEEP of the new Bush Doctrine was on display this past week, as President Bush traveled through North Asia delivering a consistent and powerful message: American security and global security require a determined assault not just on terrorists but on the three-headed hydra of tyranny,…
THE FULL SWEEP of the new Bush Doctrine was on display this past week, as President Bush traveled through North Asia delivering a consistent and powerful message: American security and global security require a determined assault not just on terrorists but on the three-headed hydra of tyranny,…
"AT STATE, Powell and others were alarmed by the Wolfowitz drumbeat," the Washington Post's Bob Woodward reports in his series on the early days of the war on terrorism. "At the end of one early meeting of Bush's war cabinet, during which Rumsfeld had raised Iraq as a potential target, Powell…
"I'M ONE of the hawks . . . when it comes to defense," says Senator Robert C. Byrd with a straight face. "But I'm becoming a little nervous as I hear that we're going to spend more and more and more on the military." That was Byrd's reaction to the gratifying news that President Bush has decided to…
"AT STATE, Powell and others were alarmed by the Wolfowitz drumbeat," the Washington Post's Bob Woodward reports in his series on the early days of the war on terrorism. "At the end of one early meeting of Bush's war cabinet, during which Rumsfeld had raised Iraq as a potential target, Powell…
"I'M ONE of the hawks . . . when it comes to defense," says Senator Robert C. Byrd with a straight face. "But I'm becoming a little nervous as I hear that we're going to spend more and more and more on the military." That was Byrd's reaction to the gratifying news that President Bush has decided to…
WHAT NEXT in the war on terrorism? We hear from many corners that it is still too early to ask this question. If you mention the word Iraq, respectable folks at the State Department and on the New York Times op-ed page get red-faced. After all, the mission in Afghanistan is not over. The…
WHAT NEXT in the war on terrorism? We hear from many corners that it is still too early to ask this question. If you mention the word Iraq, respectable folks at the State Department and on the New York Times op-ed page get red-faced. After all, the mission in Afghanistan is not over. The…
WITH THE TALIBAN DISLODGED and Osama bin Laden increasingly shorn of allies, the endgame seems to be in sight in Afghanistan. President Bush--along with the men and women of our armed forces--deserve the lion's share of the credit for the encouraging progress of our arms. The president deserves…
IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION really getting serious about fighting the war on terrorism? On the one hand, there was still plenty of happy-talk flying fast and furious this past week. President Bush's speech Thursday night was upbeat and spared him media attacks for not addressing the nation on…
A couple of weeks after the September 11 attacks -- before the military campaign in Afghanistan had begun, and when Secretary of State Colin Powell's coalitionism seemed to be driving American policy -- a concerned observer privately asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld what in the world was…
HERE'S A PREDICTION. When all is said and done, the conflict in Afghanistan will be to the war on terrorism what the North Africa campaign was to World War II: an essential beginning on the path to victory. But compared with what looms over the horizon--a wide-ranging war in locales from Central…
CAN THE UNITED STATES WIN A WAR ON TERRORISM while winking at some terrorists and cozying up to nations that support them? Can the United States effectively fight terrorism and reward terrorism at the same time? You shouldn't have to ponder those questions very long. The certain answer is no. But…
The first thing that must be said is this: The nation has reacted magnificently to the horrific events of September 11. True, there has been some of the usual hand-wringing, on editorial pages and in Congress. To listen to some commentators, you’d think the Bush administration was about to embark…
IS THE UNITED STATES A RELIABLE ALLY, one that can be counted on in time of crisis to assist close friends it has promised to defend? If the answer is yes, then it is now time for the United States to stand unequivocally with Israel. President Bush deserves credit for resisting calls for more…
"I THINK THE RELATIONSHIP is on the upswing now, now that these irritations are behind us, and I know they are anxious to move forward." That keen geopolitical insight, uttered by Secretary of State Colin Powell on the eve of his visit to Beijing, nicely captures the Bush administration’s policy of…
HERE’S SOME UNSOLICITED ADVICE for two old friends, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz: Resign. Right now that may be the best service they could perform for their country, for it may be the only way to focus the attention of the American people—and the Bush administration—on the impending…
DURING LAST YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, we were assured that George W. Bush's foreign policy team would be far superior in skill and experience to the much derided Clintonites. When Bush came to power, the "adults" would be in charge. Four months into the Bush presidency, the "adults" may want to…
On April 1, a Chinese pilot, pursuant to the Chinese government policy of harassing U.S. surveillance planes, knocked an American EP-3 from the sky. The Chinese government then held the American aircrew hostage for 11 days, and extorted a letter of apology from the Bush administration.
On April 1, a Chinese pilot, pursuant to the Chinese government policy of harassing U.S. surveillance planes, knocked an American EP-3 from the sky. The Chinese government then held the American aircrew hostage for 11 days, and extorted a letter of apology from the Bush administration.
The profound national humiliation that President Bush has brought upon the United States may be forgotten temporarily when the American aircrew, held captive in China as this magazine goes to press, return home. But when we finish celebrating, it will be time to assess the damage done, and the…
Why does the Chinese premier rush to announce that President Bush will visit Beijing next fall -- even before the White House is ready to make the news public? Why do senior Chinese officials suddenly declare, after months of railing against Bush's plans to build a missile defense system, that…
Six weeks into a new administration is, of course, too soon to start making a definitive judgment about its foreign policy. But it is not too soon to start worrying that President Bush may be content to continue walking down dangerous paths in foreign and defense policy laid out over the past eight…
This week has been dubbed "national security week" by the White House, as President Bush visits military installations in three states. When the events were planned, Bush's team no doubt expected a big welcome from the men and women of the armed forces and their families, who had voted…
President-elect George W. Bush's aides often compare their boss to Ronald Reagan. Some of the time, this is just a defense against the widespread perception that Bush knows little about foreign policy. Reagan, they suggest, didn't know the details either, and look how well he did. More recently,…
To watch Bill Clinton flit around the world these past few months, desperately and in some cases dangerously seeking some final "accomplishment" to add to his legacy, has been to see with stunning clarity a fundamental truth about this president's foreign policy: It has been mostly about him.
The triumph of democracy in Serbia last week may well rank as the most important international event of the post-Cold War era. As a practical matter, it almost certainly means the end of a decade of extraordinary brutality and misery in southeastern Europe, a decade that witnessed four wars and the…
This week the Senate will vote on granting China permanent most-favored-nation trade status. The vote comes a lot later than the Clinton administration and China's friends in the Senate wanted. Too close to the elections, you see, and therefore too likely to be infected by election-year "politics,"…
Much to his credit, George W. Bush has made national missile defense the central plank in his foreign policy platform. This may or may not prove to be good for Bush's electoral prospects (though we suspect it will help him). But there is no question that Bush has done the nation a real service by…
"By this time next year we shall know whether the policy of appeasement has appeased, or whether it has only stimulated a more ferocious appetite."
A couple of months ago, House majority whip Tom DeLay gave a powerful speech decrying the Clinton administration's appeasement of China, and making a strong case for a much tougher policy toward Beijing. Now, the same Tom DeLay is working night and day to help Clinton cement his "legacy" by passing…
At least we know why Bill Clinton and Al Gore are desperate for a quick vote on granting permanent normal trade status to China. Last week, big labor came to town to protest the pending deal with China. The labor movement held an impressive rally of over 10,000 people on Capitol Hill, and then sent…
On March 16, as the people of Taiwan were preparing to make history by turning out the ruling Nationalist party in the most momentous election in the 5,000-year history of the Chinese people, and as the Chinese rulers in Beijing were thundering ever more ominous threats of war should the Taiwanese…
President Clinton was right when he said last Wednesday that the decision to grant China permanent most-favored-nation trading status will have a historic significance equal to Richard Nixon's opening to China and Jimmy Carter's normalization of relations. But if that's true, why is the president…
George W. Bush's November 19 speech at the Reagan Library represents the strongest and clearest articulation of a policy of American global leadership by a major political figure since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. In his call for renewed American strength, confidence, and leadership, Bush…
Republicans took a courageous and principled stand when they defeated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty three weeks ago. Now they need to show some political smarts, too. With the 2000 election campaign fast approaching, they should deprive the Clinton administration of one cheap, but sometimes…
Last week's rejection by the Senate of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was the most responsible and courageous action by that body since the 1991 vote authorizing the Gulf War. In the face of a hostile media, a well-organized and well-funded international "arms control" industry, polls showing…
Last week, while many China experts inside and outside the Clinton administration were confidently predicting that China would not escalate the conflict with Taiwan, we warned that Beijing might well be contemplating an attack. This turned out to be correct. According to the Washington Post and New…
Last week, the Chinese navy seized a Taiwanese freighter carrying provisions to Taiwanese soldiers stationed on the tiny Taiwanese island of Matsu a few miles off the coast of the Chinese mainland. Meanwhile, China was launching military aircraft on hundreds of sorties over the Taiwan Strait,…
"We've apologized, we've expressed our regret, we've offered compensation, we're talking about compensation, we've provided a report" -- so said State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin last week describing the U.S. response to the accidental bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade. But his plaintive…
Taiwan's President Li Teng-hui sent the American foreign policy establishment into a nervous frenzy last week when he declared that Taiwan would henceforth negotiate with China as one state to another. China experts are working overtime on their op-eds chastising Taiwan for its provocative action.…
Slobodan Milosevic has lost the war in Kosovo, and his dictatorship of Yugoslavia may be headed (let's hope) for the dustbin of history. Now it's time for the United States to start paying serious attention to a far more dangerous dictatorship several thousand miles to the east, in Beijing. Sound…
Slobodan Milosevic's capitulation to U.S. and NATO demands represents a triumph for American power and principle, for the U.S.-led alliance, for President Clinton, and for the small but stalwart group of Republicans, led by John McCain, who supported the war from beginning to end. Assuming that…
In 1990 a British prime minister sought to stiffen the spine of an American president trying to decide whether to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Margaret Thatcher's famous injunction -- "George, this is no time to go wobbly" -- helped give President Bush the moral courage to take Americans to…
The conventional wisdom these days is that China is going to be a big issue in the 2000 campaign. We wonder.
The congressional Republican party hit bottom last week. On Wednesday, April 28, a majority of Republican House members cast two deeply irresponsible votes on the U.S. military action against Yugoslavia. Most press attention focused on the vote that denied President Clinton support for the air…
The war in Kosovo is going badly. The Clinton administration has compounded its initial disastrous misjudgment of Slobodan Milosevic with an inadequate military strategy driven more by fear of negative polls than by the imperative of victory. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that General Wesley…
According to the polls, a majority of the American people support sending U.S. and NATO ground troops into Yugoslavia to defeat Serb forces and stop the slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar Albanians. Or, to put it another way: to win this war against Slobodan Milosevic and his army of…
Republicans say they want to make foreign policy and national security a big issue in the 2000 campaign. But when Republican senators voted 38-16 against NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia last week, they gravely damaged their ability to do so. As a result of that vote, and of the neo-isolationist…
Bill Clinton is great at apologizing to foreign governments for the policies of his predecessors. A year ago, on a trip to Africa, he apologized for past American support for some African dictatorships. Last week in Central America, he apologized for U.S. support of the Guatemalan military during…
Last week's debacle at Rambouillet, the French chateau where Secretary of State Madeleine Albright failed to win agreement from both Serbs and Kosovar Albanians, was more than just a humiliation for the Clinton administration. In the coming days and weeks the awful consequences of that failure will…
It's testing time again for the United States and its NATO allies. As this magazine goes to press, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is continuing to reject a U.S. plan to put NATO troops in Kosovo to keep the peace and give the Kosovar Albanians a chance for real autonomy. With this weekend's…
"Never again," vowed Leonard Woodcock, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to Beijing, in 1977, "shall we embarrass ourselves before a foreign nation the way Henry Kissinger did with the Chinese."
THE SHAM DEAL ON KOSOVO that Richard Holbrooke struck with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic last October has now definitively, and predictably, collapsed. Like so many other feats of Clintonian diplomacy over the past few years -- especially in Iraq -- the bargain with Milosevic was a…
LAST WEEK, PENTAGON OFFICIALS provided damage assessments of the four-day missile strike against Iraq. But they focused their attention on the wrong country. The most significant damage was not to be found in Iraq, where nearly half a billion dollars worth of U.S. missiles destroyed a handful of…
Last week's air and missile attacks on Iraq, for all the damage they inflicted, didn't accomplish much of lasting importance. Military planners seemed to be targeting Saddam Hussein's elite forces in the hopes of stirring a general uprising in the regular army. But officials admit they were just…
Administrations and politicians can avoid reality for only so long. Eventually, reality intrudes on artful spinning and wishful thinking. Since last January, we have been arguing that the United States faces only two choices in dealing with Saddam Hussein: either remove him from power or learn to…
A month ago, we noted in this space the obvious fact that Bill Clinton's foreign policy is in tatters. We urged Republicans in Congress to put forward an alternative vision and strategy for the nation. That vision and strategy, we further argued, should be a Reaganite one, organized around the…
SEVEN MONTHS AFTER the Clinton administration backed down from its confrontation with Saddam Hussein, the disastrous consequences of that retreat are on full display. Whether or not Saddam makes good on his threat to throw out the U.N. weapons inspectors, he has now enjoyed almost two months…
Dean Acheson may be the most respected secretary of state of the last fifty years, but he is also the most widely misunderstood and misrepresented. The Cold War policies he helped put in place -- the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the NATO alliance, containment, the global ideological and…
"With dictators, nothing succeeds like success." That observation, by Adolf Hitler, is not as trite as it sounds. Hitler was referring to his own successful remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936. Before he moved into the Rhineland, Hitler was securely "in his box," as the Clinton administration…
"It's a movie, not a snapshot," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger like to say when pleading for patience with their "strategy" of engagement with China. And apparently it's one of those movies in which nothing happens for a very, very long time.
Constructive engagement, as the Clinton administration likes to call its policy toward China, is actually more a theory than a strategy. And it is a theory that demands perpetual optimism. It runs something like this: China has a clear set of interests -- in expanding its economic growth, in…
IN THE PAST TWO MONTHS, Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic has learned the hard way that flying in the American orbit can be dangerous to a dictator's health.
When President Clinton abandoned his 1992 campaign pledge to get tough with China, he quickly settled into that comfortable, bipartisan consensus of policymakers, politicians, Sinologists, and journalists who have long supported a policy of "engagement" with China. "Nothing is more important than…
At the turn of the last century, when the United States was emerging as the world's most dynamic and successful power, many of America's premier intellectuals were profoundly pessimistic. Although their young, vibrant, industrializing country was growing up all around them, they were convinced that…
Not all that long ago, revelations about an American president's shady financial entanglements with an Indonesian businessman would have stirred up a debate about more than campaign finance. During the Cold War, liberal Democrats and left-wing activists would have made a big fuss over the…
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. Right? Wrong. Nearly 70 percent of the Russian people voted against the Communist party in the first round of the Russian elections on June 16. The balloting proved free and fair, despite confident predictions of widespread government fraud by…
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. Right? Wrong. Nearly 70 percent of the Russian people voted against the Communist party in the first round of the Russian elections on June 16. The balloting proved free and fair, despite confident predictions of widespread government fraud by…
Bill Clinton's announcement last week that he will seek unconditional renewal of China's most-favored-nation status is the latest evidence of a metamorphosis remarkable even for this president. Though he relentlessly attacked the Bush administration's China policy as bereft of human-rights concerns…
Bill Clinton's announcement last week that he will seek unconditional renewal of China's most-favored-nation status is the latest evidence of a metamorphosis remarkable even for this president. Though he relentlessly attacked the Bush administration's China policy as bereft of human-rights concerns…
Two months ago, the leading candidate for president in Nicaragua barely survived an assassination attempt when his motorcade was attacked by masked gunmen. You may be forgiven for not knowing this, indeed for never having heard of Arnoldo Aleman, the former mayor of Managua who is far ahead of all…
Anyone who wants to know why "Europe" doesn't work very well when the United States refuses to call the shots can consult the last chapter of David Owen's Balkan Odyssey (Harcourt Brace, 389 pages, $ 25), a personal account of the ups and downs of European diplomacy in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. To…
THE CRISIS IN BOSNIA has sparked the beginning of a profound debate within the Republican party over the direction of its foreign policy, and not a moment too soon. For the past three years, the party has been drifting toward the edge of its third great transformation in this century. The first…
The first serious negotiations aimed at ending the Bosnian conflict begin this week in Ohio, but the debate over President Clinton's proposal to deploy 20,000 American troops to help enforce the as-yet-unachieved settlement has been raging for weeks. So far that debate has focused primarily on…
American policy toward Fidel Castro's Cuba could well change dramatically during the next administration, no matter who wins in November 1996. Don't be misled by the lopsided vote in the House last month to tighten the economic embargo against Cuba. This week or next, tile Senate version of that…
THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN against Radko Mladic's Bosnian Serb army alone has not solved the Balkan crisis. But NATO air strikes have dramatically altered the situation in the Balkans to the point where a peaceful settlement stands its best chance to take root since the start of the conflict four years…