Thomas Donnelly

The vultures are circling in Syria.

The Declaration of Independence as strategy.

It is a conceit of the Trump administration that its foreign policy is entirely different from that of Barack Obama. Even in an otherwise conciliatory State of the Union address, Trump strove to set himself apart from Obama, touting his own policy of “maximum pressure” on North Korea as an example…

Donald Trump’s feud with North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” notwithstanding, the most likely major war on the horizon is one between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that, thanks to years of experience and an increasingly lethal arsenal, has become part of the vanguard in Iran’s…

To many of those commenting on Donald Trump’s maiden address to the United Nations, especially if otherwise disturbed by the president’s character, his emphasis on state sovereignty was a welcome dose of diplomatic normalcy. For example, David Ignatius of the Washington Post found this theme…

To many of those commenting on Donald Trump’s maiden address to the United Nations, especially if otherwise disturbed by the president’s character, his emphasis on state sovereignty was a welcome dose of diplomatic normalcy. For example, David Ignatius of the Washington Post found this theme…

Campaigning in a Munich beer tent on May 28, German chancellor Angela Merkel reflected upon Donald Trump's blitz through Europe at the tail end of his first trip outside the United States. "The times when we could fully rely on others are kind of over," she said. "We Europeans really need to take…

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

Rolling out the Trump administration's formal 2018 budget, acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth confessed that Defense secretary James Mattis "hasn't spent one moment" looking beyond the coming budget year. But even a cursory glance at the plan makes one wonder whether he paid much attention to…

What are we to make of the cruise missile barrage that targeted a Syrian air base in retaliation for Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons in the province of Idlib? Was Donald Trump's first serious action as commander-in-chief a one-off expression of moral outrage lacking any larger purpose? Or…

As Donald Trump tries to transform himself from reality TV star and King of Twitter into something more substantive and presidential, his principal argument is that he’s fulfilling his campaign promises. For several weeks now, the White House has been boasting that he is "already achieving results…

By naming Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser, President Donald Trump has taken a critical first step toward restoring confidence in the White House's ability to meet the challenges of a trying time. Simultaneously the choice raises profound questions about the…

As Barack Obama leaves the Oval Office, so too will the “post-Cold War era" exit the scene. Another Lost Ark, it may wind up in an endless, dusty warehouse, a torrent locked in a raw wood crate.

The election of Donald Trump initially seemed to be a lifeline to an American military suffering from unrelenting budget cuts—a loss of more than $250 billion in spending power from the 2009 budget alone—and an equally punishing pace of operations. The morning after the election, Forbes magazine…

The election of Donald Trump initially seemed to be a lifeline to an American military suffering from unrelenting budget cuts—a loss of more than $250 billion in spending power from the 2009 budget alone—and an equally punishing pace of operations. The morning after the election, Forbes magazine…

Bob Dylan's Nobel prize is a culturally revealing moment, not only about the miserable state of modern literature but the even-more-miserable state of modern music criticism. Let's get this straight: Dylan can't sing and can't play. The musicians who did most to disguise these facts, the Band, were…

Is America in decline? The question has been catnip for the chattering classes for decades, especially during the Obama presidency. And now we have a presidential candidate who vows to "make America great again." Says Donald Trump: "Our country is in serious trouble. We don't win anymore. We don't…

Is America in decline? The question has been catnip for the chattering classes for decades, especially during the Obama presidency. And now we have a presidential candidate who vows to “make America great again." Says Donald Trump: "Our country is in serious trouble. We don't win anymore. We don't…

If, come November 9, Donald Trump is looking for a secretary of state with the talents and experience to appease Vladimir Putin, he could do worse than retaining the current incumbent, John Kerry. As Walter Russell Mead has observed, “Watching the State Department pursue its Syria negotiation with…

Donald Trump's speech on national security at the Union League of Philadelphia Wednesday may have been his best imitation of a traditional, conservative Republican to date, particularly on his proposals to rebuild the U.S. military. When The Donald cites the 2014 National Defense Panel report, he's…

Early in April, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter previewed his two-week Asia-Pacific tour by reaffirming the administration’s belief that this is the "single most consequential region" for U.S. national security interests. Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he celebrated…

In a wide-ranging and extended “town hall" session with Fox News' Greta van Susteren, Donald Trump explained his basic approach to national security and America's role in the world. Using Japan – which has had the effrontery, over several generations, to make great automobiles and sell them at…

One of the virtues of the political insurgencies of this presidential campaign has been that they have forced both parties to confront difficult questions that most mainstream politicians have preferred to ignore. On the domestic policy front, the unavoidable issue is the plight of the working…

One of the most durable arguments for not responding as forcefully as possible to al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and jihadi groups in general is that they do not pose an “existential” threat to America.  Indeed, this lies at the core of the Obama administration’s strategy for the Middle East.  As the…

Like the Bourbons, Barack Obama and his national security advisers have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.  They have not forgotten that they were first elected in 2008 to “end” Middle East wars, and the administration’s response to the attacks in Paris last week reveals that they have yet to…

That’s what many defense experts are saying about the two-year budget deal that’s being cut by congressional leaders and the White House.  Byron Callan, longtime analyst for Capital Alpha Partners, which provides research to financial firms, rates the prospective deal as “defense positive.”

That’s what many defense experts are saying about the two-year budget deal that’s being cut by congressional leaders and the White House.  Byron Callan, longtime analyst for Capital Alpha Partners, which provides research to financial firms, rates the prospective deal as “defense positive.”

You have to give Barack Obama credit for consistency.

For the last several weeks, Air Force Secretary Deborah James has been touting the deployment of F-22 Raptor fighters – the best plane America owns – to Germany as “the strong side of the coin” in an effort to reassure Eastern Europeans who have seen their air space increasingly violated by Russian…

What will Iran do with the big “signing bonus” – perhaps as much as $150 billion – coming its way thanks to the nuclear pact negotiated by the Obama administration?

In at last announcing in detail that it would reduce the size of its active-duty force, currently 490,000, by 40,000 soldiers over the next two years, the U.S. Army seems finally and for a day to have captured the attention of the political class.  In fact this is not news, but the long-anticipated…

Buried deep in the House version of this year’s defense authorization is a brief provision that has great potential to improve and accelerate the way the armed services buy weapons​—​yes, an actual reform of Pentagon procurement. The irony is that this reform would mark a reversal of past “reforms”…

The early Cold War period might be called the Age of the Treaty Organization. The United States, scrambling furiously to respond to the fact that it had become the guarantor of the “Free World,” had discovered a surprising interest in entangling alliances of all sorts and in all parts of the…

It was a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away: In July 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama made big, bold news by travelling to Berlin to – as The New York Times triumphantly recorded – “restore the world’s faith in strong American leadership and idealism.” With 200,000 Berliners waving…

President Obama’s decision to nominate Marine Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a very good move. It’s also a little bit of a surprise: Even though it’s been clear for a while that Dunford was going to be the last man standing in the…

"The single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”

In late 2001, when initial military operations in Afghanistan produced surprising successes, the opening skit on Saturday Night Live was a send-up of the daily press conference given by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Actor Darrell Hammond made a perfect Rummy, complete with rimless…

At this point, not even the self-styled Wonk Class was staying up late in anticipation of the Obama Administration’s release of its long-overdue National Security Strategy (NSS), which has at last been published. The last one came out five years ago, and the president has been promising an update…

The terrorist attacks in Paris were nightmarish in many ways, but perhaps the most worrisome news to come out of the Charlie Hebdo affair is that followers of a “pure” al Qaeda affiliate – al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula – and of ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – worked together.

As the historically minded will recall, back in 2012 the Obama administration declared that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific.” That was the guidance the commander in chief gave to the U.S. military, the idea being that since, the peace of Europe was eternal and…

The resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel creates a golden opportunity for the new Republican majority in the Congress: not only will the hearings on Hagel’s replacement be a natural venue for reviewing the defense reductions and many retreats of the Obama years, but they provide a forum for…

“Last night’s strikes were only the beginning,” Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told the Pentagon press corps.  More strikes can be “expected.”

In the late 17th century, times were tough in Scotland.  The Stuarts, the Scots’ royal family, had been tossed off the throne of England for a second time, and the country had been excluded from the burgeoning English system of international trade regulated by the Navigation Acts.  Even the climate…

In testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the most that could be done by way of creating an effective Free Syrian Army – that is, the forces of the moderate…

The Obama administration is behaving like a prisoner under interrogation: eventually, if unintentionally, it ends up talking most about the subjects it least wishes to discuss.

Stories on President Obama’s strategy-for-the-Islamic-State speech this evening have made it plain that the military approach is going to be a combination of U.S. airpower and various Iraqi and Syrian proxies on the ground.  “Obama’s ISIL Strategy to Emphasize Coalition Effort,”…

On Wednesday, the eve of the thirteenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, President Obama will speak to the American people about his strategy for dealing with the rise of the Islamic State, the would-be caliphate bestriding Iraq and Syria, the most palpable and present threat to the region…

“They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell.”

Say what you will about Barack Obama, but his approach to the Middle East has been ruthlessly consistent.  He was elected on the promise to end America’s involvement in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He didn’t fulfill those promises as rapidly as his supporters wished – he preferred…

On July 4, 1863, as he stared across the fields near Gettysburg at Robert E. Lee’s battered army, George Meade issued a general order expressing his thanks for the “glorious result” of the previous three days’ fighting.  The victory already won would be “matters of history ever to be remembered,”…

The failures of American will exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are numerous and mounting. Coming on top of the tepid response to China’s declaration of an air defense identification zone over Japanese waters and the withdrawals from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the “red line” in Syria, they have…

As Vladimir Putin reminds us that hard power, military power – not “soft” or “smart” power – is the ultima ratio in international affairs, who speaks for the Republican party?

A future historian would describe the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) as having a profound effect on the United States. The BCA, he would write, was a critical step toward making America into a social democracy while ensuring its decline as a global military power. He would conclude that the law…

House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon doesn’t look like an insurgent.  The quintessential Californian – a man of Reaganesque optimism whose congressional district now includes the Gipper’s presidential library – McKeon has been a steadfast supporter of House speaker John…

Whether it’s “pivoting” or “rebalancing,” the Obama administration’s unceasing efforts to turn retreat into a virtue – particularly when it comes to the Middle East – have become a distinguishing feature of this president’s national security strategy.

"It's a pity they can’t both lose.” So Henry Kissinger famously said about Iran and Iraq during their long and ugly war in the 1980s. Having squandered the many opportunities created by the uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and with the Syrian opposition increasingly…

For the second time in two years, an Egyptian autocrat has been deposed. In Syria, another embattled tyrant – this one robustly supported by Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia – looks like he might hang on. Across the Muslim world, the political future hangs in the balance.

Barack Obama’s foreign policy has one core principle: Get the United States out of the Middle East wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he “inherited” from George W. Bush and avoid repeating those mistakes. There have been other themes sounded by the White House, most notably the “Pacific pivot,” but…

After a three-week siege, the combined forces of Hezbollah and the Assad regime have taken the important crossroads town of Qusayr, which is just south of the even more important city of Homs in east-central Syria. “Whoever controls Qusayr controls the center of the country, and whoever controls…

“The fundamental fact that we all have to be aware of is, when we go to war now, we send less than 1 percent of our population to war and they’re all volunteers and many of them are from working-class environments. And in the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nothing was asked of the rest of us. We…

After several minutes of badgering from Sen. John McCain at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 9, Admiral Samuel Locklear admitted that the combination of regularly scheduled defense budget cuts and the “sequestration” provision of the current budget law meant that “in the near term…

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s address to the National Defense University today, hyped by the administration as a “strong message that the time has come for [the Department of Defense] to consider fundamental change in how it is organized and how it operates to better reflect 21st century…

At 8:00 a.m. on July 11, 1708, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, captain general of British forces, and de facto commander of the Dutch, Hanoverian, Prussian, Danish, and other forces of the Grand Alliance, ordered his 80,000 men across the River Scheldt at the village of Oudenaarde in Flanders.…

Periodically, and almost from the day he became a serious presidential candidate, editorialists, pundits, academics, and reporters have described Barack Obama’s foreign policy as a return to “realism.” Essayist and self-described realist Robert Kaplan, to take just one example, argues that this is…

There is at least one thing to like about the tax-raising, can-kicking deal that avoided the fiscal cliff: It gave the U.S. military a 60-day reprieve from the consequences of sequestration.

Tom Friedman is a genius. It’s very, very difficult to write a frequent column that expresses deeply conventional wisdom in a fresh, hey-kids-I-just-thought-of-this voice.  He is the id of the Washington Establishment.

Geoffrey Norman’s lovely piece on the Seven Days Battles of June 1862 in this week’s edition of the magazine needs no glossing, but the fights that brought Confederate General Robert E. Lee to the fore also marked the beginning of a period where the future of the United States was increasingly in…

The prominence of Russian-made helicopters in Bashar al-Assad’s brutal and desperate efforts to hang on to power puts the Syrian war in a new light. It’s getting difficult to categorize the conflict simply as a humanitarian crisis or a “teacup war” of secondary significance. Rather, Syria’s civil…

Eric Li’s op-ed in the New York Times, timed to coincide with the annual round-up of big wigs (with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey leading the U.S. delegation) in Singapore, the Shangri-La Dialogue, is a useful reminder of the many good things…

The Cold War is an increasingly distant memory in American military minds, except in the minds of the arms control community, and in particular those who seek the elimination of nuclear weapons. Alas, our president is a member in good standing of this community—indeed, an organizer.

CNNMoney has uncovered a shocking story: Mitt Romney will spend more on national defense than Barack Obama would! 

Jane Perlez’s and William Wan’s articles in today’s papers (the New York Times and Washington Post, respectively) stand as a minor but important milestone in elite understanding of international relations in the 21st century. Though they provide only a summary of a Brookings monograph – the product…

The $489 billion cut to defense budgets engineered by Barack Obama — as well as the played-for-fool Republican accomplices on Capitol Hill — won't just mean less American military power. These cuts have significant consequences for America's allies, as well. 

You can criticize Barack Obama—and fear not, I’m about to—but he has been a consequential president. Obamacare, his signature domestic accomplishment, is a substantial step toward the government-run health care program that Democrats have long desired. It may be hard to get rid of, even with a…

In his history of the long-running conflict between Iran and America, Kenneth Pollack writes of the “two clocks” that measure time as it relates to what he calls (in the title of his book) the Persian Puzzle. One, of course, is the countdown to a nuclear Iran. No one knows for certain how much time…

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper is reporting that the Japanese government is close to settling on the F-35 Lightning as the much-needed replacement for its F-15 fighter.  That’s exceptionally good news for a program that’s both key to preserving American military preeminence and at a lot of risk due…

Curiouser and curiouser. Iranian “students” sack the British embassy in Tehran. The Quds Force contracts with a Mexican “Zeta” cartel hit man to assassinate the Saudi ambassador whilst dining in Washington. Computers in Iran’s nuclear complex are struck by a “Stuxnet” cyber-weapon. A “mysterious…

“Concurrency” in defense programs – that is, overlapping development and production of weapons systems – has long been a controversial Pentagon practice. Not surprisingly, inventing something while beginning to build it, particularly something as complex as a modern warship, aircraft, or combat…

One of the core strategic beliefs of the Obama administration has been that their Bush predecessors overreacted to the attacks of 9/11 and became obsessively focused on the greater Middle East at the expense of East Asia or the “Asia-Pacific,” where the rise of China and India presages a new…

During his four-year tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen embodied the quiet professionalism of the American officer corps. He had been chief of naval operations, yet became the steward of two difficult and draining counter-insurgency campaigns, freeing generals in…

Iran experts continue to express surprise and confusion that Iran’s Quds Force could be a part of such an amateurish and bungled operation.

The revelation that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds Force had plotted to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States – by blowing him up as he dined at a Washington restaurant – is a stark reminder of the nature of the Tehran regime and its ambitions. But perhaps the…

Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s rejection of talks with the Taliban has, it seems, tossed water on the prospects of a “political solution” between Kabul and the insurgents. Karzai’s decision, coupled with the recent statement of Admiral Mike Mullen about the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence’s…

Thanks to the provisions of the Budget Control Act and the subsequent directions of President Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, the Department of Defense is figuring out how to trim $1 trillion from its current and planned budgets. Perhaps the principal target in the sights is the F-35 Joint…

There is a certain irony, as well as much truth, in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s drumbeat of warnings about the consequences of further cuts to U.S. military budgets of the sort threatened under the current deficit reduction law.

With the congressional “supercommittee” – or, to be precise, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – now complete, the stage is set for a very high drama indeed. Now comes the moment when Americans must confront the costs of remaining the world’s sole superpower, the guarantor of an…

In a letter to new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week, Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, the top men on the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested it was time to look into terminating the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Angered by cost increases for the first three lots of low-rate…

When a New York Times op-ed columnist starts celebrating the virtues of the U.S. military, Dorothy, you know you’re not in Kansas any more.

In a Foreign Policy article, “Confessions of a Vulcan,” Dov Zakheim puts himself and his former Bush-era “Vulcan” colleagues in his analytical crosshairs, in particular on the subject of Afghanistan and the larger issue of “nation building,” or, as Zakheim more correctly and precisely defines it,…

The killing of Osama bin Laden says a lot about the United States at war. It occurred almost a decade after 9/11, contradicting the notion that a democracy can’t fight a long war. It demonstrates that our presence in Afghanistan, without which the raid would have been impossible, is our main point…

Once again, Muqtada al Sadr may help the United States snatch success from the jaws of defeat in Iraq.

“There are those who say the United States should not be the global policeman. But if not us, who?”

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, who a week ago gave us the “lead from behind” version of the Obama Doctrine, now suggests that in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, there may be yet another “new” direction for administration policy.

Charles Krauthammer has it right: the number one take-away from Osama bin Laden’s killing is the “reach, power and efficiency” of the American military. The reach is global, the power is both immense and immensely precise (President Obama was able to reject the bomb-it-to-smithereens option on…

First reports from the battlefield are notoriously inaccurate, and it’s to be expected that they will be confusing and contradictory – and, considering that “sources and methods” and Pakistani sensibilities are fairly important in this case, probably intentionally misleading. The initial stories…

In his budget speech last week, Barack Obama mounted his third attack on U.S. defense spending. In 2009 the White House directed Defense Secretary Robert Gates to terminate more than $300 billion in weapons programs, including the F-22 Raptor, the world’s most capable aircraft, and the Army’s…

In proposing to cut another $400 billion from U.S. defense budgets over the next ten years as part of his deficit reduction counter-offer, Barack Obama’s words were few. Yet they were revealing.

White House leaks indicate that President Obama’s upcoming deficit reduction plan will include about $400 billion in cuts from Pentagon budgets over the next 10 years. That might account for as much as 40 percent of the total spending cuts he proposes.

When there’s nothing better to do (and even when there is), folks in Washington gossip about the human parade passing through the world’s most powerful jobs. For years, the departure date and replacement for Defense secretary Robert Gates has been a prime source of speculative entertainment, but…

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) was founded to the sound of many hosannas in 2007. The organization was the brainchild of Kurt Campbell, now the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and Michele Flournoy, who is now deputy secretary of defense and often mentioned as a potential…

“The Department of Defense is a government bureaucracy, cousin to the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, and the rest. That means it has the same Dawn of the Dead–zombie instincts.”

Scrambling for a simple standard to measure events in Egypt and across the Arab world, the blogosphere and the airwaves have been full of references to 1979. That point of reference is probably more apt than imagined, for much more happened that year than just the Iranian revolution. It was also…

For all the pomp and state-dinner circumstance, Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington generated little actual news. The Chinese “paramount leader” agreed to buy a few airplanes, agreed to talk a bit about human rights (with Chinese characteristics), and got some good press back home. All that our China…

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former House majority leader Dick Armey combines with his FreedomWorks partner Matt Kibbe to suggest “What Congress Should Cut” in order to reduce the deficit and debt.

“The United States in the 20th century is an example of a state achieving eminence without conflict with the then-dominant countries.”

Most of the press accounts of China’s test flight of its new J-20 “stealth fighter” took their spin either by gauging whether it was a middle-finger welcome salute to Defense Secretary Robert Gates during his trip to Beijing, or whether Chinese leader Hu Jintao knew about the insult beforehand. 

The United States is at war. The Obama administration has, for better or worse, met its drawdown target in Iraq, but it has also made a far larger commitment to Afghanistan than it forecast in the 2008 campaign. In total, the demands made upon the U.S. military have not diminished. The costs of the…

Before there was 9/11, there was 10/12. A decade ago this week, al Qaeda operatives staged a spectacular suicide attack on the USS Cole while it was refueling in Aden, Yemen. The terrorists puttered up to the destroyer’s port side, waving at the U.S. sailors working on deck. Once aside the Cole,…

In its continuing search for an alternative to General Stanley McChrystal's comprehensive counterinsurgency approach to the war in Afghanistan, and with President Obama having eliminated the minimalist counterterrorism plan of Vice President Joe Biden, the White House has lately been floating a…

In his September 1 Washington Post column, George Will offered a prescription for U.S. retreat from Afghanistan: "Do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border…

Over at RealClearWorld, George Friedman of Stratfor has an interesting analysis of Vladimir Putin's Russia, in light of Joe Biden's Georgia-Ukraine trip and President Obama's Moscow sojourn. In sum, the vice president didn't so much "tell the truth" about and to Russia as he repackaged the…

Gibbs momentarily forgets just how egregious the numbers are.

The Obama administration's decision to replace Gen. David McKiernan as NATO commander in Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal is a good thing, but it's much more a question of policy than personnel. The question is about the Obama administration's basic approach to the war in Afghanistan.…

Defense Secretary Robert Gates continued his whirlwind world tour of service war colleges, speaking at the Army's Carlisle Barracks yesterday. He also repeated the punch-line about the rescue of the captain of the Maersk Alabama from Somali pirates "not requiring a billion-dollar ship," although…

"As we saw last week, you don't necessarily need a billion-dollar ship to chase down a bunch of teenage pirates." Defense Secretary Robert Gates was pretty pleased not only with the marksmanship of the Navy SEALs that ended the confrontation with the Somali pirates who tried to hijack the Maersk…

"It is the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years." That is how Richard Holbrooke once described the Bush administration's counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. And even if one allows for the Holbrookian propensity to exaggeration and bombast, the ambassador had a good…

In between his many appearances touting the stimulus package and the restructuring of the nation's financial institutions, housing markets, and automobile industry, Barack Obama made his first serious decision as America's commander in chief on February 17. He ordered an additional 17,000 U.S.…

The era of big government is back. But conservatives ought not simply to worry about the size of government or the federal deficit--although a $1.7 trillion deficit is an eye-popper. They should worry, too, about the shape of American government. Barack Obama may be running up World War II levels…

To allow Chas Freeman to claim the mantle of a "Burkean conservative" is a defamation of Burke. Though imbued with a conservative sense of human frailty and a belief that the love of liberty was an especially English trait, he also recognized, in arguing in Parliament for "conciliation with the…

Here's the last part of today's speech by Obama: Finally, I want to be very clear that my strategy for ending the war in Iraq does not end with military plans or diplomatic agendas ­ it endures through our commitment to uphold our sacred trust with every man and woman who has served in Iraq. You…

President Obama delivered his Iraq withdrawal address at Camp Lejuene today: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." For many conservatives, I would guess for many Americans in uniform, this was the signature phrase in Barack Obama's inaugural. The Yes-We-Can man is no longer a candidate for office or a president-elect, but now commander-in-chief during times of…

"You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

The politics of the current economic crisis are fluid -- the Bush administration's original diktats for bailing out the troubled financial sector and the auto industry have generated growing resistance -- but it's likely that Barack Obama will be able to produce a stimulus package quickly after his…

The conventional wisdom about the incursion by Israeli ground units into Gaza, mirrored in Sunday's Washington Post, is that "Israeli leaders run the risk of repeating their disastrous experience in the 2006 Lebanon war, when they suffered high casualties in ground combat with Hezbollah."…

On Monday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave another in the remarkable series of speeches of recent months, laying out the course he believes the U.S. armed forces must follow to prepare themselves for the conflicts of the 21st century. Addressing the National Defense University, he again…

BARACK OBAMA IS STRIVING MIGHTILY to pass the commander-in-chief test by proposing that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq, where we are on the verge of a decisive victory against al Qaeda and Iran's "special group" proxies, and reinforce the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where at best we're only…

IT'S REASSURING TO HEAR Sen. Barack Obama, a man who based his presidential bid on the supposed inevitability of defeat in Iraq, recognize the success of the surge, which he also predicted was bound to fail. But his New York Times op-ed today betrays a strategic understanding that is more deeply…

Donald Rumsfeld's primary mission when he returned to the Pentagon as secretary of defense in 2001 was to transform the U.S. military to meet the missions of the new century. Today it seems more likely that it is his successor, Robert Gates, who will leave the lasting legacy.

ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT IT began on March 25, the inside-the-Beltway Conventional Wisdom about the Iraqi Army's offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's "Jaysh al Mahdi" militia and other, more criminal elements in the city of Basra--the second-largest city in Iraq and whose port is Iraq's lifeline to…

More moderate Democrats are increasingly adjusting to the reality that the Iraq surge has been a military success, and that it is starting to create conditions for workable political compromise in Baghdad as well as Iraq's provinces--see, for example, the air of desperation that has seized the…

LAST WEEK BROUGHT another set of crises in Pakistan. Consider what happened in just the last three days:

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM HAS it that, unlike in Vietnam, there is bipartisan support for "the troops" in Iraq despite the many arguments over the conduct of the war and whether U.S. forces should remain in Mesopotamia. This has been a mantra particularly for Democrats, who understand that they're…

Senator Barack Obama's ability to touch the better angels of America's nature lies at the root of his candidacy and might become the defining framework of this year's presidential race. It's hard, even for his opponents, not to be moved by a candidate who calls us to transcend ourselves and…

In the wake of last week's Iraq-related developments in Washington, the strongest quasi-respectable argument available to Democrats who want to oppose President Bush and General Petraeus while sounding responsible is the claim that a troop drawdown larger than the one they propose is needed to…

Operation Phantom Thunder, the first real effect of the Iraq troop surge of the past six months, is improving the battlefield situation in Baghdad and the surrounding towns. But in Washington, those who believe the war is already lost--call it the Clinton-Lugar axis--are mounting a surge of their…

IT IS AN ESPECIALLY cruel but increasingly common irony of the war in Iraq that Washington and Baghdad are in separate universes: what happens over there is not much connected to what's happening back here. But Sunday's New York Times "Week in Review" section sets a new standard for cognitive…

ONE OF THE RECURRING themes of press coverage of the Long War, and particularly the conflict in Iraq, is that soldiers are victims. According to this trope, soldiers and Marines are sacrificing themselves in a cause already lost, by an administration that cares little for the men and women in…

In wartime Washington there is but one point of bipartisan agreement: The land forces of the United States are too small. Hillary Clinton may be trying to make her fellow Democrats forget her vote to go to war in Iraq, but she insists that "it is past time to increase the end-strength of the Army…

The Senate majority leader's "position is irresponsible. . . . We won the war but we are in danger of losing the peace. [Our adversary] is counting on the United States and Europe losing interest--and losing our will--and not staying the course. . . . Funding in the supplemental would support . . .…

"We need a man, and then a plan." So Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery is reported to have said when recommending General Sir Gerald Templer to be British high commissioner at the height of the Malayan insurgency. When, in January 1952, Templer was summoned to meet the prime minister, the…

IT JUST HASN'T WORKED OUT the way the punditocracy planned: The "adults" of the Bush 41 administration were supposed to talk Bush 43 off the ledge, get him to give up his dream of democracy in Iraq and return to reality. But the main recommendation of the Baker- Hamilton "Iraq Study…

IT'S TOUGH TO BE a moderate Democrat. Hatred of George Bush has changed the loyal opposition into the bitter opposition, less interested in policy than in punishing their bête noire. It's particularly tough for Democrats who supported the invasion of Iraq, the defining George Bush moment, and who…

OH, YEAH. Victory. Almost forgot about that one.

IN 2002, the movie Hero became an instant hit in China, where it was made by Zhang Yimou, perhaps the best-known Chinese director. When it opened in America last year--complete with an above-the-title imprimatur by haute auteur Quentin Tarantino--it was billed as an action-romance of the Crouching…

WITH THE NEWS from Iraq relegated to the back pages recently, last Friday's State Department briefing--especially since it was not devoted to Condoleezza Rice's latest fashion statements--attracted little attention. The subject: the evolving strategic partnership between the United States and…

NEWS FLASH: The brand-new National Defense Strategy of the United States--that's different from either the National Security Strategy (aka the "Bush Doctrine" of 2002) or the National Military Strategy (last year's attempt by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to pretend that the insurgency in Iraq was not…

PERHAPS THE WISEST WORDS ever uttered--or attributed--to Ronald Reagan were: Don't just do something, sit there.

LET US TALK OF ALLIES, but not, at least for once this week, of Europeans.

You'd think it would be a great time to be a small-L liberal: human freedom is on the march in such unlikely places as Iraq, Afghanistan, and even among the Palestinians. The president of the United States can't seem to go five minutes without praising the virtues of liberty, and realpolitikers…

I'VE JUST FLOWN IN from Afghanistan, and boy, are my arms tired. Simply sitting in an economy-class seat--even on British Airways, the world's only civilized airline--gave me quite a compacted feeling.

Kabul

THE ESTABLISHMENTARIAN CRITIQUE of President Bush's policy in Iraq--and the scheming neocons for whom the president is supposed to be the Manchurian Candidate--is that they are blinded by ideology. There is, almost certainly, a grain of truth in this, but it comes from a profound belief in the…

ONE OF THE OLD STANDBYS of Pentagon defense planning--particularly in the age of PowerPoint--is the notion of the "spectrum of conflict." The concept attempts to plot the gamut of military operations--from Kantian peace to Hobbesian Armageddon--along one axis, with the proper allocation of…

THE POST-9/11 WORLD has been a mixed bag for the Chinese. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the deployment of forces to Central Asia renewed fears of American encirclement and upset a decade of careful diplomacy. Beijing's efforts to negotiate security and stability along its continental…

ONE OF THE ENDURING CONTROVERSIES of the American experience in Iraq has been the decision to disband Saddam's army after toppling his regime. Current conventional wisdom holds that this was a huge mistake which accelerated the breakdown of order in Iraq. The trouble we're experiencing building new…

DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD'S meeting engagement with Army Specialist Thomas Wilson in Kuwait last week was not just a reality check for an arrogant and isolated Beltway bigwig. It was also, and perhaps more profoundly, an overdue reality check for what has proved in practice to be a terrible…

YOU DON'T KNOW what you don't know. And in war, you really don't know. At war in the Middle East, you never really know.

FALLUJA just might be the end of the beginning.

ANY FEARS that an expanded Republican majority on Capitol Hill would simply become a larger tool for the Bush administration have already been put to rest in the lame-duck session of the past week. Most notably, Reps. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and James…

WITH THE NOMINATIONS of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of State and Stephen Hadley to replace her as National Security adviser, the shape of the supreme command of Bush II is pretty clear: Rumsfeld is staying; Bush II will be like Bush I, only more so.

MORE THAN EIGHTEEN MONTHS after it began, Operation Iraqi Freedom may be entering its decisive phase. At last, the battle is being joined in the Sunni heartland. The stronghold of Saddam Hussein's rule was left relatively untouched in the initial invasion, was given a death-bed reprieve last…

TODAY'S ELECTION is not simply a watershed in American politics, but a punctuation mark in the American war in the greater Middle East. Tomorrow--or whenever the outcome is certain--things will be very different.

NEXT WEEK'S ELECTION is rightly regarded as the first presidential contest of the post-9/11 world, but it is also a larger referendum on the role of the United States in the post-Cold War era. Iraq has so dominated the debate that it's easy to forget that the security challenges of the 21st century…

THIS NEWS FLASH FROM IRAQ: Combat has a negative effect on Army equipment readiness rates!

IS IRAQ part of the "global war on terror" or a diversion from it? Is the war over once we capture Osama bin Laden--or kill him--or will it continue after? Should America side with the reactionaries or the revolutionaries?

WHAT IS IT with John Kerry and "allies?"

IN AN INTERVIEW with the Washington Post published yesterday, Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards promised that a Kerry administration would offer a "grand bargain" to the totalitarian theocracy in Iran. This "grand bargain" would allow the Islamic state to keep its nuclear power…

IF YOU WANTED TO, you could easily make the case that America is retreating in Iraq. Under relentless attack in the press, with a nasty campaign fight on its hands, the Bush administration has moved from its natural defensive crouch to a position that at times looks fetal. The president's stout…

IN THE CRUSH OF IRAQ EVENTS--abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, tough fighting in Falluja and Najaf, calls for Donald Rumsfeld's head on a pike--it's getting harder to see the forest for the trees.

THE PENTAGON'S "PLAN" to reduce troop strength in Iraq from the current 132,000 to 105,000 by next May is not so much a reflection of the military requirements of occupation as an expression of inadequate resources: Absent full mobilization (a new military draft or something like it), this is all…

DEFENSE SECRETARY Donald Rumsfeld can claim, as much as any man, to be the architect of victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom. History might also tag him as the architect of defeat in the larger war for Iraq. The secretary's mulish opposition to increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq--and…

Baghdad

Hatred's Kingdom

"PARSING RUMMY" is getting to be as common a Washington game as "Parsing Bill" used to be. The defense secretary hasn't yet asked about the definition of "is," but if he needs to wiggle out of a tough question--well, never say never. The latest rhetorical cat-and-mouse contest with the press came…

HERE BEGINNETH the lesson: "The major combat portions of the war are over." The stunning success of the "combat portion" of Operation Iraqi Freedom challenges any understanding based upon previous military history. Vice President Dick Cheney's cutting comment about retired generals "embedded in…

COMMENTING UPON the progress of coalition forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom has, over the past week, become an increasingly fruitless endeavor. United States troops are racing through the streets of Baghdad nearly as fast as they marched from Kuwait to the city outskirts, and the much awaited…

IT SEEMS TO COME as a surprise to some in Washington that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has had a hand in planning Operation Iraqi Freedom. Field Marshal Maureen Dowd declared her shock and awe in her Sunday column, declaring that U.S. ground forces were dangerously "exposed" in their positions…

FINALLY, a man with some sense: Anyone who would seek to understand Operation Iraqi Freedom beyond the hyperventilation of television rent-a-generals with their telestrators and other Hollywood production values should read Ralph Peters's Shock, Awe and Overconfidence in today's Washington Post.…

THERE IS AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between war and battle. War is large, governed by politics. Very few people experience war, even very few people in uniform. Battle can be large or small, but is almost always chaotic. Battle is what most soldiers know; Clausewitz called it "the engagement."

WITH THE INITIATION of the large-scale air campaign, television is convinced that the war to liberate Iraq has begun in earnest. Until there are fireworks in Baghdad, CNN never quite knows what to do.

Editor's note: Now that war has begun, The Daily Standard will be deviating from its normal schedule. For the next several days we'll have morning and afternoon editions posted regularly and other reports posted throughout the day, so you'll want to check back with us often.

PRESIDENT BUSH so bestrides the American political landscape that his power exceeds his agenda. Already the bills for a Department of Homeland Security and terrorism insurance have been whisked through by a lame-duck Congress, which also, for good measure, approved the appeals-court nomination of…

PARALYZED BY AN ALL-IRAQ, all-war, all-the-time fever (not to mention a desperate opposition to the possibility of said war), the media managed to miss one of the central stories of President Bush's Crawford vacation: the administration's emerging plan to remake the structure of U.S. military…

FIVE YEARS AGO, anyone calling China a strategic problem was dismissed as looking for some new "cold war" enemy to fight. And when President Bush initially characterized the People's Republic as a "strategic competitor," Washington's old foreign policy hands collectively clucked their disapproval…

WITH PRESIDENT BUSH due to travel to Beijing on February 21, Chinese leaders have embarked on a pre-summit charm offensive. Much of this warming of relations has a ritual quality; the release of a Chinese political prisoner with ties to the United States is becoming the traditional prelude to a…

VICTORY IN AFGHANISTAN is in sight. The few remaining pockets of resistance have been isolated and the Taliban leadership can no longer control events. One-eyed Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, and their lieutenants are on the run, if they haven't already been captured or killed. More than any attacks…

War in a Time of Peace Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam Scribner, 544 pp., $28 THE STORY OF AMERICA'S FOREIGN POLICY during the years of Bill Clinton will be of considerable interest to historians. The United States, having won a stunning and surprising victory in the Cold War,…

[img caption="From our October 30, 2000 issue" float="right" width="140" height="189" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]980[/img]THE DUST FROM THE RUBBLE of the Berlin Wall had barely settled when, in December 1989, George Bush inaugurated the post-Cold War era by sending thousands of American Rangers…

FOR FIVE OF THE SIX YEARS that Floyd Spence chaired the House Armed Services Committee—six years ending just months before the congressman’s death on August 16—I served on the committee staff, doing policy work and writing speeches for the chairman. My role involved me in the wrangling over policy…

THE ANNOUNCEMENT LAST WEEK that the Bush administration would seek a supplemental appropriation of $5.6 billion for defense for this fiscal year confirmed the fears of many on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon: Bush’s commitment to rebuilding and reforming the military is less than anticipated or…

The China Threat

WE ARE TOLD one of Al Gore's proudest achievements is winning more votes for president than his boss ever did. However, Al Gore has also surpassed Bill Clinton in a more dubious respect: By his campaign's handling of the issue of military absentee ballots, he has managed to worsen the already…

THE DUST FROM THE RUBBLE of the Berlin Wall had barely settled when, in December 1989, George Bush inaugurated the post-Cold War era by sending thousands of American Rangers and paratroopers to Panama to arrest a petty tyrant and drug dealer whose thugs had threatened U.S. soldiers' lives. In the…

IT IS A uniquely humiliating twist to the story of the lost submarine and the 118 sailors now entombed at the bottom of the Barents Sea: Before August, there was no prouder name than "Kursk" in Russian military history. Today, the name evokes tragedy and shame and the steep decline in Russian…

During the decade since the Cold War ended, the United States has searched in vain for a new national strategy. The Pentagon has undergone a Base Force review, a Bottom-Up review, a review of service roles and missions, and an independent National Defense Panel review. At the moment it is readying…

The Soul of Battle

IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN, only this time the tiny proto-nation we little understand is in East Asia, not Eastern Europe. As was true in the Balkans, the crisis in East Timor would benefit from American leadership, if only Washington could see its way through the present post-Cold War confusion.…