A nation must think before it acts.
E-Notes are policy-oriented articles covering current developments around the globe that impinge upon American foreign policy and national security priorities.
The topic “private military companies and the future of war” is a big one. Both parts of the title—“private military companies” and “the future of war”—are phrases that can be disputed. In my recent book, which examines the privatization...
Read more »Much ink has been spilled in the aftermath of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) since its release in February 2006. Overall, many reactions appear to be the same: the document is a mixed bag. Depending upon one’s views,...
Read more »Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Yugoslavia, died on March 11, 2006, in a Dutch prison before he could have been convicted of crimes committed during the Balkan Wars of the nineties. Characteristically, he had turned an international trial into...
Read more »John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard...
Read more »Paul Pillar’s article in the March/April 2006 Foreign Affairs, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq” makes sad reading. Pillar, who left the intelligence community last year, would have us believe that from his low-level position therein, he watched while...
Read more »The Foreign Policy Research Institute held a conference on the future of American military strategy on 5 December 2005 at the Union League of Philadelphia. A distinguished group drawn from the current and retired ranks of the military (active...
Read more »The current U.S. National Defense Strategy identifies irregular challengers as an increasingly salient problem. The ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) was expected to shape America’s capacity to deal with nonlinear and irregular warfare, as well as balance the Pentagon’s...
Read more »The New Security Environment The post-9/11 security environment is characterized by uncertainty and the need to be prepared to confront a wide range of adversaries across the spectrum of conflict. At one end of the spectrum is the potential...
Read more »The stroke that felled Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 4, 2006, deprived Israel of its dominant political leader on the eve of critical elections. For President Bush, the loss of Sharon is compounded by the growing chaos among...
Read more »Recent months have seen a spate of media reporting about the CIA’s involvement with the torture of individuals captured during the war on terror and the resulting secret detention of these individuals in undisclosed locations. This drumbeat cumulated with...
Read more »