by Paul R. Pillar Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears to be trying to follow the sound advice of Ted Galen Carpenter in letting Russia take primary responsibility for handling the tar baby known as Syria. Tillerson reportedly told United… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Impending choices by President Trump regarding the war in Afghanistan raise issues of national security decision-making in his presidency that in turn evoke pathologies of the past, with Trump’s personal habits threatening to make matters at… Continue Reading
by Tom Engelhardt MOAB sounds more like an incestuous, war-torn biblical kingdom than the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, aka “the mother of all bombs.” Still, give Donald Trump credit. Only the really, really big bombs, whether North Korean nukes… Continue Reading
by Jim Lobe Thirty-six hours after the pre-dawn cruise-missile strike against Syria’s al-Shayrat airfield, neoconservative hawks, many of whom beat the drums for war in Iraq 14 years ago, are feeling the warm spring breezes of renewal and rejuvenation. Suddenly… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar After the Soviet Union launched a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, President Jimmy Carter remarked to a television interviewer that this event had “made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the… Continue Reading