by Paul R. Pillar The most frequent and regular interaction that I, as a then-serving intelligence officer, had with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI—referred to orally as “hip-see”) was in the 1980s. Part of my duties involved… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Fifty years ago this Tuesday, communist forces launched the assaults across South Vietnam known as the Tet Offensive. The offensive marked an inflection point in the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Johnson denied a request the following… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar As recently as a generation or two ago, the mainstream of American politics observed an important limit whereby domestic politics did not operate beyond the nation’s boundaries. This did not mean that there weren’t sharp differences… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Behind a façade of continuity, the deployment of U.S. armed forces in Syria for the purposes that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described in a speech this week represents a departure from what such forces were… Continue Reading
by Paul R. Pillar Accountability in policy debate in the United States is sorely lacking. One reason is the casual use of hypothetical alternative histories and of related assertions that by their nature cannot be proved or disproved. Arguments that… Continue Reading