Departments

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national security

  • 12/6/2020

    Stop the Music

    by Richard H. Kohn

    President-Elect Biden has allowed too much speculation about his choices for Secretary of Defense and unwisely floated the name of a retired Army general for the job. He needs to make a quick commitment to a nominee whose national defense experience comes from the civil, not the military, arena.

  • SOURCE: National Security Archive
    11/24/2020

    Jonathan Pollard: Revisiting a Still Sensitive Case

    The National Security Archive is republishing its trove of declassified documents related to Jonathan Pollard, a US Navy analyst convicted of spying for Israel in the 1980s. Pollard's parole recently ended. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    11/16/2020

    We Dare Not Repeat the Mistakes of 9/11

    by Jennifer Rubin

    The Washington Post columnist argues that the delayed transition to the George W. Bush presidency in 2000 and 2001 limited the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack. 

  • SOURCE: War on the Rocks
    9/1/2020

    Opening Up New Avenues to Understanding the Path to War in Iraq

    by Joseph Stieb

    National security historian Joseph Stieb reviews journalist Robert Draper's account of the drive to war against Iraq in 2003, concluding that Draper explains how the principals built a case for war out of selectively embroidered intelligence, but not why war appeared as a positive option or much of the American political establishment got on board. 

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    8/2/2020

    Missing in Action: Accountability Is Gone in America

    by Karen J. Greenberg

    A crucial part of the history of the neoconservative invasion of Iraq and the use of torture in the War on Terror is the utter lack of accountability or consequence for the people who made those decisions. 

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    5/11/2020

    The Myth of Henry Kissinger

    by Thomas Meaney

    Barry Gewen's new biography of the American national security figure argues that Kissinger's perspective was shaped by stories older German emigres told him about the end of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. 

  • SOURCE: Huffington Post
    2-9-15

    America Needs a More Focused and Restrained National Security Strategy

    by Ivan Eland

    If Obama wants a lasting legacy in foreign policy, he should be the first president in the post-Cold War era to create a coherent and sustainable national security strategy that deals with the current limited real threats to U.S. security and hedges against the future rising of China.

  • SOURCE: US News and World Report
    6-13-13

    Robert Dallek: "Not surprising" Obama put security above privacy

    President Obama seems more committed to protecting national security than promoting civil liberties and privacy rights, which puts him firmly in the tradition of most of his predecessors, says presidential historian Robert Dallek."It's not surprising," Dallek tells me. "This is what presidents do."Dallek says one reason is that there are "real national security concerns" that preoccupy every commander in chief. In Obama's case, they include fear of a repetition of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings....