Retreat, Regroup, and Reinvest in a Realist Foreign Policy
Donald Trump’s administration has allowed the United States to renegotiate its orientation to the rest of the world. Partisans have sniped in contradictory ways, criticizing […]
Avoid the Russian Trap in Afghanistan
President Trump in his January 2 cabinet meeting restated his desire to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. He views the war in Afghanistan as […]
What Happened to the Peace Party?
The Democrats used to be the peace party. While Democratic presidents led our entry into both World Wars and endorsed containment during the early stages […]
Good Riddance, Syrian Civil War!
The media and the political establishment’s excoriation of President Donald Trump for his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the battlefield of eastern Syria has […]
Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Hinges on Turkey
Whether pulling the remaining U.S. troops from Syria turns out to be a bold and beneficial move or a stupid, harmful one depends on what […]
Trump Is Smarter Than the Generals
A bipartisan consensus among the foreign policy elite holds that America needs to maintain its de facto overseas empire. This includes both preserving stability, as […]
Our Childish Elite Shed Crocodile Tears for Khashoggi
In the playpen that has become our politics, feelings are everything. It doesn’t matter what the facts are, only the emotional effect those facts and […]
What Is Saudi Arabia to Us?
It seems that Saudi Arabia’s rulers murdered an opponent. The U.S. media and political class is shocked, shocked, to find that murder is going on in […]
Iraqi Democracy Fails the United States—and the Iraqis
The United States is not a democracy. This discovery runs against the grain of all the liberal, middlebrow pabulum imparted from grade school teachers, as […]
Israel and Its Enemies: Why Culture Matters
A passage from a landmark American novel shows why attempts to appease Israel’s enemies have always failed and always will fail. Thomas Berger’s Little Big […]
The Myth of the Surge
Trump is mostly hitting the mark as president, because his lodestar appears to be reversing every single thing undertaken by Barack Obama. Since the Obama […]
Afghanistan: Is That Still Going On?
Afghanistan has become the poster child for America’s imperial overreach. After 18 years of warfare, it persists. There are currently 15,000 American troops fighting in […]
Conservative Dissent on Syria: An Interview with Peter Hitchens
I was reading George Will on Syria. The piece consists of this: Obligatory reference to the Germans dropping chemical weapons. Wikipedia level knowledge of the […]
Syria Strike: Apocalypse When Redux
Another deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria and another retaliatory airstrike by the United States raises the possibility of not only protracted conflict in the […]
The Worst of All Worlds
Friday night’s missile strike on Syria will prove to be a mistake in almost every possible way. Ostensibly launched to punish and deter the Syrian […]
Bomb Assad But Bring the Boys Home
Recent events have dragged the Syrian civil war once again to the center of the world’s attention. The first of these events was the recent […]
How Bergdahl’s Case Perverts Military Justice
In his 60-year old classic study of U.S. civil-military relations, The Soldier and the State, the late Samuel Huntington observed the traditional attitude of liberal […]
A Danny Deever Do-Over
With apologies to Rudyard Kipling. “What’s on the news this mornin’, Sarge?” said Files-on-Parade.“More signs of the Apocalypse,” his Platoon Sergeant said.“Hey, Sarge, how come […]
Restoring American Leadership to Beat Back ISIS
The United States has enjoyed a major strategic victory in the seeming endless Global War on Terrorism: the Islamic State has been crushed. Oh, you […]
Free Kurdistan Now
The Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world. Their population exists in a contiguous territory spanning across present-day Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. […]