News Abroad

Bombing Civilians: An American Tradition

by Marilyn B. Young

Airpower embodies American technology at its most dashing. 

A European Future for NATO?

by Carolyne V. Davidson

If ever there was a time for the United States to lead NATO in a new direction, this is it. But it could be France, not the United States, that guides NATO into the future. President Obama discussed transatlantic relations on his trip to Europe. It was the first statement of U.S. policy toward NATO heard from this administration. Yet behind the rhetoric extolling multilateralism the reality is that while France is rejoining military NATO, the United States is becoming more distant. T

What's to Be Done with North Korea?

by Walter L. Hixson

Despite inept diplomacy by virtually all concerned, it appears the world may survive the latest fiasco emanating from the Korean peninsula, at least for now. At some point, however, unless determined diplomacy

A Flawed Basis for Middle East Peace

by Jonathan Goldstein

No one should think that all peace agreements lead to an end to violence. They don't. As the recent killings in Northern Ireland demonstrate, the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, engineered by former Maine Senator George Mitchell to lessen Protestant/Catholic tensions in the Ulster counties, is now under threat. So what can we expect, with Mitchell once again thrust into the middle as President Obama's negotiator in the tension-fraught Middle East, from any peace agreement he might work

Can You Do Business with Al Qaeda Terrorists?

by James Livingston

The terrorists of the very late-20th century were quite different from their predecessors among, say, the Irgun, the Zionist group led by Menachim Begin in the 1940s, or its mirror image, the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Yasir Arafat from the 1960s until his death in 2004.  Both of these groups targeted civilians in the hope of removing them and their armed representatives from territory they claimed as their ancestral homeland.  Even so, neither would have considered,

Nuclear Weapons, The Great Lakes and Lake Champlain?

by William Lambers

Imagine living along Lake Ontario in the British colony of Canada. The year is 1813 and Great Britain and the United States are at war. It is a cool April morning. You peer out across the Lake to watch the sunrise. The waters are calm, the surrounding countryside quiet. You gaze up and down the Lake for American warships. There are none in sight…..but where are they? Little do you know that a fleet of American warships is readying for battle. At Sackets Harbor in the easte

Global Labor’s Forgotten Plan to Fight the Great Depression

by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith

In the early 1930s, as global unemployment tripled in two years and the world plunged into the Great Depression, the world’s labor movements developed a program for fighting the global crisis through international public works.  It’s a little-known historical might-have-been that could have helped halt the Great Depression, the rise of Adolph Hitler, and the Second World War.  And, as the efforts of world leaders to address today’s “Great Recession” thr

Will Obama Be Influenced by the Latest Big Task Force on Latin America?

by Don Bohning

It’s virtually a right of passage when a new president takes office for a think tank or an advocacy group to present him with an outline for what it thinks his Latin America-Caribbean policy agenda should be. After Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976, he was to frame his policy heavily on the recommendations by the Commission on United States-Latin American Relations, better known as the “Linowitz Commission,” named after its chairman, the late Sol Linowi

Finding a Way Out in Afghanistan

by Walter L. Hixson

After receiving his welcoming gifts from the departing Bush administration—a depression and two failed wars—President Barack Obama faces a perhaps unprecedented combination of challenges. While it is

Wanted: A New Foreign Policy

by Robert Whealey

Balance of power. That idea was the basis of the rise of the European nation-state system from 1648 to 1945. Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Russia all understood the flexible system.   All the presidents from George Washington to John Quincy Adams, who retired in 1828, understood that game. Like Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt understood how the balance of power system worked, although a majority of the Republican Party an

Christians Demonizing Muslims? An Old Story

by Thomas Kidd

            The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 spawned a spate of conservative Christian reflections on the essential characteristics of Islam. Figures from Christian Broadcasting Network’s Pat Robertson to Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard pointed to the inherently violent nature of Islam. Liberty University’s Jerry Falwell said on 60 Minutes that “Muhammad was a terrorist,” a glib comment that

A Lesson of History: U.S.-Soviet Recognition and Barack Obama’s Iran Policy

by Asgar Asgarov

Barack Obama’s rise to presidency has rekindled some hope for a turnaround in U.S.-Iran relations.  Already during the election campaign Obama distinguished himself from other candidates by calling for direct negotiations with leaders such as Mahmud Ahmadinejad.  Obama’s statement was met with derision by numerous experts of foreign policy who criticized the Democratic candidate for his naiveté and inexperience. Yet having won the American people’s approval at

National Security Reform: A Second Opinion

by James Douglas Orton

Last week Dr. Anna Kasten made the helpful observation in an article published on HNN that there have been a series of efforts to reform the U.S. national security system enacted through the National Security Act of 1947.  However, Professor Nelson asserted that National Security Advisor  Gen. James L. Jones, who was one of the Project on National Security  Reform’s Guiding Coalition members, “clearly agrees with the

The Beijing Games Six Months On

by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Predictions relating to China are notoriously dangerous to make.  Still, here’s a safe one: come August 8, the one-year anniversary of the Beijing Games, lots of commentaries will appear that ask questions like these: What did the Games mean for China? Did they alter the country’s global image? Should London even try to compete with the glitz and grandeur of venues like the Bird’s Nest and spectacles such as Zhang Yimou’s 08/08/08 extravaganza?

The New Plan for Implementing National Security

by Anna Kasten Nelson

When policies fail, reorganize. This appears to be a time honored solution to seemingly insoluble problems in American foreign policy. Two years after the passage of the National Security Act in 1947, the Hoover Commission was reorganizing the system. Other attempts at perfecting the system followed, most notably the Murphy Commission in 1975. More recently, the failed policies of the Bush administration led Congress to place within the Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2008 the mandate

What Would Herodotus Have Made of the Iraq War?

by Justin Marozzi

Did history, brainchild of Herodotus, have any wise advice on Iraq? What, if any, were the predictive powers of a subject that looked backwards rather

Food For Peace: Eisenhower's Unsung Initiative Can Be Obama's Most Powerful Tool for Peace

by William Lambers

As President Obama tackles enormous foreign policy challenges, he would be well-advised to extract good ideas from past administrations and carry forward this "better part of history." At least one example comes from the Eisenhower administration, a time when the Cold War and nuclear weapons' fears dominated the world scene. During this turbulent period, President Eisenhower called for a peace conference. Representatives from different countries gathered t

The Price Civilians Pay for Liberation

by William I. Hitchcock

Do civilian casualties matter in a just war? The terrible toll of civilian lives in Afghanistan caused by allied air and missile strikes and ground operations against the Taliban poses this question on a regular basis.

Chavez: The Story of a Bully Boy

by Michael Rowan

Hugo Chavez has made a career of being rejected by authorities who then underestimated his ability to take sweet revenge. Chavez was rejected by his family, the military, the political elites of Venezuela and finally U.S. President George W. Bush, but survived to punish every one of them. Here is the sad story of the making of a bully boy.Chavez experienced the bitterness of rejection early in life. Born in a dirt-poor village to a large family, his childish wild behavior was handled by locking him in a dark closet for days on end. His parents gave him to his grandmother to bring up -- he calls her Mama to this day. As a teenager he would cross the street to avoid even eye contact with his real mother.While both his parents were teachers, at school Hugo was a dismal failure. He failed science in high school; he failed the test for university entrance; he faked his way into the military academy as a baseball player; and he finished last in his military class, blaming it on his teachers.

Can the New Administration Keep Canada as an Ally in Afghanistan?

by Adam Chapnick

As Barack Obama looks abroad for allies in the war in Afghanistan, he should move fast to put Canada at the top of his list. Thus far, however, the incoming administration's message to Canadians has been disappointing. The principal problem is Obama's use of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as his primary recruiter of Canadian support. Gates's voice threatens Obama with losing his key northern ally completely. Unbeknown to many in the United States, the Canadian forces h