Column Archive

The U.S. military is increasingly ill-suited for today’s complex, interconnected and transparent security environment. It was designed to fight major wars against the military forces of other nations, yet never does so. Despite the best intentions of its architects, the U.S. military is a “kluge”—a combination of sometimes compatible, sometimes mismatched parts cobbled together. It works, but not as effectively or efficiently as it should. The United States could gain much from reorganizing its military to better reflect today’s security environment but this is easier said than done. The obstacles to deep change are powerful: There is so much tradition, […]

Latin America is reaching a quiet but remarkable turning point, one that, though occurring without much fanfare, has significant historical resonance. This past weekend, voters in several Latin American countries participated in national and local elections, and the process unfolded for the most part peacefully. That in itself is an achievement. But what is most noteworthy is that the outcomes of the elections were decided by the actual votes cast, and by extension the voters, rather than by fraud or violence. That, of course, is how democracy is supposed to work, but it is not always the case. When viewed […]

Americans often take for granted that events that mark U.S. history are as indelibly imprinted in people’s memories around the world as they are in the U.S. For those of a certain generation, the assassination of John F. Kennedy is one such event. For younger Americans, it’s the attacks of Sept. 11. But at times, the reverse is also true, when historical events that occur elsewhere in the world become indelibly imprinted on American minds. That is the case for me and Nov. 4, 1995: the day Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in Tel Aviv. I can still […]

Developments over the past year in Syria and Iraq suggest many parallels between the two countries. From the separatism of the Kurds and the fight against the self-declared Islamic State to the expansion of Russia’s presence and influence, the two states seem to be following similar trajectories. But a closer look suggests quite distinct realities. Syria clearly seems to be headed toward implosion, even if the bigger picture of chaos obscures at least one smaller one that could inspire optimism for the future. By contrast, Iraq’s narrative today is not one-dimensional—in fact, the signs point in many directions: The country […]

Do Europeans still make good peacemakers? Europe’s militaries have been in long-term decline since the end of the Cold War. But the continent’s diplomats and politicians retain a prominent role in international crisis management. This is nowhere more obvious than in the Middle East and North Africa. The United Nations currently has seven top-level envoys working on conflicts in the region. Five of them are Europeans. The U.N. has, for example, decided that a German official will replace a Spanish diplomat as its envoy on Libya. Staffan de Mistura, who holds double Italian-Swedish nationality, still has the ugly task of […]

A few years ago Afghanistan seemed on the path to success. The economy was doing relatively well. The Taliban were losing ground to Afghan security forces, the U.S. military and units from other partner nations. The new president, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, seemed more willing to tackle Afghanistan’s deep political problems than Hamid Karzai, his erratic predecessor. By all indications, things were looking up. Sadly this has proven to be an illusion. Ghani has not gotten a handle on Afghanistan’s crippling corruption, cronyism and ethnic strife. The country will not be able to function without massive economic assistance far into the […]

The latest edition of the New York Times Magazine featured a cover story that aimed to challenge the generally accepted narrative of how the U.S. found and killed Osama bin Laden. The article by Jonathan Mahler centered on an alternative version of events by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. In Hersh’s telling, the story we have heard from the Obama administration and retold by a number of books and movies essentially amounts to a vast cover-up. In exploring the controversy, Mahler focuses more on the hunt for the bin Laden story than on the hunt for bin Laden—that is, on […]

The Israel-Palestine conflict, with all its recurring violence, often seems like the broken record of international affairs. Still this latest wave of lone-wolf Palestinian terrorist attacks followed by predictably harsh Israeli reprisals—and mutual recriminations from both sides that the other is responsible—should come as no surprise. With the collapse of peace talks, the re-election of a right-wing Israeli government opposed to a two-state solution, the continued corruption and dysfunction of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of any realistic path to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the chickens have once again come home to roost in the […]

When you’re a global superpower with worldwide interests and responsibilities, it’s hard to come up with a very short list of priorities that will set the agenda and organize the bureaucracy. But that’s just what presidential candidates—and sometimes policymakers—have to do when trying to convince voters of the wisdom of their national security to-do lists. In recent days, we heard just such an exercise from the Democratic presidential candidates, as well as a variation of it from Secretary of State John Kerry. At last week’s debate, when asked to name “the greatest national security threat to the United States,” the […]

Will Vladimir Putin ever be satisfied? As the Russian president has launched his small wars in Ukraine and Syria over the past two years, countless pundits have tried to guess his long-term goals. Some believe that he is a megalomaniac, intent on an open-ended campaign against the West. Others discount him as a nervous nationalist, focused on stabilizing Russia’s disorderly southern flank. Cynics dismiss him as an opportunist, seizing chances to expand his influence whenever they arise. In New York, many diplomats and analysts affiliated with the United Nations take a fourth view: Putin is a conservative with a profound […]

Whenever it seems that the war in Syria can’t get more tragic and dangerous, it does. That conflict has already created the worst humanitarian disaster of a young century and empowered the barbaric self-declared Islamic State. And it could become worse. The Obama administration has avoided an entangling involvement, instead providing refugee aid and supporting some of the less repellent rebel groups, in the hopes that the combatants conclude that an outright military victory is out of reach and accept a power-sharing arrangement. That was a long shot from the beginning and became even less likely as the hatred between […]

In the aftermath of last weekend’s horrific bombings in Ankara, the Turkish people and international observers are trying to understand what went wrong with Turkey, a country that until very recently embodied the hopes of a more peaceful and interconnected Middle East. The answer inevitably leads to one man: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The evidence in the twin suicide attack that killed almost 100 people, making it the deadliest in Turkey’s modern history, points to the self-declared Islamic State. And yet, many people, searching for the bigger picture in Turkey’s crisis, have turned angrily in Erdogan’s direction. Turkey’s president, until […]

President Barack Obama’s interview Sunday evening with Steve Kroft of the CBS News program “60 Minutes” offered a revealing insight into the foreign policy mindset of the Washington Beltway—not due to anything that Obama said, but rather due to the questions posed to him by Kroft. When asking about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military interventions in Ukraine and Syria, Kroft directly challenged Obama. “You said a year ago,” said Kroft, “that the United States . . . leads. We’re the indispensable nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership.” Obama tried, in vain, to point out that Putin’s moves […]

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Tunisia’s so-called National Dialogue Quartet was deeply moving to those us who are familiar with the country where the Arab uprisings began in late 2010. The Nobel Committee’s selection of the four civil society organizations for their work in facilitating Tunisia’s democratic transition since then was a welcome revalidation of the country’s potential to build a durable democratic state. For long-time watchers of the committee, it was equally striking that the Nobel Peace Prize did not honor an institution or individual committed to nuclear disarmament, as it has at every mid-decade year […]

Does India still need the United Nations? Does the U.N. still need India? New Delhi and the New York-headquartered organization have always had a complex political relationship. India prides itself on having acted as a leading voice for the developing world at the U.N. in the era of decolonization. It remains a leading contributor of troops and police to blue-helmet peace operations. But there is little heartfelt warmth in the relationship these days. Indian officials have made very little progress toward their overarching goal at the U.N.: securing a permanent seat on the Security Council. New Delhi has been pressing […]

In the traumatic months after the Sept. 11 attacks, American policymakers decided that the conflict with transnational extremism demanded an aggressive response. This made perfect sense: To go on the offensive as soon as possible is the American way. In the new conflict with al-Qaida and other extremists, the United Stated intended to fight them over there to avoid having to fight them here, as then-President George W. Bush put it. However appealing this might have been to the angry American public, there were challenges putting it into practice. To undertake a global offensive against extremists, the United States needed […]

In the final countdown to the announcement of the winner of the world’s most prestigious award, the Nobel Peace Prize, the buzz is growing around two Latin American men. One is Argentine-born Pope Francis, whose unconventional style has made waves across the globe. The other is Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, whose efforts to forge a peace deal with Marxist rebels are already winning him accolades around the world, but remain controversial at home. On Sept. 23, while the world was enthralled by the papal visit to the U.S., Colombians who follow Santos on Twitter found an unexpected message from […]