By Matt Fay, on September 1st, 2011
Everybody’s favorite former ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, is back with his second op-ed on nuclear policy in as many weeks (h/t Greg Scoblete). This time, writing in the Washington Times, Ambassador Bolton frets that the Obama administration’s commitment to New START and the negative security guarantees made in the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review are going to make American allies uneasy—despite all available evidence suggesting that they are not.
Apparently Ambassador Bolton is worried that reductions in America’s strategic nuclear arsenal and declarations in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review that forgo nuclear retaliation against chemical and . . .
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By Matt Fay, on August 30th, 2011
American Taiwan boosters tend to avoid articulating the strategic value of Taiwan as a reason for continued U.S. security assistance. Sure, shared democratic values are nice—even though they were absent in Taipei for most of the history of U.S.-Taiwanese relations—but they don’t necessarily mean anything as far as reciprocal security relations are concerned. John Copper, writing at the National Interest, makes a solid effort to define the relationship in strategic terms, but unfortunately chooses a poor historical analogy to make his case.
Drawing on the history of American expansion in the late 19th century, Coppers states,
In December 1890, . . .
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By Hans-Inge Langø, on July 13th, 2011
Max Boot is Unamerican! OK, that might be pushing it a bit too much, but it never ceases to amaze me how weak these so-called hawks think the United States is. Any strategic restraint is a French surrender, and every minor budget cut is a disaster. This blog post could be written about Max Boot just about anytime, but I was particularly inspired to write something today because Boot is at it again. This time it’s ‘weak’ Republicans who are in his sights–Republicans who are considering making substantive, though far from brutal, cuts to defense spending over the next . . .
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By Hans-Inge Langø, on June 7th, 2011
In a New York Times analysis last week on fraying U.S.-Pakistani relations Mark Mazzetti wrote that letting other countries gain influence with Pakistan might not necessarily be a bad thing. Over the past few weeks an old narrative has reappeared; if the United States breaks up with Pakistan, China will swoop in and take its place. According to several analysts Mazzetti has spoken to, the United States could actually benefit from getting regional actors engaged in Pakistani affairs. As former State Department official Vali Nasr notes, you need to convince “China, Saudi Arabia, and other nations like the United . . .
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By Matt Fay, on May 19th, 2011
The Heritage Foundation has released a new report [pdf] on President Obama’s missile defense strategy by Baker Spring. Unfortunately, as with most of Heritage’s material on missile defense, Spring’s report has a fatal flaw that makes it unrealistic: wanting it all. The strategy proposed in the report goes far beyond what is necessary based on existing ballistic missile threats and is based on technologies that have proved neither reliable nor cost effective. The report also goes beyond merely honest disagreements about strategic necessities. It is riddled with factual errors and makes assertions about the Obama administration’s missile defense policy . . .
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By Hans-Inge Langø, on April 28th, 2011
It has been well-known for a while that China is prodding and poking at U.S. computer networks looking for sensitive information. Some of the most serious security breaches in U.S. government agencies and private companies over the past few years originated in China, but because of the unique characteristics of cyberspace it has been difficult to attribute these incursions to specific groups or individuals. In other words, we have not known if the incursions came from some Chinese teenage hacker or a government official working on orders from the higher-ups. That seems to have changed, according to U.S. State . . .
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By Matt Fay, on April 6th, 2011
Does the United States need to maintain its alliances in East Asia to prevent a regional arms race? According to a post at the Diplomat, written a few weeks back by Michael Mazza of the American Enterprise Institute, a hypothetical regional arms race is one of the major reasons the United States needs to maintain a presence there. Coming on the heels of Charles Glaser’s provocative piece in Foreign Affairs that argued the United States could do without defending Taiwan, Massa argues that the United States must continue to defend the Republic of China to ensure U.S. allies of . . .
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By Matt Fay, on March 21st, 2011
When hearing the word “monsoon,” most people would be forgiven for immediately imagining torrential rains, floods, and disaster. But this entirely misses the beneficial role the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean have played throughout history—facilitating travel, trade, and cultural exchange across vast swaths of territory long before the invention of the steam engine. Or, in other words, because of the monsoon winds, the Indian Ocean had globalization before globalization was cool.
Coming off his fascinating Foreign Affairs article, “Center Stage for the 21st Century: Power Plays in the Indian Ocean,” Robert Kaplan brings us Monsoon: The Indian Ocean . . .
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By Hans-Inge Langø, on March 17th, 2011
The news out of Japan has been all-consuming. Constant updates online show us that though the earth has calmed, the danger is far from over. It is damn near impossible to put into words the destruction and loss we are witnessing, and even harder to look ahead and imagine what this might mean for Japan and the region further down the road. Though it might seem coldhearted to start looking at this crisis in a geopolitical light, it is nonetheless necessary to attempt to assess the indirect consequences of what is going on in Japan and how they might . . .
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By Hans-Inge Langø, on February 25th, 2011
The Times of India reported this week that Pakistan and China are strengthening military ties. The two countries have announced a “packed military exchanges’ schedule in 2011,” which includes two joint military exercises, and military representatives from both sides spoke of closer security cooperation going forward. Kind words between these two isn’t anything new, but developments in South Asia and elsewhere on the continent could give new relevance to the relationship and catch them in a bothersome foursome.
As we have noted before, China is pushing into Central Asia while also stirring up an arms race in the Pacific. . . .
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