With Great Power Comes Great Temptation: Or How Not to Turn the Dial to 11

A recent essay by Robert Kagan on the myth of American decline has garnered a lot of attention. I won’t spend too much time reciting what he wrote, but in the piece he quite persuasively argues that all the talk of American decline is a myth. The argument is two-fold, U.S. influence and power in the past has been exaggerated (particularly during the Cold War), and the United States is in a stronger position now than what the current political discussion will have you believe (the great recession has led to the perception of waning U.S. power etc.).

As . . .
read more

A National Strategic Narrative: Is Y really the new X?

Foreign Policy‘s John Norris has picked up on an article written by two U.S. military officers that seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the press. The article, titled “A National Strategic Narrative,” is being compared to George F. Kennan’s famous article “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” for laying out a new direction in U.S. foreign policy (Kennan used the pseudonym “X” for the article which was published in Foreign Affairs in July 1947). The authors, U.S. Navy Captain Wayne Porter and U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Mykleby, invite this comparison by signing it “Mr. Y” and making several . . .
read more

The Pentagon: Budgeting without priority

Next week the Pentagon will unveil the largest budget in its history, a whopping $553 billion dollars. Trying to justify the record-level budget, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said it “represents, in my view, the minimum level of defense spending that is necessary, given the complex and unpredictable array of security challenges the United States faces around the globe,” writes McClatchy.

Pressure is building on the Pentagon to save money, both in and out of Washington, and Gates has been trying to preempt demands for larger cuts by proposing his own plan to save $100 billion over the next . . .
read more