John Glaser

February 4, 2014

Brace yourself: George W. Bush’s former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, is arguing publicly that the Obama administration’s drone war exceeds legal limits on executive authority. As anyone with a memory of Gonzales’s tenure under Bush knows, this is more than a little ironic. For example, the Wall Street Journal reports, “Gonzales was a key figure in […]

John Glaser

February 4, 2014

A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace advocates several policy recommendations which aim to rectify the “threat” that a rising China poses to “the foundations of the U.S.-backed global order.” Traditional strategies of “containment,” as used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War, won’t work, the report argues, so Washington needs to […]

John Glaser

February 4, 2014

Again, military officials in the Pentagon are insisting on cutting superfluous weapons programs that are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, but Congress refuses to cut because the defense corporations that line their campaign pockets want the money to keep coming in. The Washington Post: The Army is pushing ahead on a path that could result […]

John Glaser

February 3, 2014

Despite Obama’s promise in last week’s State of the Union address that he will veto any bill that heaps additional sanctions on Iran while the interim agreement is still in place, hawks in the House of Representatives are still pushing for it. Indeed, a mixture of hawkish Republicans and Democrats in Congress are aligned with […]

John Glaser

February 3, 2014

In the policy and think tank worlds, we’re told Obama’s “pivot” to Asia is essential for America’s national interests and that, indeed, continued U.S. military presence throughout the Asia Pacific region is vital for both the U.S. and its allies. U.S. allies need to be reassured of our protection racket and Washington must compete with […]

John Glaser

February 3, 2014

Two recent reports from Foreign Policy reveal that there is routine corruption at the Defense Department and that it even extends to covering up evidence of war crimes. First, from Gordon Lubold, an article based on a July 2013 report compiled by the Defense Department’s General Counsel’s Standards of Conduct Office that catalogued ethical violations of […]

John Glaser

January 31, 2014

If you say it out loud, it seems too preposterous to be true. Four high-profile former government officials are getting paid by an Iranian dissident group that until 2012 was an officially designated terrorist organization to publicly oppose the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran. BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray attended a briefing in the Dirksen Senate office […]

John Glaser

January 31, 2014

Catherine Traywick at Foreign Policy explains how the U.S. government and the (U.S.-backed) Philippines government exploited the U.S. military’s disaster response to the recent typhoon in order to justify more U.S. troops to be stationed at more U.S. bases in the Philippines. Officials from both nations quickly framed the catastrophe as a justification for a […]

Angela Keaton

January 30, 2014

John Glaser

January 30, 2014

Colin Dueck, writing in Foreign Affairs, argues that Rand Paul’s foreign policy does not seem to be on the ascendency, as some have assessed. Not only does the GOP establishment oppose Paul’s less interventionist take on national security policy, but even the supposedly Tea Party leaning Republican base (essential in any 2016 presidential campaign scenario) […]