On foreign threats and ‘the calm before the storm’
by William P. Kiehl First published in Lancaster LNP October 22, 2017. At a recent photo op with senior military officers and their wives, President Donald Trump was heard to remark that it was “the calm before the storm.” In … Read more
Ambassador L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, III
from ADST
http://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Bremer-L.-Paul-1.pdf
India’s Wars
Review by Jon Dorschner India’s Wars (A Military History 1947- 1971) by Arjun Subramaniam, Harper Collins India: New York, 2016, ISBN 978-93-5177-749-6, 576 pp., $39.99 (Softcover). Since I was teaching at West Point, it has struck me that there are a … Read more
Cuban Missiles and Operation Dragon Rouge
by Robert Baker The 1962 Cuban missile crisis and 1964’s Belgian paratroop drop from U.S. C-130s in the Congo were the most interesting events in my five year intelligence career. Lowly intelligence analysts like me working for the U.S. Information … Read more
Warrior Diplomat: Vietnam, 1965-70
Warrior Diplomat: Vietnam, 1965-70 Chapter 3 of Global Adventures on Less-Traveled Roads: A Foreign Service Memoir by James R. Bullington The Vietnam War was a life-changing experience: It set the trajectory of my career toward service in unfamiliar, remote, sometimes … Read more
World War Two Provides the Indo/British Breaking Point
Essay by Jon Dorschner “India at War” (The Subcontinent and the Second World War) by Yasmin Khan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-975349-9, 416 pp., $29.95 (Hardcover). India’s War (World War II and the Making of Modern … Read more
In Defense of The “Obama Doctrine”
In Defense of The “Obama Doctrine”: A Sober Reappraisal of the Limits of American Power by John R. Murnane In a series of interviews with Jefferey Goldberg in the April 2016 Atlantic, President Barack Obama provided a much-needed and sober … Read more
Notes for American Diplomacy on Civil-Military Relations
by David C. Litt POLAD: A Global Warrior-Diplomat I served as the State Department’s Political Advisor (POLAD) to two US military combatant commands during a watershed moment of the post-Cold War era: 1998-2004. To make these political-military assignments even more … Read more
The Ineffectiveness of American Covert Regime Change Operations During the Struggle Against Islamist Terrorism
by Jason Cooley Introduction Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, the United States government embarked on a campaign to weaken the Islamic extremist organizations that were present in the world. Some of the steps that this lone superpower took to … Read more
Non-Military Contributions to National Security
by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) January 13, 2009, ANSER Conference Center, Washington, DC It is a pleasure and honor to be here. I benefited greatly from the introductory remarks by Congressman Skelton and Andrew Hoehn. They have … Read more
Are South Asian Arms Sales in the U.S. National Interest? The Foreign Policy Implications
by Jon P. Dorschner In 1989 I wrote an article urging the United States to stop selling weapons in South Asia.1 It took a liberal stance, arguing that such a step would enable the U.S. to occupy the moral high … Read more
The Case Against Military Intervention
Reviewed by A.J. Andreas Ringl, Ph.D. The Case Against Military Intervention: Why We Do It and Why It Fails by Donald M. Snow, New York: Routledge, 2016, 192 p., $38.96. Snow has written a book most apropos for current … Read more
Divided Nation, United Military: The Burmese Government as Junta Par Excellence
by Matthew KooAbstract The international community has welcomed the reforms implemented by President Thein Sein of Myanmar since 2011. Even so, with the authoritarian nature of the Myanmar government remaining fundamentally unchanged, these reforms are arguably more procedural than substantive. … Read more
Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy?
Review by Dr. John M. Handley, Vice President, American Diplomacy Publishers Mission Creep: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy? Edited by Gordon Adams and Shoon Murray, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2014. ISBN 13: 978-1-62616-114-6, pp. 264 (end-notes plus references, … Read more
Preserving the Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific Region
By Thomas Donilon, Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Text: http://www.cfr.org/china/keynote-address-obama-china-preserving-rebalance/p33778 Review by Francis P. Sempa, Contributing Editor Thomas Donilon of the Council on Foreign Relations spoke recently at the Brookings Institution about the Obama Administration’s rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region. … Read more
World War I and the Failure of Diplomacy Two
Reviews by Amb. (Ret.) Anthony C. E. Quainton [On this 100th anniversary of the beginning of “the war to end all wars”, we will feature books that touch on that subject in this and future issues. We begin with Ambassador … Read more
No Exit from Pakistan
Review by Donald Camp No Exit from Pakistan: America’s Tortured Relationship with Islamabad by Daniel S. Markey, Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN-13: 978-1107623590, 253 pp., $71.16 (Hardcover), $25.19 (Paperback), $12.49 (Kindle). There is much to ponder in this well-written and … Read more
Meeting the Challenge of Chinese Expansionism on the East Asian Littoral
By Dean Cheng, Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/01/the-challenge-of-china-s-expansionism-in-east-asia-and-us-policy-responses Reviewed by John Sylvester A major challenge for any American administration just now is maintaining a wise balance as we cope with a rising China. It is not an expansionist power … Read more
Public Diplomacy with high powered take-off
by George Kennedy
A Salutation to Arms: Asia’s Military Buildup, Its Reasons, and Its Implications
Review by John Sylvester
