America’s Scandalous Drone War Goes Unmentioned in the Campaign

The New Republic, September 26, 2012 *Republished by The Australian  as “Drones Backfire as Civilian Toll Mounts,” October 3, 2012) A new study released this week by researchers at Stanford and NYU has found that American drone strikes in Pakistan are killing far more civilians than advertised, taking out few high value targets, and have become the…

The Day We Lost Afghanistan

The National Interest September 19, 2012 Afghanistan has been unwinnable has been obvious to most outside analysts since well before the so-called surge of 2009. Now, the United States government has finally admitted the obvious in deeds if not words. Following the  murder of six NATO troops in yet another “green on blue” attack in which Afghan…

Oversight or Not, Drones Are Here to Stay

World Politics Review July 27, 2012 In “The Imperial Presidency: Drone Power and Congressional Oversight,” Michael Cohen argues persuasively that the U.S. Congress has abdicated its constitutional and statutory responsibility to reign in the executive branch in matters of national security policy. Then again, few who have been paying attention this past decade — some…

NATO’s Cyber Threat

The National Interest July 2, 2010 As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization completes its new Strategic Concept, it should be resist expanding its guarantee of automatic response to include cyber and other unconventional attacks. Otherwise, it may fracture the alliance while, perversely, decreasing security against said actions. In a February speech to the Atlantic Council,…

Bush’s Third Term

The National Interest July 22, 2009 President Obama took the oath of office six months ago. He did so after a long campaign in which he continuously promised “change” and to “restore America’s standing in the world.” Thus far, however, optics are all that keep his administration’s foreign policy from being a continuation of George…

What the Experts Really Said About Iraq: As it Turns Out, Not Much

TCS Daily August 21, 2007 Media Matters economist Duncan Black set off a mini-firestorm among lefty bloggers three weeks ago when he asked, after a few choice expletives, “Why is there a foreign policy community?” The premise of that question is that, since so many of the experts, even on the left, argued passionately for intervening…

Interview with Author John Robb

Washington Examiner May 23, 2007 James Joyner: Throughout the book, you point out how easy it would be for relatively small groups with minimal funding to create power blackouts, disrupt our oil distribution networks, or even stage 9/11-style attacks on a routine basis. Why do you suppose that hasn’t already happened? For that matter, we…

Armed Diplomats? When State and Stability Operations Collide

James Joyner and John Burgess TCS Daily May 21, 2007 Army Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute has been nominated by President Bush to serve as “war tsar” with the unenviable task of coordinating “often disjointed military and civilian operations” for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Aside from the abundant skepticism expressed by military analysts such as Phil Carter about whether…

Why Israel Lost

TCS Daily August 14, 2006 A front-page story in Monday’s Washington Post declared Hezbollah “The Best Guerrilla Force in the World” and noted that, “As the declared U.N. cease-fire went into effect Monday morning, many Lebanese—particularly among the Shiites who make up an estimated 40 percent of the population—had already assessed Hezbollah’s endurance as a military success…

Panoptic War

TCS Daily June 8, 2006 Editor’s Note:  Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed.  Images of Zarqawi’s face are making the rounds as you read this, reinforcing many of Dr. Joyner’s assertions below. The war in Iraq has had powerful images from the beginning and public perceptions of the war have shifted along with the prevailing images. The…