There’s been a lot of discussion at Opinio Juris this week about whether Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. See their posts here, here, and here. And read the text of the Espionage Act here. Here’s a relevant portion: Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid [e.g., obtaining information respecting […]
Patrick Frost of FPA Afghanistan writes that “the leaders and leakers of Wikileaks are rightly being near universally condemned” and argues that this condemnation should be extended to encompass the news outlets publishing the Wikileaks material. Patrick and I had this debate earlier this year. Starting here, then here, and here, and here. I suppose […]
In international relations theory, there’s a lot of talk about the offensive advantage, that being the advantage a country gains by striking first in a military conflict. There’s comparatively less written about the defensive advantage. When a country is attacked, the victim population is galvanized against the attacker and neutral states may also turn against […]
As Patrick Frost of the FPA Afghanistan blog noted last week, the Asia Foundation recently released a report on Afghan public opinion. It paints a seemingly optimistic picture of the prospects for an ISAF success. The most newsworthy finding is that a majority of Afghans now show no support for armed insurgents. Only 40% say […]
In your spare time, why not solve America’s greatest national security dilemma? Courtesy of The New York Times, you can play around with ways to solve the deficit problem. Save America from the death spiral that brought down so many empires of the past! But, as I noted last week, keep in mind Paul Krugman’s […]
Let Niall Ferguson tell you the stakes: Let Mike Mullen expand on Ferguson’s point: Let Roger Hickey tell you why the debt commission isn’t the way to go about solving the problem: Let Paul Krugman tell you why the U.S. should take a cue from St. Augustine: “Lord, give me chastity and temperance, but not […]
Last month, Gail Harris of the FPA U.S. Defense blog expressed some skepticism about the claim that the United States’ problems in Afghanistan arose because the U.S. was too focused on Iraq: Like many, I’ve wondered why we didn’t do something earlier to counter the Taliban resurgence before it got out of hand. The conventional […]
The current situation in Afghanistan demonstrates something that may seem surprising: counterinsurgency would probably work. The problem is, the United States has been reluctant to actually attempt it. The policy brief, The Trust Deficit, published last month by Open Society Foundations, demonstrates this pretty clearly. The document, created after interviewing over 250 Afghans in focus […]
I’m now responding somewhat belatedly to the contentious debate that occurred a couple Saturdays ago between Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare and Mary Ellen O’Connell of Notre Dame law school. In the debate, O’Connell argues that most of the Obama administration’s drone strikes in Pakistan have been unlawful while Wittes argues the opposite. Wittes posted […]
The debate about whether or not the United Nations (UN) is biased against Israel is on. It began when Ben Moscovitch of the FPA Israel blog wrote that the UN is biased against Israel. I wrote a post arguing the opposite. And Ben wrote a second post, in which he focused on two things: the […]
Iran and the West will resume nuclear talks in November somewhere in Europe. According to a letter Iranians sent to the EU, Saeed Jalili, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, desires to “resume the talks based on his letter of 6 July.” In this letter, he outlined three conditions for talks. The West should declare their stance on […]
As Tom Brokaw noted in a New York Times op-ed last week, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken a back seat in the mid-term elections. One might even say the wars have been relegated to the trunk, or the rack on top, or they’ve been left behind entirely. Brokaw speculates that this is […]
I have a new piece up at Foreign Policy in Focus. It examines an often overlooked aspect of the U.S.’s current policy toward Iran. Here’s a teaser: For years, the United States and Israel have engaged in a covert effort to destabilize Iran’s government and sabotage its nuclear program. But these operations frequently escape mention […]
Not to turn this into a blog solely about why peace talks with the Taliban will fail, but here are some more things worth perusing. Dexter Filkins, who wrote the New York Times story to which I linked yesterday, elaborated on his story on the PBS Newshour earlier this week: Filkins says of the talks: […]