Former vice president Joe Biden could still win America’s presidential election, but Donald Trump’s performance in the wake of a deadly pandemic, hugely negative polls and a mainstream media almost universally hostile to him shows that cultural and political elites in the United States keep getting things wrong. (more…)
The killing of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani in Iraq could turn out to be a brilliant gamble that in the long term stabilizes the greater Middle East.
More likely, it will be a major political and strategic problem for the region and the United States broadly speaking within the context of renewed great-power competition, particularly with respect to Sino-American competition. (more…)
The Middle East is in turmoil as the third act of the post-Ottoman period — the colonial period and the nationalist regimes like Gamal Abdel Nasser’s that succeeded it being the first two — moves forward in an unstable and bloody fashion.
The events should remind observers of an extremely devastating conflict that once embroiled Europe called the Thirty Years’ War. That massive, and complex, conflict began with the notorious “Defenestration of Prague” in 1618 and was largely a religious conflict between Protestant German princes jealous of their autonomy and faith arrayed against the power of the Catholic Hapsburg rulers of Austria.
The conflict metastasized into a great power conflict between the ruling dynasties of Catholic France led by the famous practitioner of realpolitik, Cardinal Richelieu, and the Hapsburgs of both Austria and Spain. (more…)
The balance of power between Shia and Sunni has shifted since the 2003 Iraq War. A bold new strategy of isolating Iran while simultaneously reaching out to and cutting a nuclear deal with it could reset the balance in the region and allow the United States to recalibrate their Middle East as well as global strategy.
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the United States have had a Sunni-centric approach to the Middle East that has hobbled their diplomatic flexibility. It is time for this to stop.
The proxy war between Shiites and Sunnis has been ongoing since 2003 but after Iraq finally shifted closer to Iran, a new battleground was certain to emerge. It now seems obvious that battleground is Syria. While much of what transpires there is clearly complex, it is also apparent that Iran is backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Saudi Arabia is supporting the rebels. A resurgent Turkey is also shifting to an outwardly hostile position toward the Assad regime.
This represents an opportunity for the United States that is being squandered. (more…)
There is a constant drumbeat on both sides of the Atlantic that we must enhance NATO and make sure it’s up to the multifarious challenges of a globalized world. This is a questionable assertion. By contrast, it seems increasingly likely that the new global security infrastructure should be built on a foundation of regionalism.
The United States, for as long as it remains the single most powerful nation in the world, should play a pivotal role in each of several key security institutions. Yet these institutions should remain regional, focusing on their own neighborhoods where they can be more effective, rather than morphing into grandiose institutions with ambitions far exceeding their capabilities.
For the transatlantic world, NATO is, unfortunately, becoming a prime example of an institution that is flailing about in the globalized post-Cold War world. Its most recent attempt to maintain relevance above and beyond what it should be is its relatively ill-fated Libyan intervention. While NATO played a major role in ousting then leader Muammar Gaddafi, the operation highlighted American strengths and European weaknesses.
In many ways, this peripheral theater did much to advertise both Europe’s challenges and America’s unwillingness to act decisively to do what is necessary to win in a small-scale conflict. Not only did it take a prolonged period of time to overthrow Gaddafi; the operation failed to secure many of Libya’s weapons which has resulted in instability throughout northern Africa, particularly in Mali. (more…)
The key for the future of NATO is to once again establish a clear strategic rationale for its existence.
This was a relatively easy task during the Cold War, when the threat of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was very real and perceived as existential. In the years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this is no longer the case and it has forced NATO to evaluate exactly what role it should play in the twenty-first century.
While it seems that many in Europe and the United States have a desire to turn NATO into some sort of “GloboCop” looking perennially abroad for new monsters to slay, NATO’s actions since the conclusion of the Cold War raise serious questions about the wisdom of such a course. Its use of military force against Serbia during the Kosovo crisis in the 1990s, its extensive work in Afghanistan and, most recently, in Libya illustrate how NATO can work and how it really cannot.
The key question is this: Should NATO in this century be used primarily to defend Europe from external aggression while facilitating intra-European stability or is it to be a platform for external stabilizing missions in other geographic regions, such as the Middle East or East Asia?
The answer is that it should remain focused on what it can do and do well. (more…)
