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...
Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, spoke with Chicago University professor and renowned international relations theorist John Mearsheimer about the apparent shifts in attitudes in both the country and in Washington on foreign policy issues: I would...
In last night's State of the Union speech, President Obama put the spotlight on one of his invited guests, Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, a severely wounded veteran who was nearly killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Here's Reason's Nick Gillespie in...
The Obama administration seems to have made a decision long ago on how to deal with Egypt's rocky, post-Mubarak transition; namely to keep it subtle and in the background. Washington intends to remain a player in Egypt's strategic position, but as far as the domestic...
Despite my harsh criticisms of the Obama administration's policies towards the Asia-Pacific, I'm of the opinion that an actual shooting war between the U.S. and China is very unlikely for the foreseeable future. Like the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cold War,...
One of the hard truths about Washington is that Congress recklessly wastes billions of taxpayer dollars on weapons programs that the Pentagon says it doesn't want or need. Congress does this to avoid the slight uptick in unemployment in their districts that might...
In the early 1970s, I was chief of the CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch in which Robert M. Gates worked as a young CIA analyst. While it may be true that I was too inexperienced at the time to handle all the management challenges of such a high-powered office, one...
Pro-Israel commentators have been known to downplay the importance of the Israel lobby here in the U.S. "The lobby" is not as influential, coordinated, sneaky, or nefarious as many of its critics maintain, they insist, while often making accusations of conspiratorial...
An editorial in yesterday's Washington Post urges President Obama to use the threat of a U.S. bombing campaign to achieve political ends on a transition deal in the Syria talks. Obama "could force" a diplomatic agreement for a transition government in Syria "by...
The NSA's bulk collection of every American's telephone call records is illegal, according to the federal government's independent review panel, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The NSA's interprets Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the...
