..., a world where freedom itself was under attack.” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, talked of “unknown unknowns” and a “war like none other our nation has faced.” In a 2001 op-ed article entitled “A New Kind of War,” Rumsfeld wrote, “Even the vocabulary of this war will be different. When we ‘invade the enemy’s territory,’ we may well be invading his cyberspace … Forget about ‘exit strategies’; we’re looking at a sustained engageme...
...iew – a sign, Ignatius thinks, of “[Putin’s] perception that Americans are out to interfere in Russia’s affairs.” The often turbulent relations between Russia and the West have deep historical roots, predating the Cold War and the Russian Revolution. At several points in its history, Russia has been invaded by outside forces, from the Swedes in the eighteenth century to the French armies of Napoleon in the nineteenth century and finally tw...
The relative peace that has followed the Korean War ended with an explosion in March of last year, when North Korea torpedoed a South Korean naval ship. Eight months later, the North Korean military shelled a South Korean island on the border, claiming four lives. These attacks prompted discussions of war between the two nations for the first time in almost fifty years, a war that would inevitably involve the 28,000 US soldiers stationed in Sou...
...in vast numbers of paintings, and pieces of music attempt to capture the sudden violence of an atomic explosion. Like Vietnam for Lyndon Johnson, the mushroom clouds over Japan taint Truman’s presidency. He may have ended the war, but he did it so inhumanely that such an accomplishment will never be truly accepted. Our nation’s moral standards are too great. Apologists for the bombings claim that if Truman had not ordered the extermination of tho...
...g India independent from extraneous influence and preaches the righteous position of refusing to form an alliance against another nation or bloc of nations. Such a theme found particular resonance during the onset of the Cold War with newly liberated colonies and remained a popular idea in the Third World until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even today, the notion of non-alignment is held in high regard by many influential Indian diplomatic of...
A great deal has been written on President Obama’s continuation of many of the Bush administration’s policies in regards to terrorism. Growth in the size and operational tempo of special warfare units, the extensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against terrorist targets worldwide, and the National Security Agency’s (NSA) ongoing warrantless surveillance programs – all of these began with President Bush. That Obama has not only ma...
...f Liberia, a state that has been a de-facto American protectorate for much of its existence, and a country with such low levels of economic development that the failure of new, risky endeavors could propel the country back to war and unrest. In the global community, few argued against such a “trusteeship approach,” and many even saw it as the only path left for Liberia. In the five years since the institution of GEMAP, Liberian perfor...
A missile is paraded through Kim Il sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Photo: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) To look to the future, let’s first take a look at the past. The Koreas have both seen a long history of war and oppression: longing autonomy from the pulling forces of respective states, the South’s internal political struggle for democracy countered with the North’s struggle for stability, growth, and military power. All of which has...
The War of 1812 marked the last armed conflict in which the United States and United Kingdom found themselves on opposing sides. Since the Treaty of Ghent ended the hostilities in 1814, the two nations have fought alongside one another in both World Wars, the Cold War, the first Gulf War, and in the last decade, the Iraq war. Over the years, American presidents and British prime ministers have enjoyed a rare propinquity, as in World War II betwe...
...g to Rashid’s new book Pakistan On the Brink – the dire problems it faces seem to be continuously evolving and accumulating. The root of evil as hypothesized by Rashid: Pakistan’s failure to learn and adapt following the Cold War. The nation fails to recognize that neither scare tactics nor overdependence on America are sustainable and effective. Trade and economic advancement are necessary. Since 1989, Rashid notes, Pakistan has struggled to bal...
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