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Europe’s Fratricidal Defense Exports
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BERLIN/MUMBAI–The announcement last week that India was entering into exclusive negotiations with Dassault for its Rafale fighter jet represents a major coup for the French defense contractor and for Nicolas Sarkozy. The embattled French presid...
Poland and Germany: How Close is too Close?
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WARSAW / WASHINGTON – For hundreds of years, Poland suffered from an overbearing Germany that trampled on the rights of the Polish nation, occupied the country, and, at times, worked to extinguish the Polish nation-state entirely. No wonder tha...
Why France’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan is Not a Strategy
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PARIS–President Barack Obama’s announcement last June of an accelerated U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan reopened debates in many European countries over when their soldiers should return from that unpopular war. French President Nicol...
The French Departure from Afghanistan is Not a Deal Breaker
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent announcement that French troops would hand over their security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the end of 2013 — a year earlier than the completion of the NATO combat mission — has caused some to...
Eurobaloney on the Campaign Trail
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WASHINGTON–Mitt Romney, one of the leading Republican U.S. Presidential candidates, has informed his countrymen over the past few weeks that U.S. President Barack Obama is working to turn the United States into Europe. This, one might think, is...
A New Star in the European Sky: Croatia
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WASHINGTON– Strange as it may seem to some, there are those who wish to join the European Union, in spite of all its current flaws. Croatian voters gave a resounding yes to becoming the 28th member state of the European Union in a referendum h...
State of the Union: Why Obama Used Foreign Policy to Address Domestic Challenges
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WASHINGTON – As he campaigned for the U.S. presidency in 1952, Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower argued that he would seek to bring “security with solvency” to the American people. Eisenhower realized that the challenges p...
Remember South Sudan
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Fewer than 30 days into the new year, the foreign policy agenda for Europe and North America has already become crowded. North Korea, Iran, Syria, potential breakthroughs in Burma, and the still roiling revolutionary fervor in the Middle East are b...
Obama’s High-Speed Rail Network Plans Are Off Track
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WASHINGTON–A year ago, during his State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama set a goal for a national high-speed rail (HSR) network: 85 percent of the country’s population would have access to HSR within 25 years. One year later...
Book Review: “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus” by Paula Broadwell with Vernon Loeb
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All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. By Paula Broadwell with Vernon Loeb. The Penguin Press, 2012, 394pp. $29.99. Writing a first book is challenging in its own right, much less doing so as events unfold. In All In, The Education of...
The Great Viktator
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BRATISLAVA—“Freedom House got it wrong!” We can expect to hear this message from an angry official in Budapest after the release on Thursday of the Freedom in the World Report 2012. Hungary has the unfortunate distinction of being the only West...
A Slippery Slope to War in the Persian Gulf
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WASHINGTON– Political realities facing the leaders of the United States and Iran mean that military confrontation between the two states is a distinct possibility. In late December, the Iranian armed forces conducted a number of war games —...
Back to Basics in Defense – and Deterrence?
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BRUSSELS—Full details of the Obama administration’s new look in defense spending, force posture, and strategy are not yet out. But enough has been revealed to venture some thoughts on the logic of the new approach and the longer-term implicatio...
Back to Basics in Defense – and Deterrence?
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BRUSSELS—Full details of the Obama administration’s new look in defense spending, force posture, and strategy are not yet out. But enough has been revealed to venture some thoughts on the logic of the new approach and the longer-term implicatio...
Washington’s Asia-Pacific Security Dilemma
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BERLIN — When President Barack Obama unveiled a new national defense strategy last week, which confirmed the United States’ intent to play a sustained role in shaping a rising Asia, he noted that “the tide of war is receding.” This observ...
Washington’s Asia-Pacific Security Dilemma
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BERLIN — When President Barack Obama unveiled a new national defense strategy last week, which confirmed the United States’ intent to play a sustained role in shaping a rising Asia, he noted that “the tide of war is receding.” This observ...
A Post-American Europe? Not Just Yet
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PARIS—The Obama administration’s new defense strategy should come as no surprise to observers in France and across Europe. The question of rebalancing American military involvement between Europe and the Asia-Pacific has been a recurring theme of...
A Post-American Europe? Not Just Yet
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PARIS—The Obama administration’s new defense strategy should come as no surprise to observers in France and across Europe. The question of rebalancing American military involvement between Europe and the Asia-Pacific has been a recurring theme of...
The New U.S. Defense Strategy: A Wake-Up Call for Europe
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WARSAW—The new strategic defense guidance from the Obama administration aims to refocus the U.S. defense posture on the increasingly competitive security environment emerging in the Pacific. It also (despite the Pentagon’s protestations to the co...
The New U.S. Defense Strategy: A Wake-Up Call for Europe
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WARSAW—The new strategic defense guidance from the Obama administration aims to refocus the U.S. defense posture on the increasingly competitive security environment emerging in the Pacific. It also (despite the Pentagon’s protestations to the co...
