While we’ve been busy focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we’ve failed to pay heed to the war now underway along the U.S.-Mexican border. Frankly, it’s on the cusp of an invasion, says retired Army major general Robert Scales. He joined retired general Barry McCaffrey in authoring a report on this third front for the state …
Foreign Policy
Aussies Begin to Question U.S. Alliance
TOKYO – It was all smiles and bonhomie at the US-Australia defense meetings in San Francisco this month. But Down Under, there are growing calls for Australia to scale back its reliance on America in favor of – you guessed it – China.
“Australia can no longer assume that we can continue to exist in a world where we can …
“Does the U.S. Always Need an Enemy?”
Wrapping up our discussion on China, we’re wondering if the U.S. has some innate compulsion to find a foe. If so, is it prudence or panic? We tackle the issue with Patrick Cronin, director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, and David Finkelstein, director of China studies at the …
“Allied” Ambush?
The New York Times front-pages a story Tuesday on a 2007 attack on U.S. troops — in which an Army major was killed — as a deliberate blow designed to show the Americans that the Pakistani military can’t be pushed around. It’s like throwing gasoline on a fire, given Adm. Mike Mullen’s declaration last week — long overdue, according …
“Is China Getting Ready to Try and Kick the U.S. Out of the Western Pacific?”
Continuing this week on Command Post, our tour of the national-security challenges associated with the Middle Kingdom. John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and I ask if China, beginning to flex its military muscle, is readying to tell the Pentagon: the western Pacific is ours, so scram! We’re joined in the discussion …
Of Stupid Answers and Arms Sales
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We don’t dip our toes into domestic politics too much here on Battleland — that’s why TIME has Swampland. But sometimes we just can’t resist. In Thursday night’s debate, a questioner asked Texas Governor Rick Perry what he would do if he got a 3 a.m. phone call saying Pakistan’s …
The Party’s Over
It was only two years ago that Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was praising Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army’s chief of staff, in the pages of TIME. “Here is a man with a plan, a leader who knows where he wants to go,” the top U.S. military officer said of his initial meeting with his Pakistani …
Wars, Yesterday and Today
There’s a profound sense of deja vu among those of us who came of age — in uniform, at school, in politics — during the Vietnam war. So much of what is happening today resonates with that conflict in ways both good and ill.
Lee Barnes has just written When We Walked Above the Clouds about his experiences early in the southeast …
“Does Mutual U.S.-China Economic Dependence Rule Out War?”
Continuing our discussion this week on China, we’re tackling a corollary of Tom Friedman’s McDonald’s Rule — countries with McDonald’s restaurants generally don’t wage war on one another — as we weigh the impact of economic ties between Beijing and Washington. Does the immense commerce between the two nations reduce the …
Japan Worries About China Nukes
TOKYO – Never mind natural resources or national pride.
China’s rapid military modernization and aggressive territorial claims are rooted in the calculus of nuclear deterrence, according to defense analysts in Japan.
Sumihiko Kawamura, deputy director of the conservative Okazaki Institute in Tokyo, says China has claimed …
“How Big a Threat Does China Pose?”
This week on Command Post, John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and I probe the threat — or whatever it is — posed by China. We’re joined in the discussion by David Finkelstein, retired Army officer and director of China studies at the Pentagon-funded Center for Naval Analyses, and Patrick Cronin, CNAS’s director …
Japan Worries About China – Later
TOKYO – For the second time since taking office this month, Prime Minister Yoshihoko Noda has warned about China’s military ambitions in the Far East.
“I am concerned about their reinforcement of national defense power, which lacks transparency, and their acceleration of maritime activities,” Noda said during debate in the …
Afghanistan 2.0
Some old-timers speak of deja vu all over again: just as Afghanistan became the Soviet Union’s Vietnam, it could also become America’s. Tuesday’s complex attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul — reputed to be a safer place — raises anew questions about the scope of the decade-old U.S. war in Afghanistan, and its chances for success.
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