What’s Next in Afghanistan?
President Karzai narrowly won a clearly fraudulent election. His main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, has withdrawn from consideration as a candidate, ruling out a run-off election. That leaves us with an Afghan government of little or no legitimacy, unworthy of our confidence or that of the Afghan people. Classical counter-insurgency strategy requires a government with the support ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 3, 2009 12:50
Obama’s Europe Neglect Could Bring Bush Nostalgia
My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, "Europe's Obama Fatigue," is online. Despite George W. Bush's defiant "you're with us or you're against us" public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe. [...] It would ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 30, 2009 06:10
Minor FSO Resigns, Panic Ensues
An incredibly junior foreign service officer has resigned over disagreement with our AfPak policy, prompting a high level scramble within the administration and a long feature in the Washington Post. As I wrote in "While Obama Dithers," a piece for New Atlanticist, They've brought this on themselves. Granted, President Obama inherited this war and his people may have fought it differently had ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 27, 2009 09:04
Afghanistan Run-off Ordered
Well, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has said that a third of the counted votes in the Afghanistan election were fraudulent and ordered a run-off between Hamid Karzai and second place finisher Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai looks unlikely to comply and nobody really wants a run-off, anyway. So, as I write in my New Atlanticist essay, "Afghanistan Election: Now What?" we're left ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 19, 2009 16:21
Jim Jones, Republican Whipping Boy
Michael Goldfarb wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard blog with the provocative title "Rent-a-General Jim Jones," arguing that the man who spent four decades serving his country as an officer in the Marine Corps, rising to Commandant and then Supreme Allied Commander, is a partisan stooge for the Obama administration. A friend emails to point out that Jones is "finally ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 6, 2009 11:58
EU Georgia Report False Equivalency
As widely anticipated, an EU report on last year's Russian invasion of Georgia finds plenty of blame to go around, finding that Tblisi "triggered" the conflict but that Moscow violated international law by its invasion and with numerous atrocities thereafter. This leads John Cole to quip, "Was the McCain/Palin campaign right about anything?" As I detail in my New Atlanticist post, "EU: ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 30, 2009 14:03
Old Europe, New Europe
Back in 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously noted that while "Old Europe" (particularly France and Germany) was hard to work with, America could count on "New Europe." Fast forward to 2009 and we may have reversed polarity. My latest New Atlanticist essay, "Losing New Europe, Too?" explores this evolution, including why Western Europe is back in the fold and why ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 15, 2009 09:29
NATO Can Survive Afghanistan Failure
In my latest for The National Interest, I argue that, despite the constant urging otherwise by former Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO can survive failing in Afghanistan. [T]he fact of the matter is that NATO went to war in Afghanistan, invoking Article V’s declaration that an “attack against one” shall be “considered an attack against them all” in the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 10, 2009 09:44
Mary Jo Kopechne
In my early morning Teddy Kennedy Dead at 77 media roundup post, I observed, "That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 26, 2009 14:31
Manus eBay Auction Ends, USA Lucky Bidder
Until yesterday, it seemed a fait accompli that the vital NATO supply base in Krygyzstan was closing, owing to a combination of geopolitics and a strong bid by Russia. Thanks to an eleventh hour deal, Manus Air Base will stay open after all. I analyze this in some detail at the link. The short story, though, is that Dave Schuler's February ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 26, 2009 15:12
Albright: ‘I Don’t Know’
At her lecture to the Atlantic Council last night, Madeleine Albright repeatedly uttered three words seldom heard in Washington: "I don't know." What struck me, though, was her humility on three of the most difficult issues facing the West right now: the ongoing chaos in Iran, the relationship with Russia, and the future role of NATO. For all of those, she ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 19, 2009 10:55
Poland Celebrates 20 Years of Voting
As the 20th anniversary of the Solidarity movement's triumph approaches, Poland finds itself divided politically and unhappy with its current state of affairs. As I argue in my New Atlanticist piece "Poland's Democracy at 20," this is a good thing. Unhappiness with the quality of one's politicians, too, is a sure sign of a maturing democracy. Gone are the days when ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 2, 2009 15:52
Made-up Wikipedia Quote Makes Obituaries
[caption id="attachment_36114" align="alignright" width="229" caption="AP Photo/Fionn Kidney "][/caption] The erstwhile Dr. Leopold Stotch passes along news of the exploits of a fellow Irish prankster: When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news. His report card: ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 12, 2009 05:44
SACEUR: NATO Leadership AWOL
Supreme Allied Commander John Craddock told the Atlantic Council that "the political leadership of NATO is AWOL" and that fixing the "imbalance" between an enormous strategic ambition and modest political will is vital for success in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Asked in the Q&A about today's replacement of David McKiernan with Stanley McChrystal as ISAF commander, he twice demurred, calling it a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 11, 2009 18:08
Atlantic Council Awards: Bush, Kohl and Petraeus
I apologize for the dearth of posting the past couple of days. Much of yesterday was spent in preparation for the Atlantic Council's 2009 Leadership Awards, which were held last night, and this is my first break from the day-after followup on the website, which I've been working on since 6 this morning. As I explain in my roundup post, "Council ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 30, 2009 16:27
