Outside the Beltway

There seems to be an effort underway to reassess the legacy of our 43rd President.

Rand Paul’s questions about the nation’s drone war were only the beginning.

The idea of completely pulling out of Afghanistan after 2014 is very compelling.

Recent comments from Russian officials suggest that the nation may be preparing to cut its longtime ally loose.

Will the massacre of twenty children in a Connecticut elementary school mark a turning point in America’s gun culture? Don’t count on it.

First in a series of posts looking at the substance of the final presidential debate, ostensibly about foreign policy.

The Afghanistan War is officially eleven years old today.

Turkey’s military has attacked Syria several times since Syrian forces shelled a Turkish village.

Slowly but surely, we’re giving up on Afghanistan.

The Afghan Surge announced by President Obama in December 2009 is over. By any objective measurement, it was a failure.

Our War On Drugs is having a disastrous impact on our neighbors to the south, and they’re starting to notice.

US Army Special Forces are the best we have at working with far-flung villagers. Are they good enough?

Mitt Romney is criticizing the President over his Syria policy, but his alternative ideas aren’t very good.

Osama bin Laden’s death provides Barack Obama with an important political shield during the upcoming campaign.

Russia may be getting more involved in the Syrian conflict.

The latest round of protests in Afghanistan prove yet again that it’s time for us to leave.

Mitt Romney won big last night, Newt Gingrich was Newt Gingrich, and the race is coming to the beginning of the end.

My evidence? Bill Kristol thinks he has a chance.

Not surprisingly, the last man to lead the Soviet Union believes we’d be better off if it still existed.

For years, analysts have worried that Iraq’s tenuous hold on stability would collapse upon the withdrawal of US forces. We’re now watching it happen.

After 3,193 days and more than 4,000 lives, the American war in Iraq is officially at an end.

Why we shouldn’t be surprised that police are using tools of violence against protestors.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the green beret as the official headgear of US Army Special Forces.

The FARC now has an opening for supreme commander.

What exactly does George Will want out of the GOP?

There’s no consensus for European-style social democracy or a Randian libertarian paradise.

Obama is trying to get into Guinness under “US President with Most Simultaneous Wars”

The U.S. War in Afghanistan sounds disturbingly similar to the Soviet one.

The U.S may be on the verge of committing the next decade to the future of Afghanistan.

Honoring the fallen by ensuring that the didn’t die in vain is a recipe for getting more good men killed.

Elias Isquith proclaims my Atlantic essay “How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology” to be “a total disaster.”

I’ve begun to wonder about the future of U. S. security policy. This isn’t a serious analytical post; it’s just what I call “musing”—committing disorganized thoughts to writing.

The NYT says it’s time for U. S. advisers and military air traffic controllers on the ground in Libya.

Modern life requires us to put a high degree of trust in those to whom we delegate responsibility

Todays’ horrific attack on the UN complex in Mazar-i Sharif may well the the Tet Offensive of Afghanistan: a relatively minor event that permanently changed the American public’s view of the war.

Ten days after sending American forces into kinetic military action in Libya, President Obama addressed the nation to explain “what we’ve done, what we plan to do, and why this matters to us.”

The uneasy coalition that coalesced around action in Libya will be strained by decisions to come.