The following is a multi-part symposium commissioned by theNational Interest and Carnegie Corporation of New York. Check daily (Monday-Friday) for new entries. Below you will find a brief introduction to the series by Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of the National Interest.Surprise. No one thinks that war is a good idea.
- Monday, November 28: Graham Allison, Steven Pifer, Paul Saunders, Ian Bremmer, Joseph Nye, Angela Stent
- Tuesday, November 29: Barry Posen, Jack Matlock Jr.
- Wednesday, November 30: Michael Kofman, Matthew Rojansky
- Thursday, December 1: Timothy J. Colton, Nikolas K. Gvosdev
- Friday, December 2: Andrew Kuchins, J. Andrew Spindler
- Monday, December 5: Paul Pillar, Thomas F. Remington
- Tuesday, December 6: Kevin Ryan, Daniel Treisman
Trump revealed through his often Quixotic campaign that millions of Americans agreed with him that the real threat came from the country’s ruling elites.Important.
The globalist sensibility won’t go away, but it now is seriously challenged. The result is a new fault line in American politics.The National Interest
Despite the presence of many individuals of common sense and integrity in government, U.S. leaders have too often forgotten that jumping off a cliff is easier than climbing back to safety. Notwithstanding the election of some well-informed and thoughtful individuals to the Senate and House of Representatives, the Congress has largely abdicated its responsibility to foster serious debate on foreign policy and has failed to fulfill its constitutional role as a check on executive power. The mainstream media has become an echo chamber for a misbegotten and misguided consensus.America's geographical isolation from adverse consequences and immense economic and military power encourage reckless behavior based on assumptions like "exceptionalism" and "exerting leadership" as justifications for policies exceeding the national interest that pose costs, risks, and unforeseeable unintended consequences.
But Americans can no longer afford to accept bad policies in the hopes that things will somehow work out. Today’s world is too complex and too dangerous, with more major powers, less discipline among international blocs and factions, and greater power for nonstate actors.…
Donald Trump is scheduled to meet here Wednesday with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee looks to develop his foreign-policy expertise, according to three people close to Trump.…
Last week, during a visit to Washington to meet with party leaders, Trump met with James A. Baker III, another former Republican secretary of state.The Washington Post
I’m not one to disparage the potential and real violence of the entity calling itself the Islamic State. Then again, I am also not one to call for the unleashing of violence by the entity calling itself the United States. As the entire world knows, it is due in large part to the latter’s violence that we are where we are today—in Iraq and elsewhere. Those champions of US military violence who insist on its innate humanitarianism also want us to believe that the violence is undertaken with no economic or hegemonic designs real or implied. Of course, this is nonsense. Powerful states do not intentionally act against their own interests, especially when it comes to military intervention.
Instead of humanitarianism, one should always consider power and money when it comes to the machinations of empire.…Psychopaths are highly rational.
By pretending war is reasonable, the possibility of preventing it becomes ever more remote.Dissident Voice
Why did the administration decide to take military action now, but previously didn’t act to stop the killing of Shiites and Christians in the same region, or the slaughter of civilians in Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or other places around the world? The answer may have more to do with U.S. strategic interests and geopolitics than ethics.
“What’s driving it is the sense that letting (the Islamic State) burn itself out is not working,” said Jon B. Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While the Yazidis’ plight is desperate, Alterman said he could imagine a number of other places in the world where the same number of people being threatened would not provoke a direct U.S. military response.McClatchy
The UK and US governments have warned Russia not to use humanitarian assistance as a pretext for sending troops into eastern Ukraine. Any such intervention would be "completely unacceptable and "viewed as an invasion of Ukraine", said the US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power.
The UK Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, said: "I strongly urge Russia to avoid any provocative actions".
