Why do countries act like big babies? I bring this up in reaction to the U.S.’s walkout during Ahmadinejad’s UN speech last week. Now I know, he was suggesting that the U.S. government’s explanation of 9/11 might be inaccurate, and many Americans may view this as “hateful and offensive,” as Obama said. But Ahmadinejad was […]
This time it comes from John Bolton, who writes: One of Obama’s clearest aims in advancing “global governance” is drawing the United States ever more deeply into the International Criminal Court (ICC). Secretary Clinton lamented last year, as a “great regret,” that “we are not yet a signatory” to the treaty creating the ICC. In […]
Considering that war is perhaps the most horrific aspect of human society, one might think we’d some idea of why it happens. We’ve given it an honest effort. Much ink has been spilled and html text typed to attempt to get to the bottom of it. And there have been some valuable efforts, Stephen Van […]
And likewise, the Iraq War is still not over. Earlier this week, reports came out about the first U.S. combat operation since U.S. combat operations in Iraq ended. Such stories will continue, even after the withdrawal of the remaining so-called “advise-and-assist brigades” in 2011. As the New York Times reported last month, in 2011, the […]
As William Sweet of FPA Arms Control and Proliferation noted last week, India’s parliament approved a key portion of the U.S.-India nuclear pact but altered the deal to leave open the possibility of holding nuclear suppliers liable for damages resulting from accidents. This was the Bhopal tragedy rearing its ugly head, as Sweet notes. This […]
As I’ve written before, it is widely acknowledged that the economic health of the United States is a major national security concern. For one, last year Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence declared that the economic crisis had become the U.S.’s “primary near-term security concern.” I decided to read John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash […]
As you undoubtedly already know, last night Obama announced the end of combat operations in Iraq: What did we accomplish? Where are we going from here and what do we hope to continue to accomplish? How is Iraq related to the geopolitical interests of the United States? Many have taken the time to over the […]
Nine. At least that’s what The Atlantic said last year. In an effort to demonstrate that China is not as monolithic as it may sometimes appear, The Atlantic published an interactive map on its website dividing the People’s Republic of China into nine regions (the interactive feature doesn’t currently work correctly, but you can find […]
There’s been some back and forth this week between Julian Ku and David Bosco about Jeremy Rabkin’s recent critique of the ICC in the Weekly Standard. I’ll add my two cents, for to me, Rabkin’s piece seems like a ghost story told around a campfire. Rabkin intends to make the ICC seem really really scary, […]
Daniel Drezner theorizes that the U.S.’s covert operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program is going well and has led to U.S.-Israeli agreement on eschewing preventive strikes against Iran. I think he’s right. Drezner was responding to the New York Times article published in the wake of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic article. Goldberg reported an apparent consensus […]
The Heritage Foundation published a report by Brett Schaefer earlier this month that argues (unsurprisingly) that the U.S. should remain wary of the ICC (h/t Opinio Juris). I (unsurprisingly) think he’s wrong. The report’s problems begin in its first paragraph: Until recently, U.S. policy toward the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been clear and consistent: […]
Many people claim that international law is not like other law. Some claim it is not even law. (See an earlier post of mine on the subject.) But there are many ways that international law is just like good old municipal law. From a lecture David Kennedy gave last fall: Indeed, many military professionals remain […]
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