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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 […]

September is Washington D.C.’s Human Trafficking Awareness Month, the event which was established thanks to the efforts of the DC Task Force on Human Trafficking. The Task Force was established in 2004 with the DC police department and the DC US Attorney’s office. Since the establishment of the Task Force, membership has grown to over […]

Been on travel so haven’t found time to Blog.  Before I hit the road, I participated in a Department of Defense sponsored Bloggers roundtable on Monday, August 23rd with Lieutenant General William Caldwell the Commander of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan.  It was enlightening and informative.  As discussed in previous Blogs, this training is a critical […]

Cell phones and the internet are widely considered to be some of the most important tools in speeding up development in much of the world: businesses can grow faster with wider access to customers and advanced technologies, doctors can stay in touch with patients and keep more sophisticated medical records, and educational opportunities vastly increase. […]

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 […]

Human rights abuses have been making headlines almost daily in the burning hot battles of Mexico’s drug wars. From the horrific massacre of 72 migrants last week, to the gruesome display of four decapitated corpses strung from a bridge along with a warning sign, to human rights investigators gone MIA, the news is dark and […]

Interesting article from the Voice of America today. Of particular importance in this news: 1) the loan is intended to help “end the unilateralism” (President Evo Morales) of the world powers; and 2) the loan has no use restrictions. The lack of spending restrictions has been one of the biggest complaints against many of the […]

Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the September Atlantic, in which he argues that Israel almost inevitably will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before next summer unless the United States does so first, has attracted excessive attention. Devoid of new information and lacking in any kind of serious military analysis, it’s a far cry from meeting the Atlantic […]

There is evidence that FARC has been trading cocaine for arms brokered by Venezuelan middlemen, entrepreneurs who are, at the same time, supplying weapons to Mexico.

President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office yesterday to announce the end of combat operations in Iraq. Since then there has been a fair amount of media coverage and I’m very encouraged by that. I was beginning to worry that this major milestone in the history of the U.S. role in the world […]

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 […]

What US policymakers also fear is that the steady sale of arms to Venezuela from Russia, Iran, China, and Cuba, and the willingness of both Venezuela (Russian and Chinese arms) and Nicaragua (US-manufactured weapons) to resell firepower to criminal or insurgent elements throughout South and Central America (Mexico being the prize) will someday allow Chavez and Ortega to realize a common dream — power over a Socialist Empire that encompasses most or all of Central and South America.