#proliferation

China recently became the world’s 3rd largest exporter of weapons systems behind the US and Russia. While analysts are concerned with Stealth fighters, Ballistic missile systems and chemical weapons proliferation, the distribution of artillery and anti-aircraft systems will likely have a larger effect on the political and defensive environment in many of the purchasing countries than WMDs.

The prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran is in the air. Members of Congress and friends of the United States on multiple continents are pouncing on it. Attention was drawn last week to the failure of negotiations to produce a breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear program. As in the past, the talks included Iran and […]

I’ve contended in previous posts (here, here and here) that President Obama’s failure to enforce his numerous threats against the use of chemical weapons by the Bashir al-Assad regime in Damascus is a significant reason to doubt the credibility of his repeated vows to use military force to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.  So is my argument undermined now […]

The major speech on counter-terrorism policy President Obama delivered last week at the National Defense University has generated a great deal of commentary about its implications for drone strikes and Guantanamo detainees. Little noticed, however, is the underlying message it sends to Iran’s leaders. Mr. Obama has made it a habit of talking tough to […]

A post last month argued that President Obama was fast approaching a defining moment for his foreign policy in view of the mounting evidence that the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria used sarin, a lethal nerve gas, in violation of Mr. Obama’s numerous warnings not to do so.  The day of reckoning has now arrived […]

A defining moment for Mr. Obama’s foreign policy legacy is fast approaching From the Levant and the Persian Gulf to the Korean peninsula, events in recent weeks have offered a clinic in the difficulty of enforcing red lines on rogue regimes and their weapons of mass destruction, as well as how U.S. credibility suffers when […]

I personally would characterize the treaty, like last December’s Copenhagen (climate) Accord, as the bare minimum acceptable.