Articles
International Herald Tribune - May 29, 2008
For the first time in history, a genuinely global economic system has come into being with prospects of heretofore unimagined well-being. At the same time - paradoxically - the process of globalization tempts a nationalism that threatens its fulfillment.
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The Washington Post - April 7, 2008
The long-predicted national debate about national security policy has
yet to occur. Essentially tactical issues have overwhelmed the most
important challenge a new administration will confront: how to distill a new
international order from three simultaneous revolutions occurring around the
globe:
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The Washington Post - March 10, 2008
Last month’s election in Pakistan, far from calming the political
crisis, has opened a new phase, and the world has a huge stake in the
outcome. Pakistan is at the front line of the assault by Islamist
radicalism on moderate elements within the Muslim world and on the
institutions of the West.
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The Washington Post - December 13, 2007
The extraordinary spectacle of the president's national security adviser
obliged to defend the president's Iran policy against a National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) raises two core issues: How are we now to judge the nuclear
threat posed by Iran? How are we to judge the intelligence community's
relationship with the White House and the rest of the government?
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The Washington Post - October 23, 2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has clearly spelled out how
the Bush administration expects the Palestinian peace negotiations
now underway to unfold. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are to hold preparatory meetings to
define major elements of a settlement. Their draft outline is to be
submitted to an international conference assembled in Annapolis at the
end of November; members have yet to be chosen.
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The Washington Post - September 16, 2007
Two realities define the range of a meaningful debate on Iraq
policy: The war cannot be ended by military means alone. But neither
is it possible to “end” the war by ceding the battlefield. The radical
jihadist challenge knows no frontiers; American decisions in the next
few months will affect the confidence and morale of potential targets,
potential allies and radical jihadists around the globe.
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As distributed by Tribune Media Services - August 7, 2007
The debate about missile defense, nearly 50 years old, has been reignited by the plan to deploy elements of the American missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland. Familiar Cold War arguments have reemerged as Russia challenges the necessity of the deployment and asserts that it is really designed to overcome Russian strategic forces rather than Iranian threats as the U.S. administration claims. But in addition to invective, the Kremlin has also put forward a bold initiative for creating an unprecedented NATO-Russian collaboration in resisting an Iranian nuclear missile threat.
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The Washington Post - July 10, 2007
The war in Iraq is approaching a kind of self-imposed climax. Public disenchantment is palpable. The expressions of concern by the widely admired Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) are a case in point. On the other hand, a democratic public eventually holds its leaders responsible for bringing about disasters, even if the decisions that caused the disaster reflected the public's preferences of the moment.
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The Washington Post - June 11, 2007
The Iraq war has reawakened memories of Vietnam - the most significant political experience of an entire American generation. But this has not produced clarity about its lessons.
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International Herald Tribune - March 20, 2007
Ambivalence characterizes relations between Russia and the United States. President Vladimir Putin snipes at American conduct and policies, while his foreign minister reaffirms Russia's interest in a partnership with the United States. Washington seeks Russian assistance on nonproliferation while pursuing policies on Russia's borders that Moscow and many Russians consider highly provocative.
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The Washington Post - March 1, 2007
The announcement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is calling two international conferences of all Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran, to discuss the country's future could mark a watershed. Whatever happens on the battlefields, Iraq will have to rejoin the global community in some manner. Otherwise, its internal tensions will continue to tempt outside intervention, and these can be resisted most effectively on the basis of agreed-upon principles. The conflicting interests of neighbors must be restrained by a combination of a balance of power and an agreed legitimacy to provide an international sanction.
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The Washington Post - January 21, 2007
President Bush's bold decision to order a "surge" of some 20,000 American troops for Iraq has brought the debate over the war to a defining stage. There will not be an opportunity for another reassessment.
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Newsweek - January 8, 2007
Recollections of the public and private Gerald Ford.
I first met President Ford in the mid-1960s, when I was a professor at Harvard. I was conducting a defense-policy seminar. It was customary to invite people from Washington, and I invited President Ford, then a congressman, to come and talk about the appropriations process.
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The Washington Post - November 24, 2006
Iran's nuclear program and considerable resources enable it to strive for strategic dominance in its region. With the impetus of a radical Shiite ideology and the symbolism of defiance of the U.N. Security Council's resolution, Iran challenges the established order in the Middle East and perhaps wherever Islamic populations face dominant, non-Islamic majorities.
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The Washington Post - November 12, 2006
Two negotiations conducted thousands of miles apart by a largely overlapping group of participants may well determine the prospects of world order. In Beijing, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas are negotiating about the North Korean nuclear program; in Vienna, the so-called E-3 (Germany, France and Britain) occasionally meet with an Iranian negotiator over the Iranian nuclear program. The Korean diplomacy may be heading for a breakthrough. The Iranian talks are deadlocked.
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The Washington Post - September 13, 2006
Two conceptions dominate public discussion on Lebanon. The first is that Hezbollah is a traditional terrorist organization operating covertly outside the law. The second is that the cease-fire marks an end to the war in Lebanon. Neither conception is valid.
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The Washington Post - July 31, 2006
The world's attention is focused on the fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but the context leads inevitably back to Iran. Unfortunately, the diplomacy dealing with that issue is constantly outstripped by events.
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Newsweek - June 12, 2006
Pelé in 1970. Maradona in '86. Zidane in '98. Every four years, one World Cup player makes history. Henry A. Kissinger-Nobel Peace Prize winner, former secretary of State, soccer fan-shares his golden moments before this year's June 9 kickoff.
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The Washington Post - May 16, 2006
The recent letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush needs to be considered on several levels. It can be treated as a ploy to obstruct U.N. Security Council deliberations on Iran's disregard of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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TIME - May 8, 2006
During the month of June, no sportsman will be able to rival the
attention focused on Franz Beckenbauer. Widely considered the best
soccer player ever produced by Germany, he will preside over a
tournament of 32 teams, including one from the U.S, the survivors of
an elimination process involving 194 teams, that has gone on for more
than two years.
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The Washington Post - April 9, 2006
The recent publication of the second quadrennial administration statement on national strategy passed without the controversy that marked its predecessor in 2002. This is all the more remarkable because the statement reiterates the U.S. commitment to a strategy of preemption in exactly the same words contained in the 2002 version.
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The Washington Post - March 20, 2006
President Bush's visit has brought relations between India and the United States to an unprecedented level of cooperation and interdependence, which promises to make a seminal contribution to international peace and prosperity.
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The Washington Post - February 27, 2006
The image of Ariel Sharon lying comatose in an Israeli hospital has a haunting quality. There is the poignancy of the warrior who fought -- occasionally ruthlessly -- in all of Israel's wars, incapacitated when he was on the verge of proclaiming a dramatic reappraisal of Israel's approach to peace.
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The Washington Post - December 18, 2005
The administration and its critics seem to agree that the beginning of an American withdrawal from Iraq will mark a turning point. What divides them is the speed and extent of the drawdown and whether it should be driven by a timetable or by a strategy that seeks to shape events.
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The Washington Post - November 22, 2005
Angela Merkel takes office as chancellor of Germany at a moment of crisis for a country poised between domestic reform and economic doldrums and social deadlock, between stalemate and new creativity on European integration, and between tradition and the need for new patterns in the Atlantic Alliance.
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The Washington Post - August 12, 2005
There have been conflicting reports about the timing of American troop withdrawals from Iraq. Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces there, has announced that the United States intends to begin a "fairly substantial" withdrawal of U.S. forces after the projected December elections establish a constitutional government.
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The Washington Post - June 13, 2005
The relationship between the United States and China is beset by ambiguity. On the one hand, it represents perhaps the most consistent expression of a bipartisan, long-range American foreign policy. Starting with Richard Nixon, seven presidents have affirmed the importance of cooperative relations with China and the U.S. commitment to a one-China policy – albeit with temporary detours at the beginning of the Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. President Bush and Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell have described relations with China as the best since the opening to Beijing in 1971. The two presidents, Bush and Hu Jintao, plan to make reciprocal visits and to meet several times at multilateral forums.
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The Washington Post - May 16, 2005
Extraordinary advances of democracy have occurred in recent months: elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, and Palestine; local elections in Saudi Arabia; Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon; the opening up of the presidential election in Egypt; and upheavals against entrenched authoritarians in Kyrgyzstan. This welcome trend was partly triggered by President Bush’s Middle East policy and accelerated by his second inaugural address, which elevated the progress of freedom in the world to the defining objective of U.S. foreign policy.
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The Washington Post - March 8, 2005
President Bush’s recent visit to Europe took place in an atmosphere vastly different from that of his first term. Unlike the prelude to the Iraq war, this time, each side of the Atlantic seemed determined to minimize differences and seek areas of agreement. At the same time, an improved atmosphere is only a first step toward defining common policies. This is why the issue of nuclear weapons in Iran may well turn into a test case, either bringing the alliance closer together or rending it again when its dynamics brook no further procrastination.
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The Washington Post - January 25, 2005
The debate on Iraq is taking a new turn. The Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30, only recently viewed as a culmination, are described as inaugurating a civil war. The timing and the voting arrangements have become controversial. All this is a way of foreshadowing a demand for an exit strategy, by which many critics mean some sort of explicit time limit on the U.S. effort.
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The Washington Post - December 3, 2004
Three dramatic events have recast the seemingly moribund
Middle East diplomacy and opened the way for a major American
diplomatic initiative: the reelection of President Bush, the death of
Yasser Arafat, and the commitment of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon to withdraw from Gaza and dismantle Jewish settlements
there.
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The Washington Post - August 16, 2004
President Bush has proposed a new post of national intelligence
director. Not part of the Cabinet or located in the White House, the
director would be charged with "coordinating" the intelligence budget
and "working with" various intelligence agencies to set priorities.
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The Washington Post - July 9, 2004
When the history of these times is written, it may well be that the
headlines of the day - Iraq and the controversies it has aroused - will
pale in comparison to other international upheavals of our period.
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The Washington Post - May 9, 2004
The quest for peace in the Middle East never exhausts its
incongruities. On the same weekend that an overwhelming majority of Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's own Likud party voted against his plan to
withdraw all Israeli settlements in Gaza and four on the West Bank,
Yasser Arafat, in an appeal to the European Union, denounced the
withdrawal as "the death of the peace process."
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The Washington Post - February 11, 2004
The self-imposed deadline of June 30 for the transfer of
sovereignty from American to Iraqi authorities is often treated as
marking the start of U.S. disengagement. In fact, the formal end of
occupation changes the nature of the American engagement, not the
need for it.
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The Washington Post - January 13, 2002
As military operations in Afghanistan wind
down, it is well to keep in mind President
Bush's injunction that they are only the first
battles of a long war.
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