The New Republic

Bloggingheads has just posted a segment in which Jacob Heilbrunn and I discuss my new book, U.S. vs. Them. If you stop by, you can watch Jacob and me argue about the irrationality of the Iranian regime, the futility of arms control, and whether we're more likely to be nuked now than we were at the beginning of the Bush presidency. Enjoy! READ MORE >>

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Amid the tension surrounding North Korea's unwelcome contribution to last week's Fourth of July fireworks, there were, fortunately, dashes of comic relief. There was John Bolton, who has been devoted to extracting the United States from its arms control commitments, lamenting that a nation transgressed a voluntary arms control commitment. READ MORE >>

Existential Crisis READ MORE >>

It took only a few sentences on Wednesday for Donald Rumsfeld to demonstrate why he is both morally and strategically unfit to serve as secretary of defense. In a townhall-style meeting at a staging area in Kuwait, Rumsfeld was asked by Specialist Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee National Guard why soldiers were forced "to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic [i.e., bulletproof] glass to uparmor our vehicles?" There was a short pause, and then many of the 2,300 troops in attendance erupted in cheers and applause. READ MORE >>

The splotch that appeared on satellite photos of North Korea two weeks ago was like a Rorschach blot for foreign policy wonks. A cloud of smoke that would have been considered benign in almost any other country (it being in actuality just a cloud) was immediately feared the result of a nuclear explosion, showing just how anxious national security types have become about Pyongyang's weapons program. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice had to reassure the Sunday morning talk shows that the North had not, in fact, tested a nuclear bomb. READ MORE >>

On February 11, just days after a supposedly penitent Abdul Qadeer Khan confessed on Pakistani television, President Bush appeared at the National Defense University to describe how the father of Pakistan's atom bomb had for years run a global network that sold nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea. Bush praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for "assur[ing] us that his country will never again be a source of proliferation," even though it was not clear Musharraf could promise any such thing, and lauded the U.S. intelligence community for its "hard work and ... READ MORE >>

It's hard not to scoff at the president's call for a return to the moon, Mars, and "beyond" if for nothing other than its political transparency. The president's sudden dose of the vision thing immediately endeared him to the thousands of aerospace workers in Florida, while costing him almost nothing before he leaves office. But, despite its narrow opportunism, the president's plan is important, because it thrusts the prospect of a manned mission to Mars back into the public sphere. READ MORE >>

It's hard not to scoff at the president's call for a return to the moon, Mars, and "beyond" if for nothing other than its political transparency. The president's sudden dose of the vision thing immediately endeared him to the thousands of aerospace workers in Florida, while costing him almost nothing before he leaves office. But, despite its narrow opportunism, the president's plan is important, because it thrusts the prospect of a manned mission to Mars back into the public sphere. READ MORE >>