National Security Architecture: Latest Articles

On the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall I think back to the electrified atmosphere on the streets of Berlin. I was there, watching throngs of East Germans swarm through border crossings. A Fulbright scholar and social anthropologist based in Warsaw in November 1989, I drove with a friend through gas-rationed Poland and East Germany to bear witness. Back then many of the excited East Germans I interviewed -- even some border guards -- looked to the United States… more

Twenty-five years ago, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick famously lambasted Democrats as "blame America firsters" and a party plagued by "self-criticism and self-denigration" of America. It was a speech at pace with an emerging political stereotype that suggested Democrats weren't quite patriotic enough and didn't love their country as much as Republicans did. This image of Democratic weakness and self-doubt became one of the most effective attack lines for Republicans -- and Democrats' greatest political liability.

On the eighth anniversary of the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the spotlight is on the Obama administration's evolving war strategy in a nation long known as the "graveyard of empires."

The current discourse on what is now dubbed "Obama's War" focuses on the number and composition of troops, as well as the overarching strategy (counter-insurgency, rapid withdrawal, a mix of military and reconstruction operations).

Civilian control of the armed forces is one of the most sacrosanct tenets of American democracy. It assures us that military decision-making will be subordinate to the larger strategic perspective of our nation's elected -- and ultimately accountable -- leaders.

On the face of it, nuclear disarmament seems pretty straightforward--we have a bunch of things that we don't need any more, and let's get rid of them.

But, we can't just donate our old nuclear weapons to the Salvation Army for a tax write-off, or hand them down to our little sister like an old sweater set.