Foreign Policy in Focus

Trouble at the Pentagon

Ron Tang — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:03:00 -0400

The Pentagon is in crisis: The war in Iraq is entering its fifth hot summer. And while U.S. troop casualties are down, the light at the end of the occupation tunnel is no closer and no brighter.

Headaches mount on the home front as well. The head of the Air Force was recently embarrassed and forced from the cockpit. Billions of dollars have been misplaced or misspent. Huge cost overruns bedevil weapons contractors. And, private contractors have formed a cubicle mercenary force, outnumbering uniformed personnel and federal employees in many DoD agencies.

The Government Accountability Office has issued… more

Invitation To Steal

Ron Tang — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:39:00 -0400

This article is drawn from Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War edited by William D. Hartung and Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at Institute for Policy Studies.

The heavy reliance on private contractors to do everything from serving meals and doing laundry to protecting oil pipelines and interrogating prisoners has been a major factor in the immense costs of the Iraq war. By one measure, there may be more employees of private firms and their subcontractors on the ground in Iraq than there are U.S. military personnel.

One of the main rationales for using private companies to carry… more

Bush Woos Europe

Ron Tang — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:10:00 -0400

The big news of President George W. Bush’s trip to Europe last week was not the multiple agendas that he juggled or the feathers he ruffled. It was the news he left behind. President Bush tried to set the domestic agenda for the week, with a pre-dawn press conference on his way to the airport last Monday. The sleepy First Couple stood side-by-side, as Bush told Congress they had “a lot of work” while he was gone. He even left a to-do list: pass Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, act on his Federal Housing Administration reform proposals, and agree to the… more

Guantanamo: The Bigger Picture

Ron Tang — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:50:00 -0400

The U.S. base at Guantanamo has been called many things. The "gulag of our time" (Amnesty International General Secretary Irene Khan, May 2005). "The key strategic intelligence platform in the war on terror" (Charles Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, January 2007). The "legal equivalent of outer space" (unnamed Administration official). The right place for "the worst of a very bad lot" (Vice President Dick Cheney, January 2002) and for the "most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth" (former Defense Secretary Donald… more

Indonesia's Arms Appetite

Ron Tang — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Jakarta wants weapons. Lots of them.

Right after Valentine’s Day, Indonesian Air Force officials met with their U.S. counterparts to discuss “bilateral defense cooperation.” On their wish list were Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighters and C-130 Hercules tactical transport planes. There will be more defense talks in April between the two countries as they step up military cooperation.

The United States and Indonesia “normalized” military relations in 2005, ending a 10-year period during which Jakarta was essentially barred from receiving most forms of U.S. weapons sales and military aid and training because of its military’s human rights abuses and corruption. Jakarta… more

Dems: What About the Military Budget?

Ron Tang — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

One issue that will not be discussed in tonight's presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is our nation's burgeoning military budget. Earlier this month, the Bush administration announced a proposed military budget of $614 billion, not counting the full cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents the highest level of spending since World War II, even though our most dangerous adversary is a dispersed terrorist network measured in the tens of thousands, not a nuclear-armed Soviet Union whose armed forces were measured in the millions.

If Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of… more

William Hartung in FPIF World Beat | 'Best of Bush 2007' Mention

Communications — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:08:00 -0500

New America in the News:
World Beat (Foreign Policy In Focus)
Finally, on a lighter note, William Hartung has done a humorous roundup of George W. Bush’s foreign policy successes for 2007. One of those successes: the U.S. president finally knows the name of Pakistan’s leader. Hartung writes in Best of Bush 2007: “When he was running for president the first time around, a reporter asked George W. Bush who the leader of Pakistan was, and he said ‘General. I can't name the General. General.’ He also said that ‘this guy is going to bring stability to the country.’ Now Bush knows that ‘this guy’ is named Musharraf - but he's still working on the nuances (like pronouncing ‘Pervez’).” ...

Nukes and the Elections

adminn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:20:00 -0500

In this extra-long (and far from finished) campaign season, we have heard a lot from the candidates. We have seen them in many debates and public forums -- engaging with one another and with the animated snowmen and gun-toting hunters that populated the YouTube debates.

But all this exposure has not resulted in an abundance of substance. Hot issues like immigration and gun control provide juicy sound bites and smoking zingers on both sides but fail to inform voters on the candidates' stances on looming and critical foreign policy issues. Perhaps even more importantly, this flavor-of-the-week approach fails to engage or… more

Best of Bush 2007

adminn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:14:00 -0500

Sure, there were some downsides to the Bush administration foreign policy in 2007 such as [INSERT YOUR FAVORITE EXAMPLE HERE]. But what about the good news?

No New Wars: Iraq and Afghanistan haven't quite reached the "pace of success" (Bush's phrase) that the president would like to see. But give him some credit: he didn't start any new wars in 2007. No "Nucular" attacks: since Dubya can't pronounce the word "nuclear" and can't locate most countries on a map, it's hard for him to push the button: he doesn't know where to aim. No War With Iran: That damned… more

How Much is Enough?

Articles — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:37:00 -0500

Once upon a time, people researched and wrote reports about lower defense spending and converting the military-industrial complex into a peacetime economy. These reports came from university research institutions, private think tanks, and the federal government. They are memorials to the hope kindled in the brief post-Cold War and pre-War on Terrorism moment when anything seemed possible. Even cutting the military budget was not unthinkable because we had pulled the planet back from the brink and survived five decades on the edge of nuclear midnight. Scholarship turned itself to the work of dismantling the war machine in such a way… more