This distinction is crucial. An attack on the citizens or infrastructure of another state has traditionally been considered an act of war. Actions by the United States, Russia, Israel and other countries in recent decades have somewhat blurred this distinction.
Paul Robinson: Fascist Blindness
Yale historian Timothy Snyder was out banging the fascist drum again this weekend in The New York Times. In the aftermath of the Washington riot by America’s version of the old Russian Black Hundreds, Snyder warns of Donald Trump’s ‘pre-fascism’. This builds on his previous work, which portrays Trump as tool of the not pre- but very genuinely ‘fascist’ Valdimir Putin.
Graham Fuller: Bill Burns, Biden’s savvy choice for CIA Director
A responsible and wise DCI like this is vital if the United States wishes to avoid more foolish and ill-conceived failing policies and military operations overseas. Biden has made a savvy choice.
John Kiriakou: Biden’s Nominee for CIA Director
President-elect Joe Biden has finally named a new CIA director, one of the final senior-level appointees for his new administration. Much to the surprise of many of us who follow these things, he named senior diplomat Williams Burns to the position. Burns is one of the most highly-respected senior U.S. diplomats of the past three decades. He has ably served presidents of both parties and is known as both a reformer and as a supporter of human rights.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: An expert proposal: How to limit presidential authority to order the use of nuclear weapons
In the United States, the president has sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, for any reason and at any time. This arrangement is both risky and unnecessary.
Joe Cirincione: Pelosi is right to warn of “an unhinged president…accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, however, is wrong to assure her that there are checks in place to prevent this. There are not.
PODCAST: The 2020 Artsakh-Karabakh War with Pietro Shakarian
Between the 27th September and the 10th November 2020 over 100,000 Armenians have been displaced, nearly 4000 killed, and many sites of Armenian cultural and historical significance have been taken, damaged or destroyed. Pietro Shakarian talks through the history of not only the region where the conflict has taken place, but the why’s and the how’s and also the implications on the people who have lived there for generations who are now refugees.
Taylor Barnes: Dissent in the Pentagon of the South
Peace Corner is a place to begin discussion about the ways war can be avoided if peaceful solutions are prioritized, freeing up funds for human needs.
Doug Bandow: Refuting NATO’s Latest Dumb Ideas
When it became evident that Joe Biden had won the U.S. presidency, European officials, NATO bureaucrats, Eurocratic elites, and most other Europeans collectively exhaled in relief. Washington think tanks produced a swarm of papers and webinars featuring the same advocates celebrating the return of the consensus that Americans must forever pay for the continent’s defense.
Nicolai Petro: Joe Biden and the Challenge of Ukraine
It may make sense for America to step back and avoid the temptation to take sides in [Ukrainian] political, cultural, and religious debates for temporary foreign policy advantage. This was the approach that George Kennan advised taking toward Russia after its liberation from communism. “Let them work out their internal problems in their own manner,” Kennan wrote, for “the ways by which people advance towards dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. There is nothing less understandable to foreigners, nothing in which foreign influence can do less good.”
Robert Wright: Grading candidates for Biden’s foreign policy team: William Burns
Few if any contenders for foreign policy positions in the Biden administration surpass Burns when it comes to appreciating one tenet of progressive realism: military interventions have a way of leading to bad things.
AP: Biden chooses veteran diplomat Burns as CIA director
William Burns, a well-known figure in diplomatic circles around the world, is President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to lead the CIA, a selection likely to be embraced by the rank and file at the nation’s premier spy agency.
William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina: Trump Still Has His Finger on the Nuclear Button. This Must Change.
The time has come to take the nuclear football away from this president – and all the presidents that come after him.
Beatrice Fihn: How to implement the nuclear weapons ban treaty
I think it’s really important to delegitimize nuclear weapons and devalue them. We’ve almost created this mythical perspective on these weapons, that they somehow are safeguarding the world and that they somehow have all these magical attributes, which isn’t true. It’s just a really giant radioactive bomb. It’s not magic, it’s not special.
Institute for Public Accuracy: Biden Nominates Victoria Nuland to #3 Position at State Department
James W. Carden tells IPA’s Sam Husseni that, “As Biden’s undersecretary of political affairs, Nuland would have immense influence over policy and personnel. Progressives in Congress and their partners in the media, think tank world and among grassroots activists should join forces with the growing caucus of anti-interventionist Republicans on the Hill and vigorously oppose this nomination.”
Joe Cirincione: Why the US wastes billions on nuclear weapons it doesn’t need
There’s a myth in Washington that America’s nuclear posture is developed though sober consideration of complex strategic imperatives. There are risks, we are told, but we need thousands of nuclear weapons to keep America safe. They are our ultimate security. Wise men (it is almost always men) have objectively arrived at the minimum necessary deterrent based on decades of tested theory and practice.
E. Martin Schotz, MD: Applying ‘The Great Rule’ in International Relations
I want to take you on a thought experiment, in which we will attempt to use ‘The Great Rule’ as a lens to examine a problem in international relations. The problem I want to address is international cooperation and understanding in eliminating nuclear weapons. [Read more…] about E. Martin Schotz, MD: Applying ‘The Great Rule’ in International Relations
M. K. Bhadrakumar: US risks confrontation with Russia
The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov recently remarked that Moscow expects nothing good in relations with a “deeply hostile” US under the incoming administration of Joe Biden…
Ray McGovern: Why Michael Morell Cannot Be CIA Director
As President-elect Joe Biden names his cabinet and other chief advisers, what has escaped wide attention is the fact that none of his hawkish national security advisers – except for his nominee for defense secretary, Gen. Lloyd Austin – has served in the military.
David Swanson: Top 10 Questions for Neera Tanden
You sought to delegitimize the 2016 U.S. presidential election, not with serious documented complaints, but with baseless claims that the Russian government infiltrated and manipulated the vote counting. Did you believe those claims? Do you believe them now? Do you take any responsibility for the large numbers of other people who believe them now?