A decade ago your editor organized a policy conference in Washington DC with a group of national security experts that ranged from a former NSC senior staffer (and Kissinger aide who resigned in protest of the Cambodia invasion) Roger Morris to current National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The 2006 conference was inauspiciously called “Surviving Victory”
U.S. nuclear national laboratories at Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico are the world’s foremost facilities for the production of mass destruction and death… Over the past 60 years, our country has spent over $7 trillion to generate 70,000 nuclear warheads at an average cost of about $100 million apiece… 10,400 such weapons […]
Remember the moment there, back at the end of the cold war, when the U.S. could have shifted policy direction away from contined war-time mobilization… The moment passed. The new century has delivered continued crisis. In the holiday season, David Stockman adds his voice to calls for a different vision and wiser security policy
Ⅰ Ⅱ Ⅲ Ⅳ Ⅴ Ⅵ Ⅶ Ⅷ Ⅸ Ⅹ “We really are well into the first quarter of a new nuclear arms race,” Garamendi said during the Armed Services Committee hearing. “You will come to realize that over the next 20 to 25 years, we’ll be spending well over a trillion […]
Looking back at a long week, we discuss DC experts, nuclear issues, and end with tracks across the Steppes This week witnessed a Republican candidate for President, Jeb Bush, announce he is his “own man”, not a legacy of his brother or father, then reveal Paul Wolfowitz as his foreign policy adviser. What a choice. […]
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ Like Michael Beschloss might post with his occasional pictures looking back at history — with perspective — here’s our first in a series of ‘Flashback’ glimpses and occasional snapshots of ephemeral times — with transient comments here and there ○ ○ ○ ○ […]
On the BZhRK rail missiles — and escalation The announcement of a re-introduction of nuclear missiles-on-rails brings another ratcheting up in a renewed Cold War even as the START Treaty is threatened and negotiations to downsize nuclear weapons slows — BZhRK pronounced berserk (From the Free Dictionary) : [ber-surk, -zurk]
We ‘drill down’ and ‘sideways’ as StratDem looks more closely at the geopolitical, strategic and market forces at work in the oil patch. The House of Saud, in particular, has taken OPEC in a new direction — and consequences are worldwide and considerable…
Oil Politics – Russia – Cyber Politics – China (& N Korea) ○ ○ ○ ○ The end of the calendar year traditionally calls for reflection about the past and hope for the future. This year we pause to consider a number of concerns and ‘keywords’ to keep front of mind…
Week in review opens with torture revelations and how IS-ISIL-Daesh-ISIS begat itself in Iraq prisons, then latest in petrol politics, Cheney’s last stand, then through the Caucuses to Russian moves and over to the UK, across the Atlantic to Peru, and across the Pacific to Japan, Korea, China — as the world turns…
Two weeks ago, we wrote of the Secretary of Defense and his last substantive decision — to ‘modernize’ the U.S. nuclear force… Now we examine the Pentagon’s next SecDef as he begins his journey to oversee the most powerful military force in history…
Let’s begin by looking again at the ongoing war in the Middle East and a man whose only son died in an Iraqi bombing – Andrew J Bacevich – and move on to petrol states and the new climate change conference. Let’s take a closer look … on December 1 with the end of Thanksgiving […]
This week, before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. and beginning of the Christmas season, while the stock market is at historic highs and recent mid-term elections are producing after-election blues, vitriol, threats and increasingly polarized politics as the 2016 presidential election season arrives early…
Global futures: On the international stage, the players act — the big news is an energy agreement between the US and China, and Russia and China, a new ‘Cold War’, memories of old wars, negotiations to prevent future war, then more…
A week that was… Iran and P5+1 nuclear talks, world oil prices continue to fall, Putin talks Russian policy, Mideast politics, a flare up of words between the U.S. and Israel against backdrop of U.S. Congressional elections, Palestinian recognition, regional war update, petropolitics, China, energy policies, costs and alternatives, digital rights, and the Pope speaks […]
A week that was… Intel and Google, Hersh, father and son, Turks & Kurds, ISIS by any name, Israel & Palestine, the P5+1 negotiations with Iran, Facebook, China, Russia & oil, India & Pakistan, the Internet, surveillance and privacy, Ebola fears
“It will take time… there are challenges ahead”… Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., director of operations for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, says the objectives set for the US-led war in Iraq and now Syria could take years to complete — the pieces on the board are moving in multiple, unpredictable dimensions.
