Mutiny on Capitol Hill? on November 2, 2017A mutiny may be brewing in Congress and especially in the Senate. Senator Bob Corker is no Fletcher Christian conspiring against Lt William Bligh, captain of HMS Bounty or Senator Jeff Flake a Steve Maryk relieving Lcdr Philip Queeg, skipper of USS Caine. But make no mistake: privately, many Republicans in the Senate fear Donald […]
Should presidents be condoling families of those killed in action? on October 26, 2017Much of last week’s news in America was dominated by the misogyny of Harvey Weinstein and the deaths of four US Green Berets ambushed in Niger. Weinstein should be left to the courts although the prurient nature of his conduct understandably grabbed the headlines. About the four dead Green Berets, an account of what actual […]
Putin’s muse on October 19, 2017Here is an imaginary scenario to ponder. And it is imagined but plausible. Suppose Russian President Vladimir Putin has a muse, someone with whom he can share his inner most concerns, fears and ambitions. How might a conversation go? PP (President Putin): I am bored possibly even depressed. M (Muse): Why? PP: Life is too […]
Another Trump blunder on October 12, 2017Bucharest, Romania: Last week, the Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump would decertify Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). If fully honored, that agreement would prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons. However, the specifics of what the US would or and would not do especially regarding the re-imposition of […]
An emergent spectre in US politics on October 5, 2017A specter is haunting America. But this is not Marx or Lenin’s specter of communism. Perhaps worse, it is the specter of four political parties in a system in which the traditional division between Democrats and Republicans can hardly co-exist or govern. One of the two newer contenders is the Trump party consisting of alienated […]
To totally destroy North Korea . . . on September 28, 2017London: Last week’s presidential speech at the UN General Assembly conclave in New York City was marked in particular by Donald Trump’s threat ‘to totally destroy North Korea’ if the US and its allies were attacked or threatened by Kim Jung Un. Aside from the poor grammar, this declaration is not without precedent. Soviet leader […]
A Pentagon implosion looms on September 21, 2017Few Americans, especially in Congress, understand that the most pernicious and potentially most dangerous threat to the United States military is not North Korea, Da’esh, Iran or even Russia or China. Instead, this threat is home grown ironically arising from the law and the way the Department of Defence is forced to conduct its business. […]
Trump trumps Trump on September 14, 2017 North Korea’s test last week of what probably was a boosted fission nuclear weapon was recorded as a six on the Richter scale. Donald Trump’s dazzling display of political broken field running, however, scored double figures in the political equivalent of the Richter measurement for earthquakes. With the debt-ceiling as the explosive ingredient, in […]
Is the US military ready for war? on September 7, 2017Is the US military ready for war? After sixteen years of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, this may seem a silly question. By all accounts, the US military has performed admirably under very difficult conditions fighting an often invisible enemy lacking a navy and air force, unconstrained by Geneva Conventions or limits on using terror […]
Afghanistan Churchillian ungrateful volcano? on August 31, 2017Five years less than a century ago, when Winston Churchill headed Britain’s Colonial Office, what is now called the Middle East was in as much turmoil as it is today. Churchill, confronted with a losing war in Mesopotamia, turned the campaign in Iraq over to the Royal Flying Corps, arguing that it should use mustard […]