Daily Telegraph – John Keegan on why Israel will attack Hezbollah again, soon.
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Naval War College Review – Uniformed officers have an obligation to stand up to civilian leaders if they think a policy is flawed. But once a policy decision is made, soldiers are obligated to carry it out. The idea that a general or admiral should publicly attack government policy and its civilian authors in time of war is dangerous.
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Defense and the National Interest – Martin van Creveld addresses how European countries should accommodate or otherwise deal with their Muslim minorities. Five hundred years ago, Spain faced exactly the same issue.
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Daily Telegraph – Niall Ferguson on why the US should follow the Geneva Conventions.
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Foreign Affairs – Religion has always been a major force in U.S. politics, but the recent surge in the number and the power of evangelicals is recasting the country’s political scene — with dramatic implications for foreign policy. This should not be cause for panic: evangelicals are passionately devoted to justice and improving the world, and eager to reach out across sectarian lines.
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New York Times Magazine – Beijingís ambassador to the United Nations has begun to act as if he represents a very, very powerful country.
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Foreign Affairs – Over the last year, the U.S. and Indian governments struck a deal that recognizes India as a nuclear weapons power. Critics say Washington gave up too much too soon and at a great cost to nonproliferation efforts. Perhaps. But India could in time become a valuable security partner. So despite the deal’s flaws and the uncertainties surrounding its implementation, Washington should move forward with it.
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Foreign Affairs – Can anything — international mediation, regional collaboration, decentralization, or constitutional negotiations — save Iraq from a full-fledged civil war and the Bush administration from a foreign policy fiasco?
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Washington Post – John Keegan puts the conflict in Lebanon in perspective.
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Foreign Affairs – After being shackled by the government for decades, India’s economy has become one of the world’s strongest. The country’s unique development model — relying on domestic consumption and high-tech services — has brought a quarter century of record growth despite an incompetent and heavy-handed state. But for that growth to continue, the state must start modernizing along with Indian society.
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Foreign Affairs – This distillation of the Pentagon’s secret study of Saddam Hussein’s regime, based on analysis of captured documents and prisoner interviews, has already rewritten the history of the war. See for yourself what made Saddam tick, why he was shocked by the American invasion, and what he was actually doing with WMD.

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Armed Forces Journal – Ralph Peters proposes redrawing the borders of the Middle East based upon ethnic and religious identity.
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Foreign Affairs – Israel occupied and settled the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights because of a combination of nationalism and religious agitation. Ariel Sharon’s dismantling of the Gaza settlements last year broke a political taboo, and could herald a return to “Zionist realism.”

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US Naval War College Review – The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched in 2003, is an international effort to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction to rogue states and terrorists. With sixteen core member states and some sixty cooperating nations, it enjoys today many advantages of law and organization in coastal waters, but it lacks useful authority to interdict WMD on the high seas. PSI itself, however, represents an opportunity to alter international law and fill that critical gap.

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Foreign Affairs – With all the talk of Latin America’s turn to the left, few have noticed that there are really two lefts in the region. One has radical roots but is now open-minded and modern; the other is close-minded and stridently populist. Rather than fretting over the left’s rise in general, the rest of the world should focus on fostering the former rather than the latter — because it is exactly what Latin America needs.

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Defense and the National Interest – William Lind analyzes the situation in Afghanistan???
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Foreign Affairs – For four decades, relations among the major nuclear powers have been shaped by their common vulnerability, a condition known as mutual assured destruction. But with the U.S. arsenal growing rapidly while Russia’s decays and China’s stays small, the era of MAD is ending — and the era of U.S. nuclear primacy has begun.

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US Naval War College Review – The security environment at the start of the twenty-first century is perhaps the most uncertain it has been in the history of the United States. What strategic realities are driving the transformation of American global defense posture to contend with that uncertainty, and what changes is the Department of Defense working to bring about in relationships and capabilities around the world?

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Washington Post – Robert Kaplan on the different types of dictators in the world.
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Foreign Affairs – During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community’s former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community’s expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.
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Washington Post – A review of General Zinni’s new book, The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America’s Power and Purpose.
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Naval War College Review – Iranís nuclear ambitions are worrisome, potentially dangerous, and obscure to the West. It may be possible, however, to influence the small circle of decision makers from the outside through the networks in which they act, and the links between these networks. In these informal contexts, agencies and individuals involved in nuclear issues are susceptible to public comment.

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Armed Forces Journal – Excellent article by Sean Naylor on the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.
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Defense and the National Interest – Part three in a series of articles about grand strategy in a 4GW Era. “Terrorism.” “Islamofascism” Iran. China. So many enemies – what’s a superpower to do?
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Defense and the National Interest – Part two in a series of articles about grand strategy in a 4GW Era. Demonstrating the difficulty of distinguishing strong from weak in 4GW, and that choosing the wrong grand strategy can be terminal for a state.
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