War in the media age: Hysteria over Trump’s supposed Russian ties made headlines, but the “story” is remarkably flimsy
A case study in how a co-opted press manufactures foreign policy consent From one week to the next, I note with mounting anxiety the media’s habit of using innuendo, loaded suggestion, assemblages of proximate facts, implication short of assertion and omission…
Bashing Trump Is Easy. Seeing His Foreign Policy Is Smart Takes Guts
Is Donald Trump “dangerous,” as 50 G.O.P. national security “experts” asserted in an open letter—the second this year—published last week? Would he be “the most reckless president in American history,” as they also warned? Jeffrey Goldberg calls Trump “a de…
About those “experts”: Take a close look at the foreign policy insiders denouncing Trump
The possibility of a true outsider upending Washington’s unspoken consensus has thrown elites into hysteria This latest open letter from 50 Republican “national security experts,” wherein Donald Trump is denounced as “dangerous” among many other things, is simply too much. One does…
Trump Is Wrong About Russia, but He Does Get One Thing Right
We may never know who hacked 20,000 Democratic National Committee email messages, or why they were made public. But we know a lot more now about where our two presidential candidates stand on Russia. No matter whether Hillary Clinton or…
Why Clinton’s China Policy Puts More at Risk than Trump’s
The two confirmed presidential candidates we’ll have by the end of this week have little in common, except they’re both wealthy New Yorkers. Among the many differences between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, China policy ranks very high. How the…
We can’t have more of the same: The very real dangers of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy
Trump may well be dangerous. But know what you’re getting with Hillary: American hegemony that’s hated worldwide Just what we needed: another foreign policy speech from Candidate Clinton. This one arrived last Thursday in San Diego—well-chosen ground, given the Navy’s…
“This will stop only when the American people get fed up”: American exceptionalism, the New York Times, and our foreign policy after Barack Obama
Our smartest modern military historian explains to Salon what’s wrong about our adventures in the Middle East Part one of my interview with Andrew Bacevich, the soldier-turned-scholar who has just published “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military…
We can’t vote for either one: On world stage, Clinton and Trump present different, but serious, dangers
It is pathetically impossible to determine which one would be worse, the only metric we have left. It’s OK to pass As of this past week Americans voters have their choices in November—all three of them. I do not see…
Trump opposed Iraq. Hillary voted for war: Let’s take his foreign policy vision seriously
Trump gets some things very wrong. But today’s speech was still daring, spot on and important contrast with Hillary Donald Trump on foreign policy. You start out thinking this is going to be roughly akin to George W. discoursing on,…
Trump Is the Wrong Messenger, But He’s Raised Some of the Right Issues
Donald Trump is never short of controversial remarks and highly unlikely policy positions, but his recent ventures into foreign affairs have prompted unusually sharp reactions even by Trump’s standards. First came a scathing open letter from 120-odd Republican national security…
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