Boston Globe: 'Stability does not require democracy'

Boston Globe: ‘Stability does not require democracy’

The US should support leaders who establish control, provide security, and improve lives. IT WAS revealed earlier this month that the United States has been sending agents into Cuba to identify dissenters and help them build an anti-government movement. At a moment when so many countries are in violent upheaval, why would we seek to […]

Boston Globe: 'Conventional military has lost power'

Boston Globe: ‘Conventional military has lost power’

HORRIFIC CONFLICTS are shaking the Middle East, and war has erupted in Eastern Europe. The United States seems unable to shape the course of events. This is despite the fact that we have by far the most powerful military in the world. Today’s conflicts illustrate the declining value of conventional military power. For many decades, the […]

Boston Globe: 'Can the US accept allies as equals?'

Boston Globe: ‘Can the US accept allies as equals?’

BY EXPELLING the CIA station chief in Berlin recently, Germany hoped to jolt the United States into paying attention. Germans are outraged by reports that American spies may have been working inside their security services. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that hostile operations like this “contradict everything that I understand to be a trusting cooperation […]

Boston Globe: 'Iraq, Syria: Borders aren’t endlessly flexible, but they change'

Boston Globe: ‘Iraq, Syria: Borders aren’t endlessly flexible, but they change’

IF NOT for one fateful act, history would little note Mark Sykes, a British socialite who was master of a mansion the size of Downton Abbey and loved horse breeding. It would pay even less heed to Francois Georges-Picot, an obscure French diplomat whose highest post was consul general in Beirut. Yet with a few […]

Boston Globe: 'Iraq delivers bloody lesson on blowback'

Boston Globe: ‘Iraq delivers bloody lesson on blowback’

AFTER MANY decades in the covert-action business, Americans have come to learn what “blowback” means. Often our foreign interventions produce quick victory. Then things go bad. Short-term success dissolves into long-term failure. Many of our interventions have not only thrown target countries into violent upheaval, but weakened our own security. The recent explosion of militant […]