January 2012 Archives

Depending on whom you ask, the Pentagon's new budget and strategy is either a smart decision to resize and refocus after 10 years of war and in fiscal crisis, or it's a welcome mat for the People's Liberation Army to begin the era of American global decline. Are the hawks right to worry, or is this simple, cold hard pragmatism?

3 responses: Michael Brenner, Gordon Adams, James Jay Carafano

President Obama is expected to outline his national security and foreign policy achievements in Tuesday's State of the Union address. He recently told Time Magazine it's "pretty hard to argue" that his administration's strategy over the last three years "has put America in a stronger position than it was when we ... came into office." Do you agree? What have been this administration's biggest national security achievements? What needs work? What should be this administration's national security priorities for the coming year?

10 responses: Michael Brenner, Eric Farnsworth, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, Paul Sullivan, Michael Brenner, Eric Farnsworth, James Jay Carafano, Michael Brenner, Joseph J. Collins

A new round of proposed sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and oil exports to Europe have caused a devaluation of the Iranian currency and a sharp spike in inflation, provoking Iran to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz and choke off 20 percent of the world's oil supply. Meanwhile, another Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated this week in what is increasingly looking like an undeclared, covert war between Iran and US ally Israel, even as Iran announced a new uranium enrichment site at a heavily-defended and buried nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom. Will these growing pressures and tensions eventually lead to an outright military conflict between Iran and the U.S. or its allies? If such a conflict starts, should the U.S. use it as an opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear complex militarily to set back its suspected nuclear weapons program? How likely is it that the pressures will finally prove strong enough to force Iran to negotiate away its nuclear weapons program?

5 responses: Col. W. Patrick Lang, Paul Sullivan, Robert Baer, Michael Brenner, James Jay Carafano

President Obama's new defense strategy moves the Pentagon beyond Cold War-era ground wars and post-9/11 counterinsurgencies and into an envisioned era of joint air and naval conflicts with nations like Iran or China, and perpetual readiness to attack global terrorism with flexible and futuristic asymmetric capabilities. Doing so will require shifts and cuts in weapons procurement, significant cuts to the size of the Army and Marine Corps, and reducing Cold War-era programs like nuclear deterrence. What part of the review was most salient, and what was missing?

6 responses: Paul Sullivan, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, Michael Brenner, James Jay Carafano, Col. W. Patrick Lang