Chuck Hagel's nomination as secretary of defense brought two old issues to the forefront -- the Iraq war and U.S.-Israeli relations. Beneath the ankle biting lies a significant competition over U.S. grand strategy.

Years ago, during the Reagan administration, I first heard an argument to invade Iraq and topple Saddam...

At the end of the Cold War, an American political consensus on the nature of the geostrategic environment dissolved along with the Soviet Union. A vigorous debate soon followed, but no consensus was reached. The events of 9/11 provided the next shock, and a new assessment of the geostrategic environment...

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of the State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The Second Amendment appears to have a plain meaning to the lay person. For most of American history the amendment has protected a state's...

Neither party stands for anything permanent. The parties have abandoned, adopted and traded principles in their lifetimes more so than most of us. As individuals, we can hold dear to our principles or hold dear to our party, but not both.

George Washington stated flatly that the parties are the...

While researching for a recent book, I was surprised how many times the idea of power balancing came up as a solution to a variety of problems. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Balancing is an important, perhaps the most important, component of governmental design as...

There's nothing new about politicians playing fast and loose with facts. The election behind us, I thought I'd reflect on the oft maligned and amorphous media, the public's primary source of political information. The old approach was to check facts before reporting them. The new approach is to allow advocates...

Monday's presidential debate focused on foreign policy. Rarely do such debates actually refer to a grand strategy, instead talking about crises and countries piecemeal. The audience is left to infer a strategy if there is one. Below, I'll first sketch out the strategy options and then attempt to place the...

Insider attacks and the election bring the war in Afghanistan to the front page again. There are calls to accelerate the drawdown and calls to stay the course. One argument for staying the course is to recall the extraordinary costs already expended. What will withdrawal say to those who served...

Promoting democracy has become justification for military intervention. In a previous article, I wrote about the democratic peace theory and the questionable empirical evidence cited to support it. In this article I focus on how the framers codified the theory in the U.S. Constitution and how those checks...

As the presidential election approaches, we are likely to hear both candidates claim to be "strong on defense." Sounds good. Given today's hyper-partisanship it's worth noting that there is broad-based public support for a strong defense establishment. The economy will almost certainly dominate the 2012 election, but national security will...

The notion of American exceptionalism has popped up in the last few election cycles. I thought I knew what it meant, but apparently it means quite different things to different people, including Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Chris Matthews. Whatever it means, apparently, if you don't...

Benjamin Netanyahu recently dismissed an unnamed American writer as setting "a new standard for human stupidity" for suggesting that a nuclear-armed Iran would make the Middle East more stable. I'm not sure which writer he's referring to, but I am aware of an article by Ken...

One of the weaknesses of the two-party system is that there are only two parties, and a multitude of disparate political factions must take sides if they are to participate in governance. Both parties once contained liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Like-minded people could reach across the aisle and form issue-specific...

Throughout its history the Soviet Union attempted to spread its political and economic system regionally and globally. Holding together the disparate Caucasus, Baltic, and Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics, defending Eastern European states, propping up client states like Cuba, and intervening in third-world insurgencies, led to its exhaustion and collapse....

American interests have long been extensive, but the number of interests justifying a military response has been on the rise. Identifying interests, threats to those interests, and counters to those threats is an important element of strategy formulation. The more interests, the greater the potential costs to defend them. Resources...

Recently, Representative Todd Akin, from my home state of Missouri, made national news by expressing his views on rape and abortion. He's not alone in his views, nor are his views limited to those issues. Quite the contrary. There are many other political figures whose sound bites show up as...

The current conflict in Syria deserves a critical examination on its own merits, but it also deserves examination as part of the larger post-Cold War trend that defines the current strategic environment. If anything characterizes the post-Cold War era, it's political instability -- a competition for the right to govern...

We use liberty and freedom pretty much interchangeably today. Freedom, as a concept, is rooted in northern Europe, originating in Germany. Freedom is a birthright of all. Liberty is rooted in the Roman and Greek slave states. Liberty is granted to the few and denied to the many. It's the...

In an earlier article I attempted to describe the change of strategy affected in Obama's first term. I limited myself to talk about the primary way in the ends-ways-means linkage of strategy, specifically drawing down the way of counterinsurgency and nation building and ramping up the way of counterterrorism and...

Presidents may be commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, but they do not command the departments and agencies of government, and they certainly don't command the nation. Presidents can only lead, and communication is a key component of leadership. Analogies between commanders and presidents can only go so far, but there...