In the three months since President Barack Obama released his first National Security Strategy (NSS), the news has been dominated by his responses to domestic problems—from the economy to the Gulf oil spill to more stimulus spending. And that focus on traditionally domestic issues is reflected in the 2010 National Security Strategy. At 34,314 words, the document is nearly twice as long as Bush’s 2006 edition (19,731 words) and nearly three times as long as Bush’s 2002 edition (12,745 words). The 2010 NSS is notable in that it dramatically changes …
According to Iran’s Fars news agency, Iran has obtained four S-300PT air-defense missile systems. Fars claimed that this report was first revealed last year by another news agency—one linked to Hezbollah—and that Iran never disputed the story. The report claimed that two of the four systems came from Belarus; details about the source of the other two systems were not provided and have not been reported elsewhere since the Fars claim. Belarus has denied any involvement in such a deal. In fact, the story begins well before last year. According …
Trust, but don’t bother to verify. That is the Obama Administration’s latest message about how the United States of America ought to manage the most fearsome weapons known to man. There are severe deficiencies in the New START arms control treaty. In particular, the means for verifying that Russia is actually in compliance with the provisions of the treaty are grossly inadequate. Recent testimony by an Obama Administration official on this issue is stunning: if Russia cheats, America won’t terribly mind because we’re in a “good position” anyway. On Tuesday, …
It was the dead of night. Police cordoned off the area and shooed away curious onlookers. When the townspeople awoke, the city square in Gori, Georgia—the birthplace of Joseph Stalin—was missing its most famous icon. Last night, Georgian authorities finally removed the 20-ft. bronze statue of the former Soviet dictator to the confines of a local museum. To most, the statue had been a painful daily reminder of darker days when the forces of communism gutted Georgian society and shrouded the region with tyranny. The statue had proven remarkably resilient …
