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The Death of Robert McNamara
It is tough to know what do to with the passing of a man who was an architect of the Vietnam War — and who later expressed remorse for it. Three million Vietnamese died, and 60,000 Americans were killed in combat. Jonathan Schell’s piece in The Nation on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara…
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More on those pirates…
The Nation magazine (U.S.) has an interesting short read by Richard Pollak on the market incentives for just letting ocean piracy happen. As it turns out, it is far cheaper for shipping companies to do nothing than to protect their crews: No reliable statistics measure the annual cost of piracy, but one likely high estimate…
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The Nonprofit Newspaper?
Good reporting on U.S. foreign policy requires good reporting, period. As newspapers shrink and reporters get laid off, accurate American discourse about our actions in the world becomes less likely. The best (worst) example is Iraq. Even before the Obama Administration began, flagging public interest intersected with shrinking media budgets to result in Baghdad…
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McCain’s Simple Narrative
Last Wednesday, U.S. Senator John McCain gave a tough talk at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank. His topic was Afghanistan. His message was that the U.S. is losing the war. The situation in Afghanistan is nowhere near as dire as it was in Iraq just two years ago … But the…