Robert Farley

Reactions to the NIE on the right seem to be of two broad flavors. On the one hand, Captain Ed argues that George W. Bush solved the Iran problem in 2003 by invading Iraq; Iran was thus deterred from further pursuing its nuclear program. This is rather an odd argument, given that a) over the […]

Via Brad, this sounds like something out of The Wire: The trick, he said, wasn’t to focus on eliminating drugs but rather to shut down the most “overt” drug markets, the ones operating so openly that they attracted prostitution and violent crime. “Instead of looking at it as a drug problem, we decided to think […]

Walter Pincus, via Defense Tech: The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, “digital outreach team” posting entries in Arabic on “influential” Arabic blogs to challenge misrepresentations of the United States and promote moderate views among Islamic youths in the hopes of steering them from terrorism. The department’s […]

There’s been some more activity by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Keith Winstanley, a Commander in the Royal Navy, suspects a terrorism connection: While vast sums of money are involved — ransoms can exceed £500,000 — Cdre Winstanley said that official concern had been expressed over intelligence reports that little of the money filtered […]

Paul‘s column got me to thinking about how certain match-ups would play in Kentucky. A bit of history: Bill Clinton won the state both times (probably with an assist from Ross Perot in both cases), Gore lost by 15 points in 2000, and Kerry lost by 20 points in 2004. The last is a pretty […]

A week and a half ago, David Axe of War is Boring decided to find out what was going on in Somalia. Since then he’s lost his job, started a riot at a local cinema, and learned a lot about what seems to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It doesn’t […]

The British and the Germans are in a spat about helicopter air support in Afghanistan. According to the British, German helicopters refused to continue supporting a combined British and Afghan formation in combat against the Taliban because… it was getting dark. “For us ze war is over by teatime, ja,” ran the headline in the […]

The Kagan and O’Hanlon silliness aside, the United States obviously has to do something to ensure that Pakistani nuclear weapons (and nuclear material) is secured in the event that the situation in Pakistan goes way far south. To that extent, thinking about lending some U.S. personnel to Pakistan for the specific task of maintaining the […]

Securing your nuclear weapons with the equivalent of a bicycle lock is pretty high on the list. I know that Scott Sagan has taught us that accidents are inevitable, no matter how good our procedures are, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I’m also a bit dismayed to learn that Royal Navy boomer commanders […]

Here’s a question; why does the Post bother to come up with the “$15,900 for a family of four” metric for the cost of the Iraq War? Why doesn’t it just say $4,000 per person? I’m not part of a family of four, but I’d still like my $4,000 back… I suspect that even the […]