Robert Farley

COOPERATIVE SECURITY LOCATIONS? The National Journal, via Jason Sigger: The recent House measure barring permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq won’t dampen the spirits of Adm. William Fallon, the Pentagon’s top commander in the Middle East. “We’re not looking for permanent bases,” he said in a July 27 interview. “Bases,” Fallon explained, “is a term […]

REVISITING AFGHANISTAN. The Rohde and Sanger NYT article on Afghanistan is becoming this week’s Pollack/O’Hanlon, except for the fact that it involves reporting and cites actual evidence. In addition to Scott, see Hilzoy, Dan Nexon, Dymaxion John, Dave Noon, and Matt. My own first reaction is here. Long story short, nothing in the NYT piece […]

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING? A couple of Russian Tu-95s (very rough equivalents of USAF B-52s) apparently buzzed Guam on Wednesday: A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. military base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday and “exchanged smiles” with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, head […]

POINTING OUT WHAT SHOULD BE PAINFULLY OBVIOUS… Via Drezner, William Buiter writes in the Financial Times: A pragmatic argument against criminalizing drugs is that criminalization creates vast rents and encourages criminal entrepreneurs to use violence, intimidation, bribery, extortion and corruption to extract these rents. Another pragmatic argument is that it is pointless to waste resources […]

NOT GOOD. It’s bad when one of our primary allies in Afghanistan has requested that our forces leave their sector: A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was […]

POLITICAL SCIENCE 203: INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. Adding to Matt’s commentary on the Daalder/Kagan Democracy League for America plan, it’s important to remember that the framers of the UN Charter included the Security Council for a reason. Apart from the problem of disagreements between democracies and the difficulty of determining what precisely constitutes democratic eligibility […]

ELECTRICITY IS IMPORTANT. Kingdaddy has a fantastic post about the electricity grid in Iraq. The electricity situation has not, according to all available evidence, improved in Iraq. Yet, electricity is absolutely essential to the functioning and growth of an industrial age economy. Given this, it’s hard to see how the enclave strategy (designed to produce […]

A NOTE OF INCAUTION. When we read reports of how Iran or Venezuela or China has managed to purchase some large number of Su-30s or some other advanced fighter aircraft, and then read about how the Su-30 has outfought the F-15 in exercises, it’s important to remember that technology isn’t determinative in military affairs, and […]

NEW FOCUS. John Noonan of Op-For, a graduate of VMI, has an interesting article in the Weekly Standard proposing that the math and science-heavy curriculum at the service academies should shift to one more friendly to the social sciences: An Army platoon leader would be better equipped to administer to tribes in Anbar province if […]

MORE WAZIRISTAN, FOR SOME REASON. To make my own belated contribution to the July 2007 TAPPED Waziristan Seminar, I think that my position would fall closest to Sam‘s. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the idea of bribing certain tribes along the Pakistani-Afghan border to try to track down and destroy elements of Al Qaeda, allowing, […]