Robert Farley

WAGGING. Brad Plumer writes: If the United States government had a bigger Army at its disposal, it would view the military as the solution to an even greater number of foreign policy problems. As Madeline Albright once asked Colin Powell, “What’s the point in having this superb military you are always talking about if we […]

THE HYBRID OBJECTS. Last August, Hainah Levine wrote a four– part series about the Reliable Replacement Warhead program at Defense Tech. Long story short, there was supposed to be a competition between two labs for potential production of a new weapon, but in a move typical of the defense industry’s peculiar approach to capitalism, both […]

NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS. Brad Plumer links to a harrowing story about a narrowly avoided nuclear accident: The Project on Government Oversight says it has been told by knowledgeable experts that the warhead nearly detonated in 2005 because an unsafe amount of pressure was applied while it was being disassembled … An investigator for Project on Government […]

MOVES. Series of interesting personnel moves today… Juan Cole has a good take. The biggest shift in tone has to be the replacement of John Bolton with Zalmay Khalizad at the UN. Of Petraeus promotion and the shift of Admiral Fallon to CENTCOM I’m uncertain about. Petraeus is the only field commander whose prestige has […]

LIECHTENSTEINIAN EXPANSION. Why hasn’t the newly annointed “America’s best writer on foreign policy” yet commented on Liechtenstein’s expansionist tendencies? Modern measuring methods proved that Liechtenstein’s borders are 1.9km (1.2 miles) longer than previously thought. The border has been changed in some of the more remote corners of the mainly mountainous state, which has now grown […]

EXPERIMENT. To add to Scott’s able denunciation of Ken Pollack’s discussion of the “experiment” of leaving Iraq, it’s important to emphasize that anything the United States does from this point forward is an “experiment.” Those who denounce withdrawal plans as “assuming, asserting that there would not be any consequences from withdrawal in Iraq,” have to […]

CRUDE NUKES. J. at Armchair Generalist highlights this Foreign Policy article about the dangers posed by a crude nuclear device. Long story short, it’s not at all hard to construct a crude, cylinder atomic device, as long as you have the material. It can be fairly responded that “Yes, and if I had a Maserati […]

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. Matt has a point that bears emphasis. Among the wingnutty, the argument that restrictive rules of engagement are ruining Iraq has become all the rage. Now, it’s possible that rules of engagement for U.S. troops in Iraq are too strict, but the wingnuts have conspicuously failed to make their case. The methodology […]

THE IRAQI ARMY GAMBIT. Meanwhile, I would add to Spencer’s critique of Major Connable’s NYT op-ed (about the on-the-ground consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq) and note that the major’s account of the collapse of institutions upon U.S. redeployment leaves an unanswered question; if local institutions cannot survive without the presence of U.S. forces, […]

SPENCER: MAKING SENSE. I quite agree with Spencer’s argument that Iraq remains a minefield even for anti-war Dems. That the public supports withdrawal now doesn’t mean that they’ll support it in five or ten years time. I think that support for withdrawal is genuine, and likely larger than the polling has captured, if only because […]