North America Archive

What future does the United States Army face? During eight years of operations in Iraq and 10 years in Afghanistan, the Army has shifted from being a force focused on high-intensity conventional operations to one more comfortable fighting a dispersed enemy intermingled with the population. However, operations are winding down in Iraq, and an endpoint seems to be nearing in Afghanistan. Armed with the collective experience developed in the War on Terror, how will the Army move forward to face new challenges and threats? The answers involve political and military considerations that may contradict each other. The fact that the […]

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring crude oil from the so-called oil sands in Canada’s Alberta province through an almost 2,000-mile pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast, has in many ways become ground zero in the U.S. debate over fossil fuels, the environment and climate change. But perhaps most relevant in the current row, though practically absent from the debate, is the increasing awareness that energy security must be included as part of the calculus in determining energy sources. Indeed, terminology such as “friendly” supplier — regularly applied to Canada in U.S. energy discussions — underscores what is […]

There is broad bipartisan agreement that few national security issues are as critical as how to deal with America’s crippling debt. Getting America’s fiscal house in order will require difficult budgetary choices. This means that we need to make smart decisions about what is most needed to safeguard U.S. national security in the 21st century. A close look at the Pentagon budget reveals numerous programs that are more suitable to defeating the Cold War-era Soviet Union than to addressing current security threats, such as weak and failing states, cyberattacks and nuclear terrorism. A particularly egregious example is the budget for […]

China has strongly condemned US plans for a $5.3bn upgrade to Taiwan’s US-built F-16s, calling it a “grave interference” in its internal affairs and threatened to undermine relations with the United States.

Ten years ago, the concept of “network-centric warfare” dominated U.S. military thinking and deployment. An outgrowth of work associated with the Revolution in Military Affairs, network-centric warfare envisioned a battle space in which information dominance and standoff killing power gave the U.S. military supremacy across the combat spectrum. Influential in doctrine and acquisitions, network-centric warfare offered the tempting promise of eliminating Carl von Clausewitz’ fog of war, making the battlefield legible and, for well-prepared U.S. forces, malleable. Platforms such as the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship and DDG-1000, the Army’s Future Combat System, and the F-35 multirole combat aircraft were envisioned […]

Since I was at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 and saw Flight 77 hit the building, the 10th anniversary of the attack naturally causes me to reflect on how much progress we have made in preventing another such cataclysm during the past decade as well as on the challenges that remain for preventing one in the future. Two issues immediately come to mind: further strengthening the Department of Homeland Security and considering how the United States might reduce the high level of anti-Americanism that persists in much of the world. The mere creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) […]

One thing I’d like add to my remarks from last Friday’s The World This Week program on France 24 has to do with the question, at the end of Part I, about the impact of Sept. 11 on America’s relationship to the world. To begin with, I usually find that particular discussion a bit reductionist. On one level, America’s collective reaction to Sept. 11 included a large dose of distrust and suspicion of a world that suddenly seemed very hostile and threatening. But on another level, I often find the portrayal of the barriers between America and the world to […]

I had the pleasure of participating in France 24’s panel discussion program, The World This Week, on Friday. The program focused on the impact of Sept. 11 on America and the world over the past decade. The other guests were Ahmed Rashid, Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey, the IHT’s Eric Pfanner, Nooshabeh Amiri and France 24’s Loick Berrou. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. I was especially struck by Eric Pfanner’s observation that this is the first Sept. 11 anniversary where we can consider its impact from the perspective of historic closure. The anniversary has already […]

The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has garnered America almost as much schadenfreude from the world as the original events did. Back in 2001, the line was that we had it coming to us for lording it over the world since the Cold War’s end. Today, it takes the form of writing off our alleged “hegemony” in light of the shifts in global power over the intervening decade, a claim that is as absurd the previous one was insulting. Naturally, the Chinese are celebrated as our presumed replacement. So, as always throughout our history as a superpower, […]

In thinking about the ways in which Sept. 11 and our responses to it changed America and the world, it’s important to remember that some of its impact, and perhaps the most historically significant aspects of that impact, may not have entirely emerged yet. In August 1945, for instance, while the advent of radar, jet technology and nuclear weapons were plainly evident, it would have been close to impossible to foresee the way in which the war effort, both domestically and in theater, would go on to inform the black civil rights movement and women’s liberation movement 20-25 years later. […]

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on the impact of Sept. 11 on U.S. foreign policy. Part I examined the militarization of U.S. foreign policy following Sept. 11. Part II examines ways to reverse this trend. After the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States should be contemplating a future of military restraint and foreign policy modesty. Moreover, with potentially painful cuts on the horizon for the Defense Department, the time has come for the armed forces to do less and for other agencies to pick up the slack. But that doesn’t appear to be […]

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on the impact of Sept. 11 on U.S. foreign policy. Part I examines the militarization of U.S. foreign policy following Sept. 11. Part II will examine ways to reverse this trend. On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the single deadliest terrorist attack in American history — the work, not of a foreign army, but of al-Qaida, a nonstate actor. The U.S. wasted little time in responding. The Taliban government in Afghanistan that had provided safe haven for the terrorist group was quickly deposed by a combination […]

In 1903, the novel “Riddle of the Sands” was published to great acclaim in the United Kingdom. Written by Erskine Childers, the novel told the story of a secret German invasion flotilla prepared to overrun Great Britain. The best of a large genre of “invasion literature” warning in dire terms of the threat that Kaiserine Germany posed to the British Empire, “Riddle of the Sands” apparently helped convince First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill to reposition the Royal Navy to northern bases, safe from German attack. In a paper presented at the 2011 American Political Science Association conference, Dr. […]

With Twitter revolutions, state-sponsored hacking and the Stuxnet virus driving rapid change in the cyber-age battlefield, this World Politics Review special report examines the state of cyber power through articles published in the past year. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or subscribe now. Cyber Power and Conflict Power in the 21st CenturyBy Joseph S. Nye, Jr.March 22, 2011 Evolutions in Asymmetric CyberpowerBy Chris C. Demchak April 19, 2011 Re-Categorizing Cyber ConflictBy Eric Sterner July 8, […]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured Latin America last month, stopping in Brazil, Colombia and Honduras. In an email interview, James Rochlin, a professor of political science at the University of British Colombia, discussed Canada-Latin America relations. WPR: What is the recent history of Canada’s diplomatic relations with Latin America (excluding Mexico)? James Rochlin: Canada began to look seriously at Latin America during the 1970s with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s “Third Option” policy, an attempt to diversify trade away from the United States when the United States first appeared to be facing a relative global decline. Canada joined the Organization […]