The Obama administration’s response to the steady drumbeat of threats issuing from North Korea in recent weeks could not have been clearer. “The United States will, if needed, defend our allies and defend ourselves,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during his April 12 visit to South Korea. The American F-22 stealth fighter jets and nuclear-capable B-2 bombers that flew drills over South Korea in March and the two missile-defense ships that sidled up to South Korea earlier this month undoubtedly sent the same message. As a crisis management policy, that message was exactly right. As a strategic signal [...]
Even without the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon this week, it is unlikely that the visit of U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon to Moscow would have generated front-page news. But his meetings — including direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to whom Donilon handed over a personal letter from President Barack Obama — could end up being quite significant. After a year in which U.S.-Russia relations have deteriorated, Donilon’s visit, which had already been postponed twice, was intended to reverse this decline and break the deadlock created by disagreements over Syria and human rights. Unfortunately, Donilon arrived [...]
This week, Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy, addressed the future of U.S. grand strategy and suggested needed Defense Department reforms in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. Flournoy, who founded the Center for a New American Security before becoming senior adviser at the Boston Consulting Group, emphasized how the U.S. should exercise leadership on the world stage even as sequestration takes its toll on the Department of Defense. “Sequestration was the Sword of Damocles that was supposed to force everyone to get to a budget deal,” Flournoy said. “It was never supposed to [...]
