The Obama administration began qualifying the President’s proposed timeline for beginning the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan almost immediately after his speech last week. Administration officials such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates have since then made it clear that the July 2011 date for beginning the drawdown is only a target. A closer reading of Obama’s speech suggests that Obama did not really commit to a withdrawal date, only to a date to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan.” This could mean anything because the extent and speed of the withdrawal remains unspecified.
{"title":"Will Obama Really Get Us out of Afghanistan in 2011","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8ST8065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8ST8065","url":null,"abstract":"The Obama administration began qualifying the President’s proposed timeline for beginning the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan almost immediately after his speech last week. Administration officials such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates have since then made it clear that the July 2011 date for beginning the drawdown is only a target. A closer reading of Obama’s speech suggests that Obama did not really commit to a withdrawal date, only to a date to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan.” This could mean anything because the extent and speed of the withdrawal remains unspecified.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"108 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-12-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115646968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Comparisons between the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam have grown stronger in recent weeks. While this concern has been raised, often with the buzzword quagmire, about every conflict since the end of the U.S. effort in Vietnam, it is not without reason that this is mentioned with regards to Afghanistan. It is hard to ignore the similarities between the two conflicts. In both cases, the U.S. got involved in a war far away for which there was no easily foreseeable resolution. Obama, like another Democratic president more than four decades ago, was convinced, to some extent by his own generals, that more troops would make the difference and drew the U.S. further into the conflict. The Vietnam War destroyed Johnson’s presidency and overshadowed some of his impressive accomplishments on domestic issues. Critics of the war in Afghanistan, many of whom are supporters of the current president, do not want to see the same thing happen to Obama.
{"title":"Obama's Unconvincing Argument That Afghanistan Is Not Vietnam","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8FJ2S53","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8FJ2S53","url":null,"abstract":"Comparisons between the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam have grown stronger in recent weeks. While this concern has been raised, often with the buzzword quagmire, about every conflict since the end of the U.S. effort in Vietnam, it is not without reason that this is mentioned with regards to Afghanistan. It is hard to ignore the similarities between the two conflicts. In both cases, the U.S. got involved in a war far away for which there was no easily foreseeable resolution. Obama, like another Democratic president more than four decades ago, was convinced, to some extent by his own generals, that more troops would make the difference and drew the U.S. further into the conflict. The Vietnam War destroyed Johnson’s presidency and overshadowed some of his impressive accomplishments on domestic issues. Critics of the war in Afghanistan, many of whom are supporters of the current president, do not want to see the same thing happen to Obama.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130854165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
President Obama’s decision about Afghanistan will likely be one of the most important ones he makes during his presidency and will almost certainly set the tone and the agenda for the rest of his time in office. The President has taken a long time on this decision. While it is possible that he simply cannot make up his mind, it is also possible that he is using this time to put all the pieces in place to support his decision. Whatever the president decides, whether it is withdrawal, adding 30,000-40,000 more troops or something in between, there will be a lot of political and logistical work that needs to be done. Doing this work, which, if Obama decides to send more troops, includes issues of moving soldiers and material to Afghanistan, determining what countries can be flown over and what cannot and what commitments can be expected by allies and other countries in the region, takes time and is better done in advance rather than once the decision is made and the policy is moving forward.
{"title":"Is Obama About to Make a Disastrous Mistake","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8Q248NK","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8Q248NK","url":null,"abstract":"President Obama’s decision about Afghanistan will likely be one of the most important ones he makes during his presidency and will almost certainly set the tone and the agenda for the rest of his time in office. The President has taken a long time on this decision. While it is possible that he simply cannot make up his mind, it is also possible that he is using this time to put all the pieces in place to support his decision. Whatever the president decides, whether it is withdrawal, adding 30,000-40,000 more troops or something in between, there will be a lot of political and logistical work that needs to be done. Doing this work, which, if Obama decides to send more troops, includes issues of moving soldiers and material to Afghanistan, determining what countries can be flown over and what cannot and what commitments can be expected by allies and other countries in the region, takes time and is better done in advance rather than once the decision is made and the policy is moving forward.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117263788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While in Asia, President Obama focused quite a bit on the U.S. relationship with China. This was wise and reflects the increasingly obvious reality that the U.S.-China relationship is, and almost certainly will remain for many years, our country’s most important bilateral relationship. Moreover, Obama’s Tokyo speech reflected the need for cooperation between the U.S. and China. “it is important to pursue pragmatic cooperation with China on issues of mutual concern — because no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century alone ...That is why we welcome China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage — a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility.” The Chinese and U.S. economies are deeply linked in a relationship that is the trade equivalent of being too big to fail. Similarly, nascent rivalries for influence and power around the world cannot be allowed to grow out of control. All of this occurs in the obvious, if downplayed by the administration, context of China as a country with very little political freedom and a record of widespread human rights abuses.
{"title":"The Two Futures of U.S. China Policy","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8DB8B7H","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8DB8B7H","url":null,"abstract":"While in Asia, President Obama focused quite a bit on the U.S. relationship with China. This was wise and reflects the increasingly obvious reality that the U.S.-China relationship is, and almost certainly will remain for many years, our country’s most important bilateral relationship. Moreover, Obama’s Tokyo speech reflected the need for cooperation between the U.S. and China. “it is important to pursue pragmatic cooperation with China on issues of mutual concern — because no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century alone ...That is why we welcome China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage — a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility.” The Chinese and U.S. economies are deeply linked in a relationship that is the trade equivalent of being too big to fail. Similarly, nascent rivalries for influence and power around the world cannot be allowed to grow out of control. All of this occurs in the obvious, if downplayed by the administration, context of China as a country with very little political freedom and a record of widespread human rights abuses.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126135867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Twenty years ago this week, the Berlin Wall was taken down ending the division of that city and, symbolically, Germany and all of Europe. Within two years of that event, the Soviet Union itself dissolved and the Cold War was over. These events were unimaginable even only a few years before they occurred. As late as the mid-1980s, it was assumed by most policy makers on both sides of the Cold War divide that the Cold War was going to go on for a long time, if not forever. While better relationships between the two sides and a softening of the repressive Communist regimes were viewed as achievable, the end of the Cold War itself, was not.
{"title":"Twenty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, How We Misremember the Cold War","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D84T6TRM","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D84T6TRM","url":null,"abstract":"Twenty years ago this week, the Berlin Wall was taken down ending the division of that city and, symbolically, Germany and all of Europe. Within two years of that event, the Soviet Union itself dissolved and the Cold War was over. These events were unimaginable even only a few years before they occurred. As late as the mid-1980s, it was assumed by most policy makers on both sides of the Cold War divide that the Cold War was going to go on for a long time, if not forever. While better relationships between the two sides and a softening of the repressive Communist regimes were viewed as achievable, the end of the Cold War itself, was not.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131132393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“I forbid you! I forbid you to go! I’m forbidding it! Is that what you do when I forbid you? I’m not going to be forbidding you a lot.” This is not something Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on her recent trip to Pakistan regarding efforts by the Pakistani government to combat terrorism, nor is it something she said to Bibi Netanyahu regarding settlements in the West Bank during her recent trip to Israel, but it might have been.
{"title":"Woody Allen and America's Declining Power to Persuade","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8BP0C68","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8BP0C68","url":null,"abstract":"“I forbid you! I forbid you to go! I’m forbidding it! Is that what you do when I forbid you? I’m not going to be forbidding you a lot.” This is not something Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on her recent trip to Pakistan regarding efforts by the Pakistani government to combat terrorism, nor is it something she said to Bibi Netanyahu regarding settlements in the West Bank during her recent trip to Israel, but it might have been.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132813205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
From Tallinn to Tbilisi, one of the most common criticisms of the Obama administration is that the U.S. is abandoning its new allies to Russia, and underestimating the threat Russia poses to these countries. This notion persists in spite of the efforts made by the current administration and Vice President Biden who has become, in the words of Nicholas Kulish, the “reassurer-in-chief,” to restate American support for these countries.
{"title":"Eastern Europe and the Obama Administration","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D83B68HQ","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D83B68HQ","url":null,"abstract":"From Tallinn to Tbilisi, one of the most common criticisms of the Obama administration is that the U.S. is abandoning its new allies to Russia, and underestimating the threat Russia poses to these countries. This notion persists in spite of the efforts made by the current administration and Vice President Biden who has become, in the words of Nicholas Kulish, the “reassurer-in-chief,” to restate American support for these countries.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123090121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It looks as if President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been convinced of the need for a runoff election against Abdullah Abdullah, scheduled for November 7th. Pressure for the runoff grew after the extent of election fraud in the election of August 20th became clear in the weeks following that election. Many observers believed that Karzai did not legitimately get the 50% of the vote necessary to win in the first round.
{"title":"The Downside to the Runoff in Afghanistan","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8XK8QX3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8XK8QX3","url":null,"abstract":"It looks as if President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been convinced of the need for a runoff election against Abdullah Abdullah, scheduled for November 7th. Pressure for the runoff grew after the extent of election fraud in the election of August 20th became clear in the weeks following that election. Many observers believed that Karzai did not legitimately get the 50% of the vote necessary to win in the first round.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"407 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131995379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Last July, on his way home from a trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Vice-President Joe Biden gave an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The interview, in which Biden described how Russia is weak, and how the U.S. “vastly underestimate(s) the hand that we hold” was widely understood in the U.S. as another gaffe by the gaffe-prone Biden. Biden’s remarks only qualify as a gaffe if we use Mike Kinsley’s definition of a gaffe as when a politician accidentally tells the truth.
去年7月，美国副总统拜登(Joe Biden)在结束对乌克兰和格鲁吉亚的访问回国途中接受了《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)的采访。在这次采访中，拜登描述了俄罗斯是多么的软弱，以及美国是如何“大大低估了我们所握的手”，这在美国被广泛认为是容易失态的拜登的又一次失态。如果我们使用迈克·金斯利(Mike Kinsley)对失态的定义，即政治家不小心说出了真相，拜登的言论才有资格被称为失态。
{"title":"Maybe U.S.-Russian 'Reset' Isn't About Iran","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D8M61VMG","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D8M61VMG","url":null,"abstract":"Last July, on his way home from a trip to Ukraine and Georgia, Vice-President Joe Biden gave an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The interview, in which Biden described how Russia is weak, and how the U.S. “vastly underestimate(s) the hand that we hold” was widely understood in the U.S. as another gaffe by the gaffe-prone Biden. Biden’s remarks only qualify as a gaffe if we use Mike Kinsley’s definition of a gaffe as when a politician accidentally tells the truth.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129675585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The missile defense system as initially proposed was presented by the Bush administration as a way to help protect American allies from any threat from Iran’s developing nuclear weapons program. Moscow, however, viewed the proposed deployment as further efforts by the U.S. to humiliate and surround Russia. Inevitably, missile defense became part of the range of disagreements, which also include Georgia and the South Caucasus, the Manas Air Force Base and, probably most importantly, NATO expansion, between the two countries.
{"title":"Changing Course on Missile Defense: Why Refusing to Pick a Fight with Moscow Is Not a Sign of Weakness","authors":"Lincoln A. Mitchell","doi":"10.7916/D80C5551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7916/D80C5551","url":null,"abstract":"The missile defense system as initially proposed was presented by the Bush administration as a way to help protect American allies from any threat from Iran’s developing nuclear weapons program. Moscow, however, viewed the proposed deployment as further efforts by the U.S. to humiliate and surround Russia. Inevitably, missile defense became part of the range of disagreements, which also include Georgia and the South Caucasus, the Manas Air Force Base and, probably most importantly, NATO expansion, between the two countries.","PeriodicalId":389468,"journal":{"name":"Faster Times","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126137952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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