Analysis

Victor Davis Hanson describes how President Trump’s unconventional approach to foreign policy has often proved to be more effective than the conventional wisdom proffered by the Washington establishment.

Trump and the Gordian Knot

Date of Publication: 05/10/2018

Description:

According to Jeff Colgan, Associate Prof at Brown University, ‘over the past 25 years, US foreign policy outcomes in the Middle East have gone from more or less acceptable to downright awful.’  Arguably, the most notable US foreign policy failure in the region was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but to this day, US success in the Middle East is further challenged by complex conflicts, including those in Afghanistan and Syria, and is also impacted by the presence of terrorist organizations within Middle Eastern states faced with instability. Due to undesirable and costly outcomes in the past, many in Washington DC have contemplated whether the US should withdraw from the Middle East. However, if the US were to withdraw, this decision could not only impact US national interests but also have security consequences for the Middle East.
 
On the 24th of September, the Department of War Studies and the Conflict, Security and Development Research Group welcomed Prof Colgan for his talk titled, Should the US Withdraw from the Middle East. But, before his talk, I met up with Prof Colgan and Dr Stacey Gutkowski, Senior Lecturer in the Dept of War Studies, for a general discussion on the headlining question posed by Prof. Colgan's talk. Let’s hear what they had to say.
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A recording of Jeff Colgan's talk at KCL will be available soon!
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This podcast was produced by Kirk Allen.

Podcast: Should the US withdraw from the Middle East?

This week saw multiple countries point the finger at Russia for a string of cyberattacks, prompting the often-asked question of what a Western response would look like. China also came under scrutiny after a Bloomberg Businessweek story claimed that China had successfully inserted chips in to hardware used by Apple and Amazon, effectively allowing security backdoors into the companies. To explain it all is Jim Lewis, the CSIS resident cyber expert. Hosted by Colm Quinn.
 (Read more at https://csis.org/podcasts/readout/week-spies)

A Week of Spies

Jonathan Landreth speaks with Kevin Rudd about China’s struggle to explain itself and its strict Internet censorship to young people around the world, about what China and the United States might do at this late date to work together on climate change abatement, and about what Americans should be thinking about vis-à-vis China as they head to the polls in the U.S. midterm elections.

Can China Win Global Hearts and Minds?

Writer Brendan O'Connor explains how the Proud Boys found their place at the feet of the Republican Party - offering violence in service of the right's political agenda, and acknowledging the ideological links between ruling class power and reactionary force that have always existed outside of the mainstream view, but are coalescing rapidly and openly as the current political system collapses.

Brendan wrote the article Boys to Men for The Baffler. 

https://thebaffler.com/latest/boys-to-men-oconnor

How the Proud Boys joined the Republican Party.

This Is Hell!