Strategika

Strategika Issue 56: The Defense of Europe

European Defense Please read a new essay by my colleague, Angelo M. Codevilla in Strategika. Europe was never a full partner in its own defense. The very question—Will Europe ever fully partner with the U.S., or will the European Union and NATO continue to downplay the necessity of military readiness?—is no longer meaningful as posed, because […]

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Strategika Issue 51: Nuclear Proliferation

Should More Nations Have Nukes? Please read a new essay by my colleague, Gordon G. Chang in Strategika. There is only one weapon that poses an existential threat to the United States, so why should America want other nations to possess it? The simple answer is that Washington’s nonproliferation policy, which once slowed the spread

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Two First Quarter Cheers For Trump’s Principled Realism

by Robert G. Kaufman//Strategika   Image credit: Poster Collection, US 05889, Hoover Institution Archives. The content and trajectory of Donald Trump’s foreign policy have defied the expectations of many of his supporters as well as his critics across the political spectrum. The President has moved a long way from his campaign positions of denigrating the

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Of Allies And Adversaries: Donald Trump’s Principled Realism

By Josef Joffe I. U.S. Doctrines from Washington to Obama Foreign policy doctrines are as American as apple pie, and as old as the Republic. Start with George Washington’s Farewell Address: The “great rule” in dealing with other nations was to extend “our commercial relations” and “to have with them as little political connection as

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Calculating The Risk Of Preventive War

by Max Boot Strategika The issue of “preemptive” war is more in the news now than at any time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The impetus, of course, is the rapid development of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, which will soon give Pyongyang the capability to hit any American city with a

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Preemptive Strikes and Preventive Wars: A Historian’s Perspective

By Barry Strauss Strategika Preventive wars and preemptive strikes are both risky business. A preventive war is a military, diplomatic, and strategic endeavor, aimed at an enemy whom one expects to grow so strong that delay would cause defeat. A preemptive strike is a military operation or series of operations to preempt an enemy’s ability

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Preemptive Strike Or Preventive War?

by Williamson Murray // Strategika   Image credit:Poster Collection, US 1696, Hoover Institution Archives. With the troubles bubbling over on the Korean Peninsula, as the North Korean regime approaches possession of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of striking the United States, two words, preemptive and preventive, have gained increasing currency. While similar in meaning, their

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“Pushing Back” Iran by Reuel Marc Gerecht Image credit:Poster Collection, US3436, Hoover Institution Archives. On both the left and the right, there is a consensus in Washington that the United States needs to “push back” against the Islamic Republic’s nefarious actions in the Levant, Iraq, and Yemen. The clerical regime largely controls the ground war

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Europe Is Still Ailing

Strategika by Bruce Thornton Tuesday, June 20, 2017 Image credit: Poster Collection, GE 2678, Hoover Institution Archives. Recent elections in France, the Netherlands, and Austria, in which Eurosceptic populist and patriotic parties did poorly in national elections, suggest to some that the EU is still strong despite Britain’s vote to leave the union. Yet the problems

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State of the European Union: God Bless the Bureaucrats

Strategika by Ralph Peters Tuesday, June 20, 2017 Image credit: Poster Collection, INT 294, Hoover Institution Archives. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, a normally astute talk-show host declared, gleefully, that “the European Union is dead.” One begged, and begs still, to differ. The EU is a bureaucratic monster that interferes absurdly with “the

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