text:
Since the Russian incursion in Crimea at the end of February, a meme has been circulating among some national security commentators that Ukraine should have kept the nuclear arsenal it inherited following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most forceful proponent that Kiev would have been better off maintaining a nuclear deterrent was and is University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer. At the end of the Cold War, Mearsheimer argued in Foreign Affairs (pdf),
A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine… Ukraine cannot . . .
→ read more]]>
Since the Russian incursion in Crimea at the end of February, a meme has been circulating among some national security commentators that Ukraine should have kept the nuclear arsenal it inherited following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The most forceful proponent that Kiev would have been better off maintaining a nuclear deterrent was and is University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer. At the end of the Cold War, Mearsheimer argued in Foreign Affairs (pdf),
A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine… Ukraine cannot defend itself against a nuclear-armed Russia with conventional weapons, and no state, including the United States, is going to extend a meaningful security guarantee… Second, it is unlikely that Ukraine will transfer its remaining nuclear weapons to Russia, the state it fear most.
While the second argument was proved wrong shortly after he initially made it, Mearsheimer revisited the first argument in the aftermath of Moscow's move into Crimea. Writing in the New York Times, he asserted, "[Russia] could invade eastern Ukraine or annex Crimea, because Ukraine regrettably relinquished the nuclear arsenal it inherited when the Soviet Union broke up and thus has no counter to Russia's conventional superiority."
Several people have pushed back against this idea, noting that the counterfactual of a nuclear Ukraine needs to be analyzed not in the present, but going back to the beginning—essentially 1994, when, in this scenario, Kiev would have refused to adhere to the terms of the Budapest Memorandum. As these skeptics point out, Ukraine faced numerous political and economic problems in the immediate post-Soviet period. Leaving aside the problem of "loose nukes" falling into the hands of any number of bad actors, the political and economic instability would have made it difficult to develop the type of stable force posture necessary for an effective nuclear deterrent.
However, there seems to be a question missing from this discussion: would a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent have prevented Russia from taking Crimea? As with any counterfactual, it is impossible to say for certain, but there are reasons to suggest the answer is no. Assuming that the problems related to post-Soviet Ukraine's political and economic weakness did not prevent it from developing a stable force posture, there is still the problem of the stability-instability paradox.
Mearsheimer and other proponents of the nuclear Ukraine thesis subscribe to the well-founded idea that nuclear weapons will deter nuclear attack or large-scale conventional aggression against one's own territory or core interests. However, Russian operations in Crimea took neither form. Instead, Moscow inserted a small military force from its Crimean bases with Russian insignias removed and employed armed gangs to capture government buildings, commandeer television stations and other media outlets, harass individuals and groups loyal to the new Ukrainian government in Kiev, and to create the fait accompli that facilitated Russian annexation of the peninsula.
That is where the stability-instability paradox comes into play. As described by Robert Jervis, borrowing from his mentor, Glenn Snyder, the stability-instability paradox suggests that stability at the highest level of violence—either all out nuclear war or large-scale conventional war—can actually facilitate instability at lower levels of violence. Once again assuming Ukraine developed a stable deterrent posture, it is highly unlikely Moscow would risk nuclear retaliation against its cities to annex Crimea through large-scale military operations. However, by employing forces in the way it did—offering Vladimir Putin a fig leaf of plausible deniability—to create facts on the ground, the onus would have then been put on Kiev whether it would risk nuclear retaliation to attack Russia or Russian forces.
As with other versions of the nuclear Ukraine counterfactual, there is obviously no way to prove this argument true. Perhaps even the slightest risk of escalation that might reach the nuclear level would have been more than Putin was willing to tolerate. Moreover, it is possible that a nuclear arsenal would have negated the threat of large-scale Russian conventional intervention, thus making Kiev more willing to take action against Russian salami-slicing tactics in Crimea, and now Eastern Ukraine. However, it should make those certain that Ukraine should have retained, or developed, a nuclear arsenal pause before assuming it would have been the panacea they believe it would have been.
UPDATE: Steve Saideman also had a post on the stability-instability paradox yesterday at Duck of Minerva. He argues that it could actually work in favor of NATO in deterring Russian "salami-slicing" against more of its neighbors due to the risk of escalation. Well worth checking out.
UPDATE II: Jeffrey Lewis also wrote about the stability-instability paradox in a very similar vein to the way I did here at Foreign Policy back in March. His piece can be found here.]]>
First up, Tuesday at noon I had the pleasure of speaking at a Cato policy forum on our paper, "The End of Overkill?: Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy". The panel was moderated by Chris Preble and included myself, Ben, Dr. Hans Christensen of the Federation of American Scientists, and Elbridge . . .
→ read more]]>
First up, Tuesday at noon I had the pleasure of speaking at a Cato policy forum on our paper, "The End of Overkill?: Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy". The panel was moderated by Chris Preble and included myself, Ben, Dr. Hans Christensen of the Federation of American Scientists, and Elbridge Colby of the Center for Naval Analyses, who offered a critical perspective on our argument. It was a privilege to be able to share the stage with all of them. I'm generally a decent public speaker but I've never spoke in front of an audience that large, consisting of that many people, with that many more years of experience than I have, and with the whole thing broadcast on the internet. I can't pretend I wasn't just a little nervous, but the whole thing went off without a hitch. Perhaps the best part came at the luncheon after the event where we had a chance to discuss our paper with a couple of Air Force officials who, for obvious reasons, are not on board with our proposal, but who were also very willing to listen and engage us on the subject.
I want to thank Ben and Chris for putting this event together. The video of it can be found here.
The day before the forum, Chris Preble and I had an op-ed published at Defense One. Building off the argument in our paper, we knock the Navy for trying to exempt its next-generation ballistic missile submarine program—the SSBN(x)—from the pressure of sequestration. From our piece:
The Navy already is requesting $60 billion for the SSBN(x) as supplemental funding. At a recent hearing of the House Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, the Navy's director of undersea warfare, asked Congress for those funds and to exempt the SSBN(x) from the effects of sequestration. The plan to build twelve of the next-generation subs has quickly begun to eat away at the Navy's overall shipbuilding budget, with recent projections placing its total cost between $93 and $100 billion.
Instead of skirting the rules to find funds for the program, the Pentagon should look elsewhere within the nuclear arsenal for the money it needs. Eliminating the other two legs of the nuclear triad — intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, and nuclear bombers — would save American taxpayers around $20 billion a year. Part of the savings could be put toward replacing the Ohio-class subs.
The sea leg of the nuclear triad by itself is a more powerful deterrent than that possessed by nearly any other nation in the world. Russia retains a relatively large arsenal, but no other country is capable of deploying more than a few hundred nuclear warheads. A single Ohio-class submarine can carry up to 192.
The rest can be read here.
Blogging will probably continue to be sparse as I pass the halfway point of the fall semester and things begin to get even busier than usual (and with the government shutdown coming to an end, that means some upcoming travel for archival research). I do have a couple posts in the works so hopefully those will get finished… eventually.
As I made note of previously, blogging will be somewhat more sporadic than usual (if that's possible) as I slog through my final year of coursework and prepare for comps next fall. That said, I always manage to find a few minutes for my all-time favorite activity: shameless self-promotion!
Today marks the release of a paper I co-authored with Christopher Preble and Benjamin Friedman of the Cato Institute on American nuclear strategy. In the paper, we argue that a smaller nuclear arsenal will not hurt U.S. security and by shifting to a submarine-based monad, instead of the . . .
→ read more]]>
As I made note of previously, blogging will be somewhat more sporadic than usual (if that's possible) as I slog through my final year of coursework and prepare for comps next fall. That said, I always manage to find a few minutes for my all-time favorite activity: shameless self-promotion!
Today marks the release of a paper I co-authored with Christopher Preble and Benjamin Friedman of the Cato Institute on American nuclear strategy. In the paper, we argue that a smaller nuclear arsenal will not hurt U.S. security and by shifting to a submarine-based monad, instead of the current nuclear triad, American taxpayers can save approximately $20 billion a year.
Here is our executive summary:
US security does not require nearly 1,600 nuclear weapons deployed on a triad of systems—bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—to deliver them. A smaller arsenal deployed entirely on submarines would save roughly $20 billion annually while deterring attacks on the United States and its allies. A missile dyad is more politically feasible but saves less.
The triad grew from the military services' competition to meet the Soviet threat. The arguments for it arrived to rationalize its components. The public rationale was a second strike: a diversity of delivery systems insured the nuclear arsenal's survival against a Soviet preemptive attack. The more sophisticated rationale was a first strike: deterring Soviet aggression against European allies required the ability to preemptively destroy their nuclear forces.
Once competition between the Navy and Air Force diminished in the 1960s, they stopped denigrating each other's nuclear delivery systems and began arguing for the triad's necessity. That agreement prevented appreciation of the flaws in its justifications. The survivability argument exaggerated Soviet capability to threaten U.S. forces. The first-strike argument overlooked the accuracy gains allowing various weapons to destroy Soviet nuclear forces. And keeping the Soviet army out of Western Europe was never that hard; it did not require the ability to disarm their nuclear deterrent.
U.S. power today makes the case for the triad more dubious. Survivability is no longer a feasible justification. No U.S. adversary has the capability to destroy all U.S. ballistic submarines, let alone all three legs, and there would be time to adjust if that changed. Nuclear weapons are essentially irrelevant in actual U.S. wars, which are against insurgents and weak states without nuclear arsenals. Nuclear threats have a bigger role in hypothetical U.S. wars with nuclear-armed powers. But cases where the success of deterrence hinges on the U.S. capability to destroy enemy nuclear forces are far-fetched. In any case, U.S. submarines and conventional forces can destroy those forces. Even hawkish policies do not require a triad.
Nuclear weapons are no longer central to the identity or budget of the Air Force and Navy. Especially while austerity heightens competition for Pentagon resources, service leaders may see nuclear missions as red-headed step-children that take from true sons. That shift would facilitate major reductions in the nuclear arsenal, the elimination of at least one leg of the triad, and substantial savings.
The entire white paper can be found here. Thanks to Ben and Chris for bringing me in on this project with them.
Update: Chris Preble has a post at Cato's blog on the paper that offers more details on argument, as well as some information on the larger project the paper served. The post can be found here.
I do plan on continuing to blog throughout the semester, but it . . .
→ read more]]>
I do plan on continuing to blog throughout the semester, but it will probably be far less often than I would like. With that in mind, I thought I would close out the summer by sharing a small portion of what I will endure over the next twelve months with all two of my loyal readers (hi, dad!). Below is the reading list for my major field of study, the history of American foreign relations. The list is far from exhaustive, but my advisor, one of the top historians in the field, was pleased with what I put together and that's good enough for me. The list is heavily weighted toward the Cold War and the national security aspects of U.S. foreign policy since those are my areas of interest. However, the list does cover the length of American history back to the founding of the Republic and encompasses multiple approaches to the subject. Finally, all members of my exam committee suggested using a survey text to supplement the monographs on the list. I chose George C. Herring's From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776, which I would recommend for anyone interested in the subject who is looking for a (lengthy) overview.
So, without further ado, here is my American foreign relations reading list:
Immerman, Richard H. Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
McDougall, Walter A. Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World since 1776. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Rev. and enl. ed, A Delta Book. New York: Dell Pub.Co., 1962.
Maier, Charles S. Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Hixson, Walter L. The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Revolutionary Period and Early Republic
Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Gilbert, Felix. To the Farewell Address; Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy. Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Harper, John Lamberton. American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of U.S. Foreign Policy. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Kaplan, Lawrence S. Entangling Alliances with None: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Jefferson. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987.
Owsley, Frank Lawrence, and Gene A. Smith. Filibusters and Expansionists: Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, 1800-1821. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.
Parker, Richard Bordeaux. Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History, The Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Series. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
Stagg, J. C. A. Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Weeks, William Earl. John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1992.
Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny
Heidler, David Stephen, and Jeanne T. Heidler. Old Hickory's War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire. Louisiana pbk. ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right. 1st ed, [a Critical Issue]. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Greenberg, Amy S. Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire. Cambridge, UK ; New York,: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Graebner, Norman A. Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion. Reprint ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1983.
Emergence as a World Power
Ninkovich, Frank A. Global Dawn: The Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865-1890. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009.
LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898. 35th anniversary ed, Cornell Paperbacks. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998.
May, Ernest R. Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power. [New ed. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1991.
Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, Yale Historical Publications. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Offner, John L. An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, 1895-1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Welch, Richard E. Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
Hunt, Michael H. The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.
Beale, Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power. Johns Hopkins paperbacks ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
Beisner, Robert L. Twelve against Empire–the Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1992.
World War I and the Interwar Period
Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition: The Treaty Fight in Perspective. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Ambrosius, Lloyd E. Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations. 1st ed. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Knock, Thomas J. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
May, Ernest R. The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917, Harvard Historical Studies, V. 71. Cambridge,: Harvard University Press, 1959.
Cohen, Warren I. Empire without Tears: America's Foreign Relations, 1921-1933. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1987.
Langley, Lester D. The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934, Latin American Silhouettes. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2002.
Hogan, Michael J. Informal Entente: The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy, 1918-1928. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1991.
Leffler, Melvyn P. The Elusive Quest: America's Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919-1933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
Iriye, Akira. After Imperialism: The Search for a New Order in the Far East, 1921-1931. Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1990.
World War II
Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945: With a New Afterword. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Kimball, Warren F. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. 1st ed. New York: W. Morrow, 1997.
Casey, Steven. Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Stoler, Mark A. Allies in War: Britain and America against the Axis Powers, 1940-1945. London New York, NY: Hodder Arnold; Distributed in the United States of America by Oxford University Press, 2005.
Iriye, Akira. Power and Culture: The Japanese-American War, 1941-1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Alperovitz, Gar, and Sanho Tree. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1995.
Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan, Cambridge Essential Histories. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam: The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power. 2nd expanded ed. London ; Boulder, Colo.: Pluto Press, 1994.
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
Stoler, Mark A. Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Walker, J. Samuel. Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Cold War: Origins and Surveys
Costigliola, Frank. Roosevelt's Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
Miscamble, Wilson D. From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
Leffler, Melvyn P. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War, Stanford Nuclear Age Series. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992.
Yergin, Daniel. Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1990.
Craig, Campbell, and Sergey Radchenko. The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Leffler, Melvyn P. For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War. 1st ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007.
Craig, Campbell, and Fredrik Logevall. America's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
McCormick, Thomas J. America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After. 2nd ed, The American Moment. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995
LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
Cold War: Strategy, Diplomacy, and Crises
Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Friedberg, Aaron L. In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy, Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952, Studies in Economic History and Policy. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Trachtenberg, Marc. A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963, Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Kaplan, Lawrence S. NATO 1948: The Birth of the Transatlantic Alliance. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Bowie, Robert R., and Richard H. Immerman. Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Tudda, Chris. The Truth Is Our Weapon: The Rhetorical Diplomacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
Beschloss, Michael R. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963. 1st ed. New York, NY: Edward Burlingame Books, 1991.
Nash, Philip. The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957-1963. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
May, Ernest R., and Philip Zelikow. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Concise ed. New York: Norton, 2002.
Freedman, Lawrence. Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Garthoff, Raymond L. Detente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994.
Cold War: Asia and Latin America
Rabe, Stephen G. The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Brands, Hal. Latin America's Cold War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Grandin, Greg. The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. Updated ed. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
Cohen, Warren I., and Akira Iriye. The Great Powers in East Asia, 1953-1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Chang, Gordon H. Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972, Modern America. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Chen, Jian. Mao's China and the Cold War, The New Cold War History. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Schaller, Michael. The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Cold War: Hot Wars in Korea and Vietnam
Cumings, Bruce. The Origins of the Korean War. 2 vols, V. 1: Studies of the East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Foot, Rosemary. A Substitute for Victory: The Politics of Peacemaking at the Korean Armistice Talks, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Matray, James Irving. The Reluctant Crusade: American Foreign Policy in Korea, 1941-1950. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.
Stueck, William Whitney. Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Logevall, Fredrik. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2012.
Logevall, Fredrik. Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Chapman, Jessica M. Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Herring, George C. America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
Herring, George C. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. 1st ed, An Administrative History of the Johnson Presidency Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
Kimball, Jeffrey P. The Vietnam War Files: Uncovering the Secret History of Nixon-Era Strategy, Modern War Studies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
Decolonization and the Developing World
Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. 1st pbk. ed. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Latham, Michael E. The Right Kind of Revolution: Modernization, Development, and U.S. Foreign Policy from the Cold War to the Present, Cornell Paperbacks. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.
Rakove, Robert B. Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World.
Wawro, Geoffrey. Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
Jacobs, Matthew F. Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918-1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Yaqub, Salim. Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East, The New Cold War History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Gleijeses, Piero. Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976, Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Grubbs, Larry. Secular Missionaries: Americans and African Development in the 1960s. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.
Irwin, Ryan M. Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order, Oxford Studies in International History. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
McMahon, Robert J. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Cullather, Nick. The Hungry World: America's Cold War Battle against Poverty in Asia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Nuclear Weapons
Gavin, Francis J. Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Craig, Campbell. Destroying the Village: Eisenhower and Thermonuclear War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Jones, Matthew. After Hiroshima: The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Maddock, Shane J. Nuclear Apartheid: The Quest for American Atomic Supremacy from World War II to the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Intelligence and National Security
May, Ernest R. Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Matthias, Willard C. America's Strategic Blunders: Intelligence Analysis and National Security Policy, 1936-1991. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
Andrew, Christopher M. For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
Rudgers, David F. Creating the Secret State: The Origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943-1947. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
Troy, Thomas F. Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency, Aletheia Books. Frederick, Md.: Aletheia Books, 1981.
Smith, Bradley F. The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. And the Origins of the C.I.A. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
Immerman, Richard H. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. 1st ed, The Texas Pan American Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006.
Mitrovich, Gregory. Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000.
End of the Cold War and the New World Order
Sarotte, Mary, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, Princeton, 2009.
Garthoff, Raymond L. The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994.
Obama understandably doesn't want to get stuck in the Syrian morass. But he should understand that when the president of the United States makes threats and then fails to make good on them, that has consequences for America's dealings with the rest . . .
→ read more]]>
Obama understandably doesn't want to get stuck in the Syrian morass. But he should understand that when the president of the United States makes threats and then fails to make good on them, that has consequences for America's dealings with the rest of the world. It sends a message of irresolution that cunning predators like Putin can smell from half a world away. The result: Snowden will have an opportunity to upgrade his tastes from pizza and fried chicken to caviar and blinis.
Boot was more succinct in the tweet accompanying the link to his post: "Putin's decision to grant #Snowden amnesty show's he doesn't fear Obama's wrath."
In essence, he is relying on a largely discredited idea, "Past Action Theory," to describe how Putin estimates U.S. credibility in demanding the return of Mr. Snowden. However, credibility in international politics is not based on an assessment of prior commitments. It is based on a state's capabilities and the interests at stake in a given situation. As Daryl Press explains in his book Calculating Credibility, threats are credible when "backed by sufficient power and serve clear interests." He explains that two questions matter when leaders are determining credibility: "does our adversary have enough power to do what he threatens?" and "are the interests at stake large enough to justify the adversary's costs and risks?" (On the subject of U.S. credibility regarding Syria specifically, see Jonathan Mercer here and Press and Jennifer Lind here).
The United States certainly has the capability to coerce Russia in a variety of ways. But given the U.S. interest at stake, how does Boot think the Obama administration should express its "wrath" in order to induce Putin to return the wayward whistleblower? Coercive threats against Russia, in this case, are not credible because the interest at stake, Edward Snowden, is simply not worth the cost or risk of inflicting the type of punishment that might actually have an effect. Putin knows this and it's why he can momentarily thumb his nose at America by offering Snowden asylum. "[C]unning predators" like Putin calculate they can succeed on issues of minor interest because the costs of carrying out threats associated with stopping them outweigh the benefits of following through. He can claim a minor victory over a relatively minor issue while the United States retains clear and incontrovertible advantages in the means—namely, military power, economic vitality, and political prestige—to follow through on issues of far greater consequence than a high-profile extradition.
Moreover, drawing a causal link between U.S. military intervention in Syria and the extradition of a fugitive is simply mind-boggling. What signal would U.S. intervention in Syria have sent Russia about the consequences of not returning Mr. Snowden anyway? That America will support dissident groups seeking to overthrow Putin's regime? That Washington will establish a no-fly zone over Moscow? That the U.S. military will invade Russia and forcibly bring Snowden home to face trial?
I can only speculate on why Max Boot—and he is hardly the only one—doesn't care to understand how credibility actually works in international politics. It likely has less to do with being able to scare the Vladimir Putins of the world into giving up the next Edward Snowden, than it is about making sure, whenever there's a war somewhere in the world, the United States won't fail to get involved. Fortunately, he's wrong that nonintervention damages credibility. We can only hope that policymakers continue to ignore his advice.
While pessimistic estimates about America's ability to avoid a nuclear terrorist attack became something of a cottage industry following the September 11th attacks, a number of scholars in recent years have pushed back against this trend. Frank Gavin has put post-9/11 fears of nuclear terrorism into historical context (pdf) and argued against the prevailing alarmism. Anne Stenersen of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment has challenged the idea that al Qaeda was ever bound and determined to acquire a nuclear weapon. John Mueller ridiculed the notion of nuclear terrorism in his book Atomic Obsessions and highlighted the numerous steps a terrorist group would need to take—all of which would have to be successful—in order to procure, deliver, and detonate an atomic weapon. And in his excellent, and exceedingly even-handed, treatment of the subject, On Nuclear Terrorism, Michael Levi outlined the difficulties terrorists would face building their own nuclear weapon and discussed how a "system of systems" could be developed to interdict potential materials smuggled into the United States—citing a "Murphy's law of nuclear terrorism" that could possibly dissuade terrorists from even trying in the first place.
But what about the possibility that a rogue state could transfer a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group? That was ostensibly why the United States deposed Saddam Hussein's regime: fear he would turnover one of his hypothetical nuclear weapons for al Qaeda to use.
Enter into this discussion Keir Lieber and Daryl Press and their article in the most recent edition of International Security, "Why States Won't Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists." Lieber and Press have been writing on nuclear issues for just shy of a decade—doing innovative, if controversial work on American nuclear strategy. However, I believe this is their first venture into the debate over nuclear terrorism. And while others, such as Mueller, have argued that states are unlikely to transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists, this article is the first to tackle the subject with an empirical analysis.
The title of their article nicely sums up their argument: states will not turn over nuclear weapons terrorists. To back up this claim, Lieber and Press attack the idea that states will transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists because terrorists operate of absent a "return address." Based on an examination of attribution following conventional terrorist attacks, the authors conclude:
[N]either a terror group nor a state sponsor would remain anonymous after a nuclear attack. We draw this conclusion on the basis of four main findings. First, data on a decade of terrorist incidents reveal a strong positive relationship between the number of fatalities caused in a terror attack and the likelihood of attribution. Roughly three-quarters of the attacks that kill 100 people or more are traced back to the perpetrators. Second, attribution rates are far higher for attacks on the U.S. homeland or the territory of a major U.S. ally—97 percent (thirty-six of thirty-seven) for incidents that killed ten or more people. Third, tracing culpability from a guilty terrorist group back to its state sponsor is not likely to be difficult: few countries sponsor terrorism; few terrorist groups have state sponsors; each sponsor terrorist group has few sponsors (typically one); and only one country that sponsors terrorism, has nuclear weapons or enough fissile material to manufacture a weapon. In sum, attribution of nuclear terror incidents would be easier than is typically suggested, and passing weapons to terrorists would not offer countries escape from the constraints of deterrence.
From this analysis, Lieber and Press draw two major implications for U.S. foreign policy: claims that it is impossible to attribute nuclear terrorism to particular groups or potential states sponsors undermines deterrence; and fear of states transferring nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, by itself, does not justify extreme measures to prevent nuclear proliferation.
This is a key point. While there are other reasons nuclear proliferation is undesirable, fears of nuclear terrorism have been used to justify a wide-range of policies—up to, and including, military action. Put in its proper perspective however—given the difficulty in constructing and transporting a nuclear device and the improbability of state transfer—nuclear terrorism hardly warrants the type of exertions many alarmist assessments indicate it should.
Daniel Larison has a new post addressing a comment made by former President George W. Bush about how future historians will come to view his legacy. According to the former commander-in-chief, "I won't be around, because it will take a while for the objective historians to show up." Larison correctly notes that the historical profession has never been a fully objective enterprise. For instance, in That Noble Dream, his excellent study of the American historical profession and the role objectivity played in its development, Peter Novick traces the way "objective" history became a professional norm among historians . . .
→ read more]]>
Daniel Larison has a new post addressing a comment made by former President George W. Bush about how future historians will come to view his legacy. According to the former commander-in-chief, "I won't be around, because it will take a while for the objective historians to show up." Larison correctly notes that the historical profession has never been a fully objective enterprise. For instance, in That Noble Dream, his excellent study of the American historical profession and the role objectivity played in its development, Peter Novick traces the way "objective" history became a professional norm among historians as a means to assert their authority, but historical study was and is shaped by numerous cultural and political factors that shape how the past is interpreted.
In that sense, Larison, who himself has a PhD in history, is certainly correct—if too generous—when he says, "it may take a very long time for [objective historians] to appear on the scene." However, his conclusion that future historians are unlikely to be "more sympathetic" to the 43rd president than they are today is overstated for several reasons.
First, Larison's assertion that future historians will base their assessments of the Bush presidency on those accounts written today ignores the fact that new sources will become available in the coming years and decades that will affect how the administration's performance is viewed. Future historians, if they have any respect for their craft, will certainly take into account the prevailing negative view of the Bush administration. However, from these accounts, they will develop new arguments and interpretations based on newly available sources—particularly as documents are declassified and become available at the new George W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas.
Larison is correct that a recent wave of positive reassessments of the Bush administration come from political supporters, former officials, and ideological partisans looking to rehabilitate the administration's image to boost their own causes. But revisionism is not limited to supporters. One of the most important trends in the history of American foreign relations over the past three decades have been the positive reassessments of President Dwight Eisenhower's foreign policy. Long-viewed as an absentee president whose views on international affairs were wholly the product of his influential secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, historians in recent decades have come to find that Eisenhower was a fully-engaged commander-in-chief whose policymaking process helped shape almost all aspects of a grand strategy that underpinned American foreign policy for the remainder of the Cold War.
Which brings up the second reason Larison's conclusion may be overstated: history is not static—it is dynamic and how historians interpret the past changes based on a variety of different factors. As noted previously, new sources will provide new opportunities to reassess the performance of the Bush administration. As time puts some distance between historians and the Bush administration some of the animus currently directed at it will begin to wane. Changing political dynamics can change the way past events are viewed. For example, Novick discusses at length prevailing scholarship regarding the Civil War at the turn-of-the-century that whitewashed the Southern cause during a time when sectional reconciliation was a desirable political goal. In another sense, imagine a situation in which Iraq becomes a viable and thriving democracy [stop laughing, I said "imagine"…]. Historians would have to view the Bush administration's record, so dominated by its ill-conceived Mesopotamian adventure, in light of that development
There are also incentives within the historical profession itself to make bold, often contrarian arguments on any number of subjects. In a discussion of the Eisenhower revisionism mentioned above, prominent historian and Eisenhower scholar Richard Immerman noted, "Revisionism, of course, revisionism of anyone or anything, is on the agenda of many historians struggling to launch their careers." Two or three decades from now, up-and-coming historians looking to make a name for themselves might find challenging the prevailing negative assessment of the Bush administration a tempting—perhaps even career-making—opportunity. Even now, at least one prominent historian has already begun taking a dispassionate, if still critical, look at the administration's foreign policy. In a recent article in Diplomatic History, Melvyn Leffler draws upon memoirs of former Bush foreign policy officials and publicly available sources to arrive at a basic thesis about the motivations behind many of the administration's most controversial policies—concluding that a combination of guilt from September 11th and desire to prevent further attacks were what most animated the administration. The subsequent book Leffler—who served in the Carter administration and is hardly predisposed to agree with the Bush administration—is working on will serve as a baseline for future historians who will challenge and supplement its conclusions in a variety of ways, both negative and positive.
Moreover, as the Cato Institute's Gene Healy has noted on multiple occasions, historians studying the presidency most often reward those who expand the power of the office—a category of president to which W. would certainly belong. Discussing Bush's attempt to craft his legacy at the end of his second term, Healy wrote, "Asked how his presidency will be remembered, Bush typically insisted that 'history' will be the judge. He's right—and he's right as well that historians may be kinder to him than his abysmal approval ratings suggest."
To conclude, I largely agree with Larison that history is unlikely to look kindly upon the presidency—and particularly, the foreign policy—of George W. Bush. Given, the generally left-leaning orientation of most historians, and the academy's revulsion at the generally anti-intellectual posture of the former president, the idea that the Bush administration will be viewed with disfavor for some time to come certainly has merit. From a normative perspective, I also believe administration should be viewed unfavorably. However, this outcome is far from predetermined, and for several reasons related to the historical craft itself, the notion of a positive—or at least, more sympathetic—reappraisal of Mr. Bush cannot be dismissed entirely.
UPDATE: Larison offers a thoughtful response here.
While working on two consecutive multinational, military concept development campaigns (MNE7 and currently MCDC), I have spent much time doing research on cyber security, and particularly the strategic utility of cyberspace as it pertains to coercion.* After a whole lot of tinkering and neverending citation chases, I finally put out two working papers based on this work. They are companion pieces, so if you are into that kinda thing (being cyber security) I recommend reading them both.
The first working paper is titled Slaying Cyber Dragons: Competing Academic Approaches to Cyber Security. In simple terms this is a rather comprehensive literature review of the field of cyber security. Why do I need to read a literature review, you might ask. Well, as I discovered early on the academic field of cyber security is far from uniform. It is a fragmented field (if you can even call it a field) consisting of a hodgepodge of approaches and conceptual understandings. Heck, most scholars can not even agree on the meaning and implications of key terms such as cyberwar or cyberspace. Realizing this, I decided a good place to start making my own little contribution to this field would be to do a sort of epistemological sorting. While any kind of grouping or categorization would entail simplification and a certain degree of fuzziness, I have defined what I see as three distinct schools of thought on cyber security. They are: the Revolutionist, Traditionalist and Environmentalist schools of cyber security.
The Revolutionist school consists of some of the earliest texts on information warfare and cyber warfare, and they represent an expansive view of the role of technology in conflict. Thomas P. Rona and Roger C. Molander have written formative texts on the strategic potential of cyber operations, while John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt spent the 1990s discussing how the information revolution would change warfare, and perhaps even war itself, by marrying new technology with organization and doctrine. The idea was that information had become a material asset, so control over information while disrupting the opponent's information would achieve battlefield supremacy, and ultimately victory. These notions are the source of some of the most prevalent myths today regarding cyber security—namely the impending doom of a Cyber Pearl Harbor or Cyber 9/11. In a society where information and communication technology (ICT) runs everything, we have made ourselves extremely vulnerable. And since the core assumption in Revolutionist thinking is that offense has the advantage over the defense, we are in serious trouble.
Of course, not everyone believes this, and this is where the second school of thought comes in. The Traditionalists are the inevitable reaction to the expansive and poorly supported claims of the Revolutionists (or technically speaking their policymaking adherents the Alarmists). The most famous of these would be Thomas Rid, but many others have also voiced their skepticism about the "newness" and danger of cyberspace. Their main criticisms are two-fold: Revolutionist ideas of strategic information warfare and cyberwar lack any kind of empirical proof (show me the data!), and the ideas are both semantically and conceptually confused. In a nutshell, large-scale cyber attacks are not very easy to pull off (empirical issue), and even if they were they would not rise to the level of standalone warfare because they would not happen in a vacuum outside of political context.
The Revolutionists and Traditionalists have dominated the discourse on cyber security for quite some time now, but both sides make serious errors of analysis. While the Revolutionists offer little empirical data to support their claims (they are in fact doing concept development rather than empirical studies), the Traditionalists draw too many conclusions from a very limited data set. In other fields that could work, but cyberspace is not a static environment. It is in its nascent stage, and we do not fully understand its utility in relation to conflict. Therefore it is quite dangerous to draw inference and generalize based on a few very distinct, context-based events such as Estonia and Georgia.
So what are we to do? Well, there is a third school of cyber security that offers a better way of understanding cyberspace and its political and strategic utility. I call this the Environmentalist school. These texts are primarily interested in cyber power (either explicitly or implicitly), but they approach this issue through an environmental analysis (Rattray's chapter) of cyberspace. This means they approach cyberspace as a distinct environment or system and from there discuss any political or military implications (Traditionalists usually do the opposite, causing all sorts of conceptual confusion). By understanding cyberspace itself it is easier to deduce what kind of actions are possible to take, which in turn gives us a better understanding of cyberspace's impact on conflict. Alas, there is still much work to be done. The Environmentalist texts are not sufficiently systematic and often focus on one or two specific qualities of cyberspace, while ignoring others. Further more, some texts conflate cyberspace's defining characteristics with their security implications, confusing the issue of causality.
Now, this is where my second working paper comes in (yes, I'm being terribly modest here). It is called The limits of compulsory cyber power: Assessing ecological potential and restraints in the digital domain and tried to articulate a more systematic framework of analysis for the political utility of cyberspace. It approaches cyberspace as a distinct ecological system (not environmental) that consists of both a "terrain" and actors that influence each other (though it is primarily an issue of actors influencing the terrain). The best and most comprehensive way of understanding the utility of cyberspace is to define cyber power, and in this particular instance compulsory cyber power. But in order to do that, you first have to define cyberspace itself. This working paper does so by identifying and defining what I call the four defining characteristics of cyberspace. I spent a lot of time in the paper doing this, but the four characteristics are cyberspace's malleability, collapse of speed, networked nature and software and power diffusion. Having defined these I then discuss their resulting security implications and end up with a fairly nuanced picture of compulsory cyber power. I don't want to spoil the ending, but suffice it to say there are some quite significant limits to compulsory cyber power. Large-scale attacks can be achieved, but their effects are fleeting and more disruptive than destructive. Further more, despite the hype cyberspace still favors the great powers, though as the malleability of cyberspace tells us, much can change.
Obviously these two papers are not the final answer to the many problems vexing policymakers and academics over the past two decades. They offer up an approach to understanding the challenges ahead, but much work remains to be done. The very rudimentary model I propose does not measure the value of each variable; nor is it a probabilistic model for conflict involving cyber operations. More empirical testing is required (when that is possible), and the relationship between this technological system and politics remains woefully understudied. Perhaps for another time.
*MNE7 and its sequel MCDC are part of a concept development series led by the U.S. Joint Staff with participation by 16 countries and NATO ACT. I was part of the Norwegian delegation to both campaigns, focusing primarily on the cyber security components of them. MNE7 focused on security issues related to the global commons, while MCDC is focused on joint entry operations.
Those are all laudable goals, but there are several problems with this argument and two come to mind immediately:
1). Whom exactly will a joint U.S.-Russian missile defense system defend against? Tauscher and Ivanov never actually say. The centerpiece of the Obama administration's current missile defense plans—the part that has raised significant Russian ire—calls for protecting Europe from ballistic missile threats emanating from the Middle East. While not named specifically, this means Iran (though conceivably it could refer to Syria as well were it to develop ballistic missiles of sufficient range). Given that Russia has aided Iran's nuclear program in the past, and is currently aiding Bashir al-Assad's regime in defiance of U.S. wishes, why exactly would it be concerned with protecting against threats from either?
2). How will other nuclear powers respond to U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation? Yousaf Butt, a physicist at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, argues that, should the U.S. and Russia operate a joint missile defense system "An alienated China may build up its nuclear arms, and create a domino effect—with both India and Pakistan shoring up their nuclear arsenals in response." While it may not spark a "domino effect" of nuclear arms races, it is likely leaders in New Delhi, Islamabad, and Beijing would seize on U.S.-Russian cooperation to avoid being dragged into any proposed multilateral arms control talks. In the late 1960s, at the same time the U.S. and Soviet Union were attempting to convince their allies to agree to the proposed Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the superpowers were simultaneously deploying—or planning to deploy—missile defense systems. The Indian government, among others, seized on this to argue that the superpowers were taking measures to protect themselves while codifying the vulnerability of others in the NPT—a treaty New Delhi never signed. It would be easy to imagine China, India, or even Pakistan making similar arguments in response to arguments for future multilateral arms control arrangements—the kind the Obama administration will need should his disarmament aspirations ever come close to reality.
There are other issues as well, but ultimately, U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation is unlikely to happen at all. The U.S. does not wish to share its interceptor technology with the Russians, and Moscow will not agree to any cooperative arrangement that does not include "red button" control. Tauscher and Ivanov are correct when they say, "Today, Russians and Americans do not fear a nuclear attack from their Cold War rival." However, despite the end of Cold War, Washington and its former superpower rival continue to maintain separate—at times, conflicting—interests. No amount of missile defense cooperation will change that.
According to the rose-tinted perception of some draft nostalgics, conscription was an impediment to American military interventions in the past. For example, in a recent piece for Salon.com, David Sirota, argued that a return to the draft would be beneficial in this regard, quotes former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as saying, "[without a draft] wars remain an abstraction—a distant and unpleasant series of new items that does not affect (most people) personally." For their part, Eikenberry and Kennedy cite the twelve percent of American society that served in the military during World War II, compared to the .5 percent serving today, to demonstrate the degree to which this abstraction has spread.
The World War II analogy is largely irrelevant to this debate though because no one is talking about a society-wide mobilization for total war at the moment. Vietnam is still slightly misleading because today's wars are far less manpower intensive, but it provides a far more apt comparison than the largest war effort in American history. Despite the presence of the draft less than two percent of the U.S. population served in the Vietnam War. Of those who did serve, only twenty-five percent actually saw combat. As Meredith Lair demonstrates in her book Armed with Abundance, the majority of that 2.5 million who did serve in Vietnam—seventy-five percent—served in rear-echelon positions. This is not to denigrate the service of anyone who came remotely close to the warzone, but it reinforces the point that war will remain abstraction for the majority of the American people whether there is a draft or not because even with conscription only a small percentage of the population will ever experience the ravages of combat.
The main problem with misleading estimates of how many people actually experienced combat during the draft era is what draft nostalgics believe these numbers mean for American foreign policy. The use of the military as the primary tool of foreign policy is an understandable fear and the "era of persistent warfare" that Sirota describes in his piece is something that all Americans should be more wary of. That said, linking America's militarized foreign policy to the rise of the all-volunteer force is wholly inaccurate and ignores numerous other reasons why military operations have increased independent of the draft. For instance, in Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps, Aaron O'Connell—a professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy and a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps reserve—traces the militarization of American foreign policy to the rise of the Marines amphibious force-in-readiness in the 1950s and 1960s. According to O'Connell, during the Cold War, nuclear weapons made large-scale military interventions too risky, but the Marines offered a power projection capability on a smaller scale that kept it from provoking a large-scale Soviet response that might escalate to nuclear war. He argues, "The result over time was a steady blurring of the lines between war and peace, military operations and foreign relations… [The] force-in-readiness had become a principal military tool of American foreign relations and national defense." This process played itself out at the height of the Cold War-era draft, showing that the presence of a draft is a rather weak check against the militarization of foreign policy.
The problem with both Sirota's and, to a lesser extent, O'Connell's argument about the era of persistent war is that they both ignore the policies the military serves. Since the end of World War II, the United States has defined its security interests on a global scale. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been able to pursue those interests without the constraints imposed by superpower bipolarity. Eikenberry and Kennedy are quick to note the massive increase in military deployments since the military shifted to the all-volunteer force in 1973—144 military deployments since 1973 with only nineteen between 1945 and the end of the draft—but they fail to explain how many of those took place since the collapse of the Soviet Union removed the biggest impediment to American military action abroad. According to the same Congressional Research Service report they cite, of the 144 deployments since the end of conscription, 114 have come after the Soviet Union collapsed on Christmas Day 1992.
As long as Washington continues to define its security interests so broadly, and as long as there is no effective external check against America's ability to use force to pursue those interests, the military will remain the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy. Eikenberry and Kennedy worry about what effect tasks "beyond the traditional battlefield" will have on the military, but this expansion into civilian "'nation-building' initiatives like infrastructure projects and women's rights" results less from any civil-military gap than the expansive definition of America's own interests. As long as Washington defines reconstructing failed states among its national interests, the military will play a role if for no other reason than the civilians some would ostensibly prefer to see lead such efforts will require security the military is most likely to provide.
There is no surefire guard against persistent warfare or a militarized foreign policy other than adopting a narrower definition of American interests and maintaining the discipline to abide by it. Forcibly conscripting American citizens into the military will do little to nothing to alleviate these issues. Those expressing nostalgia for the draft-era do so only because their longing for the halcyon days of the past obscures their ability to accurately draw on it when offering solutions to present problems.


text:
I am proud of you for your courage and strength. I am saddened by what you had to endure and witness…stories so horrific that you could not even share them with your family. However, the tears you shed spoke volumes.
Thank you for your selfless and heroic service.
(my dad, Private First Class, WWII)

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Title: Carajillo (Jazzanova Remix) / A Go Go (DJ Muro Remix) / A Go Go (Boozoo Bajou Mix)
Cat No: CPT 082-1
Format: 12″ / Download
Quotes: 'Carajillo is a freeform Afro-beat affair, but it's 'A Go Go' that you'll be hearing – a jazzy, upbeat dancefloor groover. Muzik / …it flaunts tribal chants and jazzy grooves that slither down your spine and transform you into a groovin' love machine. Oh yeah. Jockey Slut / Embracing elements of music past and present seems to come as second nature to there three Germans who once again provide fluid and funky jazz for boppers. "A Go Go" is a classic, uptempo sample-led fusion of Latin percussion and '60's R'n'B grooves; this track will never fail to rock the dance. Straight No Chaser
Info: This E.P. kicks off with another superb remix from the guys of Jazzanova. The Berlin-based crew, who has delivered plenty of remixes with an almost unbelievable constant high quality in the past years, turns the track "Carajillo" upside down, adds extra flavour, and gives it the so beloved Jazzanova-twist. Watch out for a Jazzanova Remix album including all mixes between 1997 and 2000, coming soon on Jazzanova Compost Records (JCR). The first "A Go Go" remix is by DJ Muro, one of Japan's most popular and well-respected Hip Hop Producer / DJ's. In the past DJ Muro worked with several highly regarded U.S. Hip Hop musicians as e.g. Lord Finesse, A.G.. He also did a great remix for U.F.O, where he stepped into the fields of latin hip hop. His mix for the Trüby Trio is an up-speed version using the right samples to kick it. DJ Muro just released a longplayer called "Pan Rhythm: Flight No. 11154" on Savage! Records. The second remix of "A Go Go" is by Boozoo Bajou from the Stereo Deluxe Label, who already did some great remixes in the past, as e.g. for the Tosca track "Chocolat Elvis" and who reached international fame with their track "Night Over Manaus" (on the Glücklich III comp.). The two members of Boozoo Bajou are the sound scientists Peter Heider and DJ Florian Seyberth from Nürnberg, Germany. Their remix turns the original into a smooth and dubby downbeat version, perfect for some chillin' moments, and you may think 'this comes directly outta Vienna'. At the moment Boozoo Bajou are finishing their debut-album, and there is a new track in the pipeline called "Divers", which will be out soon on a 12" together with their friends from Lead The Bass. The Trüby Trio remix of "Food For Thought" by Kim Sanders made it to the pole position in the German Club Charts in week 9. They just gave a special treatment to "No Melody " by Turntable Rockers (aka Hausmarke and Thomilla of Fantastische 4). This will be out later this year on Four Music. The Trio is currently in the studio mixing the new DJ Kicks Mix CD for Studio K7. The CD will be out this summer, and of course it will come with a new exclusive track by them called "High Jazz" feat. Joseph Malik.


text:
Golden sandwich cookies filled with vanilla filling. You'll be asking yourself, "Are these really for dogs?"
Approximately 40 kcals per cookie
Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein (min.) - 4%
Crude Fat (min.) - 18%
Crude Fiber (max.) - 2%
Moisture (max.) - 10%
Customer Reviews
- Special Treat Review by Jennifer
My dog looks forward to one of these awesome cookies after dinner every night!!
(Posted on 12/20/13)
- love that they are all natural Review by brian
our peke loves 3 dogs treats and she is picky. will not even try most brands
(Posted on 11/1/13)
- Great Cookies! Review by Barb in OK
My dogs love ALL of the Three Dog Cookies!
NO...they may not be the healthiest treat...hense the name TREAT! I'd rather give them Three Dog Cookies that are made for dogs rather than cookies made for humans..with aren't healthy for humans! ;D
(Posted on 4/24/13)
- Disappointed Review by Change is NOT good
This "new and improved" model is like many things in the world today - another way for companies to make more money. I am very disappointed in my new delivery of my pets special cookies. Not only are the cookies smaller and more "commercial-looking" but the packaging goes from 16oz to now this 13oz size and pricing has gone up! Either keep it the same and raise the price or lower the price when you lower the product. Old and New cookies can be found cheaper from other suppliers online - I will go there from now on!
(Posted on 12/18/12)
- False Advertising Review by Disappointed
This is a basicly a 'human' cookie being sold as a dog cookie. Lots of 'sweetners.' Not my opinion of All Natural by any stretch of the words. If you want to share your dogs snacks, then this cookie is for you. I prefer not to feed my dog dried cane sugar, dextrose & corn syrup. My fault for not reading the ingredients prior to my purchase, I was sold by the nice packaging.
(Posted on 12/4/12)


text:
Eric Holder meets with black pastors regarding 2012 election
From: the Blaze.
Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri revealed on MSNBC Tuesday that lawyers from the ACLU, IRS administrators, and even Attorney General Eric Holder will soon be speaking with hundreds of pastors in the African-American community on how they can best comport themselves throughout the 2012 election.
"We will have representatives from nine denominations who actually pastor somewhere in the neighborhood of: about 10 million people," he said, "and we're going to first of all equip them with the information they need to know about: what they can say and what they cannot say in the church: that would violate their 501c3 status with the IRS." [Emphasis added]
While they won't specifically tell people whom to vote for, the respected speakers will discuss "draconian" (hint) voter identification laws, and the Congressional Black Caucus expects the move will only help the Obama's campaign.
[...]Reports have: noted: that Obama alienated members of the African American community after endorsing gay marriage and overseeing an increase of the African American unemployment rate to: roughly: 14% (nearly 35% for teenagers).
This is one of those curious things that confuse people about Christianity – the number of people who claim to be Christians but who are clearly not Christians in serious sense of the term. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an authentic Christian who votes in favor of partial birth abortion, the redefinition of marriage, subsidies for those who have babies out of wedlock, and increased economic dependence on a secular leftist state which is hostile to Christian evangelism and school choice.
For the record, I am a colored Protestant, and I have darker skin than Obama. I am a real Christian, and it doesn't matter to me what Obama looks like when I'm voting. I vote based on Christian convictions, not tribalism and racism. There is no support for redistribution of wealth from families to government in the Bible. On the contrary, there is support for private property and meaningful work and: private charity. It's up to each Christian to be informed and to vote accordingly.
Also see...
People don't like to talk about America's culture for the same reason that a man who just had a heart attack doesn't want to discuss the double bacon cheeseburger he's...Read More
Wintery Knight
Related Articles
Unbelievable! Obama Administration Tells Israel to "Exercise Restraint" in Search for Kidnapped American
If you are unaware, Muslim terrorists kidnapped three teens from Israel. The Israeli military identified the teens as Naftali Frenkel,
VIDEO: A Montage of Obama 'You Can Keep Your Insurance' Lies
This is devastating. New York Magazine compiled a video showing the many times that President Obama lied directly to the
Even Obama's Cook Is a Czar
The Romanovs are about to get crowded right out of the history books, as Comrade Obama appoints yet another Czar.


text:
Reviews For Wrangler Shorts GWS27 GR
5 star:
4 star:
3 star:
2 star:
1 star:
Average Customer Review
This Product:
Wrangler Shorts: Men's Clearwater GWS27 GR Grey Camo Ripstop Cargo Shorts
125 out of 125 people found this product review helpful.
LOVE these Wrangler Camo Shorts!...
By: MichiganMan
I have these Grey Wrangler Camo Shorts, and I also have them in the Brown color as well. I've never been disappointed with any of my Wrangler Brand clothes and these Grey Camo Shorts are great. They have excellent stitching and they still look great after 5 plus years. They Wash up very Nice, and they have lots of Pockets too, which is a big plus. This is the first time I've found these Grey Wrangler Camo Shorts since I bought mine, so I will be buying another pair. I think they are a very Sharp looking pair of Shorts, and I highly recommend them to anyone who likes the Camo style shorts!
Was this review helpful To you?


text:
CHESTNUT HILL, MA – The Iona College men's and women's swimming and diving program completed the Day One of the New England Catholic Invite and finished with three top-three performers.
Junior Justin Grigull took first in the men's 100-Free with an impressive time of 48.00.
Freshman Scott Martin placed third in the men's 1,000-Free with a time of 10:20.47. Senior Zachary Benoit picked up an eighth place finish at 10:47.52. Classmate Victoria Ponzo finished eighth in the 1,000-Free at 11:17.92.
Senior Chris Yacobacci finished fourth in the men's 200-IM at 2:01.52, with freshmen Vincent DiNapoli and Brandon Hadhazy finishing ninth and tenth, respectively.
In the women's 400-yard Medley Relay, juniors Maria Skeivys, Kerri-Anne Dodenhoff, Bridget Doughty, and freshman Mary Ellen Mangione finished in fourth place with a time of 4:09.13. In the men's Medley Relay, junior Tyler Elfert along with Hadhazy, Yacobacci and Grigull finished in third with a time of 3:38.97 just ahead of hosts Boston College.
Freshman Leigh Mussleman took fourth in the women's 200-IM at 2:16.13 and Mangione finished in sixth at 2:17.51.
The men's 200-Free squad finished in sixth place and the women's squad finished in seventh.
The Gaels will complete the New England Catholic Invite on Saturday afternoon.


text:
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC)- It was Wednesday that President Obama made an announcement that could lead to the most comprehensive gun control legislation in our country's history.
The President laid out 23 executive orders and encouraged Congress to reinstate portions of the gun control legislation that expired in 2004.
Both sides of the issue wasted no time speaking out.
A good number of his executive orders involved closing loopholes in the background check system and implementing more education in the school system, but now that action is being taken, the question is, will the gloves come off?
"From what I've seen, there are a lot of good points in there that are going to enhance the system," said Gary Schoenmann. Schoenmann owns American Gunsmith in Rochester and feels that the President may be on the right track.
"Is Washington taking the right steps in getting the ball rolling on this? Yes. Could it have been done differently in the past? Absolutely. I mean, state to state we could've taken this initiative before all these bad things happened," Schoenmann said.
Others that heard the news had similar opinions.
"I don't know what the answer is, I believe that we have a right to own guns," says Wayne Boe of Stewartville, "But I personally cannot understand why somebody needs an assault rifle or a 30-round clip."
There were worries about the encroachment of rights, but in the end saving lives is taking precedent.
"It's just something that needs to be done," says Jody Marshall of Stewartville, "but I don't want to take everybody's rights to have guns, either."
When it come down to it, it means keeping weapons out of the wrong hands.
"Will it impact my business? Quite possibly it could, depending on what happens there," Schoenmann said. "But the reality of it is I don't want kids killed, I don't want teenagers killed at theatres, nobody wants that. We need to do the right thing to make sure the wrong people can't get access."
While the executive orders can go into effect immediately, President Obama's recommendations will head to Congress, meaning the gun control battle is far from over.
All content © Copyright 2001 - 2014 WorldNow and KTTC, a Quincy station.
All Rights Reserved. For more information on this site, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service and Mobile Privacy Policy & Terms of Service.
Persons with disabilities who need assistance with issues relating to the content of this station's public inspection file should contact Administrative Assistant Jodi Neyens at (507) 280-5104. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, at 888-835-5322 (TTY) or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Next, you'll be asked to connect with Twitter. Rest assured, we will never send a tweet from your account
without your permission.
We will send you an email with an invite soon.
Had expected more. @pontifex's Twitter flock doubled from 2.5 million to 5.0 mil followers in 7 weeks http://t.co/lutvOHn7eH via @Telegraph
Atlas, the world's largest microscope at CERN, generates more data than all of Twitter does every day:
Check out @WSJ's revamped Popular Now module: 30% page views, 20% #Facebook, 20% #Twitter, 20% emailed, 10% comments
#Twitter shows how Tweets influence car-buying decisions in the US, in an infographic: @compete via @TwitterAds
See what's Trending Now for @rajunarisetti
Follow @rajunarisetti on Twitter


text:
Green Chili Stew
This typical New Mexican green chili stew is an easy and delicious addition to your weeknight dinner table.
Yield: Makes 4 servings
More From Sunset
Nutritional Information
Amount per serving
- Calories: 370
- Calories from fat: 29%
- Protein: 24g
- Fat: 12g
- Saturated fat: 2.8g
- Carbohydrate: 40g
- Fiber: 3.6g
- Sodium: 2393mg
- Cholesterol: 60mg
- 3 thin-skinned potatoes (about 1 1/2 lb. total), scrubbed
- 2 tomatoes (about 1/2 lb. total)
- 3 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1 can (7 oz.) diced green chilies
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound boneless smoked extra-lean pork chops
- 1 teaspoon salad oil
- Hot sauce
- 1. Cut potatoes into 1/2-inch pieces. Core and chop tomatoes. In a 5- to 6-quart pan, combine potatoes, tomatoes, broth, chilies, and garlic. Bring to a boil over high heat; cover, reduce heat, and simmer until potatoes are tender when pierced, 12 to 15 minutes.
- 2. While potatoes simmer, trim off and discard excess fat from pork. Cut pork crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide strips, then cut strips in half. To a 10- to 12-inch nonstick frying pan, add oil and pork; cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until pork is lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat; set aside.
- 3. When potatoes are tender, stir in pork; simmer just long enough to warm meat through, about 2 minutes. Add 1 or 2 drops of hot sauce, if desired.
This stew from Stella Perea of Corrales, New Mexico, is typical of native New Mexican dishes. Perea, who grew up in New Mexico, owns Perea's restaurant, where she serves items such as blue-corn enchiladas and vegetarian tamales. This recipe was handed down from her grandmother. Perea uses lean pork or round steak--we substituted smoked pork because we like its flavor and, since it's cooked, it saves time. She serves the quick chili stew as a meal on its own with her homemade tortillas or adds pinto beans and Spanish rice as accompaniments.
My Notes
Only you will be able to view, print, and edit this note.Add Note
Green Chili Stew Recipe at a Glance
- COURSE: Soups/Stews
- CONVENIENCE: Entertaining, Quick/Easy
- CUISINE: Southwest
- MAIN INGREDIENT: Pork
- PUBLICATION: Sunset
More Recipes Like This
Smoky Green Chile-Cheddar Cheese with Avocado-Mango SalsaSouthern Living
Vegetable Chili with PolentaReal Simple
Chicken Green Chili with White BeansCooking Light
Find out what we've got cooking...
Get our Free Weekly Specials Newsletter filled with our favorite recipes, seasonal menus, and special features.
We Respect Your Privacy. Privacy Policy


text:
Great grocery store and lunch stopPosted on 08 / 21 / 2013
I go here all the time to buy groceries-- the produce is very fresh and inexpensive. There is also a wide selection of spices and grains for low prices.
The food bar is very cheap and has a cold and hot side with many vegan choices. the sesame tofu is the best. their juices are also good-- i like the kale the best.
Two warnings-- the food bar takes cash only and is cold, so bring a sweater.Pros: cheap eats and groceries, fresh groceries, many choices
Cons: cold, does have extensive meat and fish area, crowded checkout


text:
Mark Ronson, featuring Adele: "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face" w/ Daniel Merriweather, "Stop Me", w/ Amy Winehouse, "Valerie".
(Source: brokemogul, via whatevernevermind)
Amy Winehouse - "You Know I'm No Good"
Amy Winehouse exploded in 2007 with her release Back to Black, produced by British DJ Mark Ronson. Ronson took Winehouse's soulful vocals and matched them with Sharon Jones' backing band, the Dap-Kings to create a sound that revived British R&B. This track showcases that sound in all its glory, with its skittering drums and horn bursts. Though she has self-destructed in recent years, this record keeps fans hoping for a follow-up.


text:
Forgot Password? | Not a User? Sign up
Your browser does not support iframes.
The Shelby County Fiscal Court will consider a variety of items when they meet Tuesday night, including approving the Goals and Objectives of the county's updated Comprehensive Plan.
The G&Os comes before the fiscal court after two workshops to refine the plan to fit the wishes of the magistrates and County Judge Executive Rob Rothenburger, who met with Triple S Planning and Zoning Executive Director Ryan Libke on those occasions.
The revenue shortfall that is causing so many problems for the United States Postal Service has delivered some bad news in Shelbyville.
The Shelbyville Post Office will but curtailing its hours as part of its effort to help the agency absorb about $7 billion in lost revenue.
Employees and volunteers at the Shelby County Humane Society are always helping out animals in need in the county. But when flood waters filled the Metro Animal Services shelter in Louisville last Tuesday, they went out of their way to lend a helping hand.
Several people took supplies to Louisville and helped care for the animals, which had been relocated to the fairgrounds, said Nancy Guilliom, volunteer coordinator for the Shelby County Humane Society.
The parties have ended, the food is gone and the show is over until next year, but attendees say the 20th annual Shelbyville Horse Show was a show fitting the anniversary.
Officials say it was one of the best crowds ever for a show that attracts people from all over the country.
Pam Ray, president of the board of directors for the Shelbyville Horse Show, said Friday and Saturday brought some of the biggest daily crowds the show has ever had.
"We've never used as many bracelets as we did on Saturday," Ray said.
A toddler was found wandering in the middle of Mount Eden Road early Friday morning.
The child, approximately 2-3 years old, was walking in the middle of the roadway on the bridge next to the I-64 ramps around 3 a.m., according to Chevron employees.
A truck driver traveling down the road saw the toddler and stopped his truck in the middle of the road, in order to block traffic to keep the child from being struck a car, said Lori Witt, an employee at the nearby Chevron Station.
The truck driver brought the child into the station and called police.
Toddler found wandering at night in road 3-year-boy rescued by trucker By Lisa King/Sentinel-News staff writer
A toddler found walking out in the middle of Mount Eden Road at 3 a.m. has been reunited unharmed with his parents.
Three-year-old Jonathan Purvis had apparently gotten up in the middle of the night and somehow unlocked the front door of his home and walked outside, unknown to his parents, who were sound asleep, Shelby County Sheriff Mike Armstrong said.
Normal 0 0 1 457 2609 21 5 3204
The Shelby County School Board approved on Thursday new tax rates for the year 2009-2010 following a brief public hearing in which one citizen voiced his concerns on the proposed increase.
As a 1982 SCHS graduate and longtime Shelby County resident, Terry Johnson told the board that the county's school taxes are already among the highest in state – as much as a quarter more than many surrounding counties.
Seeking more revenue to keep up with the growth of county schools, the Shelby County Board of Education will consider raising the 2009 school property tax at its meeting Thursday at Wright Elementary, but not until it holds a public hearing at the meeting's 7 p.m. start.
The proposal is for an increase to 66.6 cents on real property and 66.6 cents on personal property. The revenue produced by such rates would be around $19.4 million, a 6 percent increase from 2008.
Normal 0 0 1 626 3572 29 7 4386
Copyright © 2014
The Sentinel-News is your source for local news, sports, events and information in Shelby County and Shelbyville, KY, and the surrounding area.


text:
The Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets are halfway to history after being down 3-0 in their conference quarterfinals series. Boston avoided elimination last night by downing the Knicks 92-86 in Game Five at Madison Square Garden. And Houston beat Oklahoma City 107-to-100. Both the Rockets and Celtics will try to force a Game Seven tomorrow night at home. And Indiana last night rolled past Atlanta 106-to-83 with the win giving the Pacers a 3-to-2 series lead
Scott Obrien 12:00 AM - 1:00 AM
On Air Now.


text:
The Top Three Body Weight Exercises for Female Obstacle Racers: Part 2 of 3 – Reverse Bear Crawl
by Joe DiStefano, co-founder of Spartan Coaching
Click here for Part I: Bowler Squat
Because what woman doesn't want a stronger upper body and tighter core!?
Regardless of your own gender, you may have noticed that when compared to men, women have several distinct differences in the ways their bodies are designed. The largest differences clearly relate to pregnancy and child birth and include a larger percentage of body mass being carried below the midsection and the increased Q-angles and anterior (forward leaning) pelvic tilt discussed in my previous post. Last time, we also discussed a propensity for females to do more things, like wearing high heels, which tend to exacerbate these genetic disadvantages even further. For these reasons, women typically need to focus a lot more on upper body strength and core stabilization and when it comes to training for a Spartan Race, cranking out sit ups and triceps pushdowns are not going to cut it.
Holding a stable, quadruped "Bear" position requires both upper body strength and core stabilization in itself, throw in moving backwards and a need for significantly more dynamic neuromuscular control and strength is added to the exercise. In addition, the Reverse Bear Crawl also works the type of contralataral coordination (moving the opposing leg and arm in a unison) necessary for more efficient running, confidently climbing cargo nets, and effortlessly crawling under barbed wire.
The Reverse Bear Crawl requires alternating "shoulder presses" over an active and reflexively stabilized core. During this exercise, the hips and core are continuously alternating between stabilizing one hip while mobilizing on the other, exactly the way they do in sprinting, hiking, throwing, or most other athletic maneuvers. This type of function and reflex is what we need most in obstacle racing and is something a habitual reliance on traditional standing, or [worse] a seated overhead shoulder press simply does not give you. I should mention that I am by no means saying "Old school" shoulder pressing does not have it's place or is something we want to eliminate entirely, however, substituting or adding reverse bear crawls into a program that does not currently have them is going to add significant benefit to your "injury-proofing" and overall Spartan Race performance.
Finally, the Reverse Bear Crawl allows you to give your body a break from constant straight bar or dumbbell training, which is going to lower the risk of rotator cuff issues. The Reverse Bear Crawl is going to change the angle of the "press" to a more advantageous one relative to training proper scapular upward rotation, something many of us lack due to our widespread degrees of keyboard crunching postures. For more information on dysfunctional shoulders and assessing their risk for injury, check out my third installment of the "Top 5 Benefits of Alternative Locomotion" found here.
Tags: Spartan Coaches, spartan training


text:
Local News
News Archive
� Wesley College Football
� High School Football
� Sean's Pigskin Picks
� UD In-Game Updates
Program Schedule
Morning & Afternoon News
Al Mascitti
Allan Loudell
Rick Jensen
Clark Howard
The Money Pit
Motley Fool Money
Real Estate Today
The IRA Guys
Financing Your Future
On The Money
Pathways to Service
Into Tomorrow
Cigar Dave
Kid Correspondents
Brew Review
Tower Cam
WDEL Social Media
Checkered Flag Challenge
Dave Ross
DE Theater Spotlight
Athlete of the Week
Pets of the Week
Gas Prices
Lottery Results
Box Office Report
Flight Tracker
WDEL Events
Community Events
Members Only Group
WDEL Text Alerts
Advertise on WDEL
Contest Rules
Driving Directions
EEO Statement
Privacy Policy
Recommended Businesses
Speakers Team
Terms of Use
WDEL Blog: Allan Loudell
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
"Jump-out squads" (by another name) the answer for the City of Wilmington?
In perhaps the worst-kept secret of the new city administration, Wilmington's new Police Chief Christine Dunning confirms so-called "Jump-out squads" will return, albeit by another name, and their use won't be indiscriminate.
The police chief gave a presumably more in-depth briefing to Wilmington City Council members meeting in executive session behind closed doors, although Councilman Michael Brown Senior appears to have invoked that executive session without the required formal vote.
Certainly, Jump-out squads are no panacea, but it'll be interesting to see if they have a discernable impact in curbing the city's gun violence. (Although they risk some bloody confrontations, which may account for why the Fraternal Order of Police awaits details.)
They also could just have the effect of Whac-A-Mole, just shifting the violence to other neighborhoods.
Posted at 7:12am on February 13, 2013 by Allan Loudell
<- Back to all Allan Loudell posts
Comments on this post:
Wed, Feb 13, 2013 2:17pm
Yes, as one of Delaware's best bloggers just posted, they should be called... "Citizen's Response Team."
Wed, Feb 13, 2013 11:10pm
More on the Citizen's Response Team, formerly known as "Jump-Out Squads."
I believe Jump-Out Squads was termed in a press conference by either an early Baker appointee, or one of Sills. The name is amateurish and doesn't reflect their purpose. Citizen's Response Team lets everyone know a citizen called in to report a gathering and the police are responding allegedly to that call.
Jump-Out Squad sounds intimidating and although that may be good to scare criminals (it doesn't), it also points out the reality that residents are powerless as well. They are powerless against the criminals; they are powerless against the justice system.
Both Williams and Dunning know this.
The idea that needs to be conveyed and a Citizens Response Team does it well, is that neighbors are policing the community themselves. The police are an arm of the neighborhood, and not an oppressive power that everyone sighs relief over when they move on to the next street.
Most likely the name "Jump-Out Squad" will remain the term. But as an official name, and to convey that the police are not oppressors but the effective arm called in by those residents on that street, the name "Citizen's Response Team" CRT's does nicely.
I can remember back during the war in Bosnia when we were working with the Russians in joint exercises. They were so impressed that we could be on the ground and call in an airstrike or helicopter that could be there in minutes to take out a structure.
Imagine if little old ladies peeking down through chiffon curtains on the second floor row home, could do the same?
Thu, Feb 14, 2013 8:11pm
Jump-out sounds good to me!
Add your comment:
In an attempt to promote a level of civility and personal responsibility in blog discussions, we now require you to be a member of the WDEL Members Only Group in order to post a comment. Your Members Only Group username and password are required to process your post.
You can join the WDEL Members Only Group for free by
clicking here
If you are already a member but have forgotten your username or password, please
click here
Please register your post with your WDEL Members Only Group username and password below.
Copyright © 2014,
Delmarva Broadcasting Company
. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use.
WDEL Statement of Equal Employment Opportunity and Outreach


text:
English | 日本語
10 TWEETS How to Send Anything to Your Kindle for Later Reading
So you've loaded up your Kindle with free books, but you have a few other non-book documents you'd like to read on it. Here are some easy ways to send any web article, PDF, or document straight to your Kindle (or smartphone with the Kindle app). 2 years ago
About Tweetbuzz
Tweetbuzz spotlights the hottest stories from Twitter.
At this moment, the must-read stories in the popular links are scattered across millions of news sites and blogs. That's far too much for any reader to follow.
Top Stories Right Now(Technology)
Top Stories Right Now(ライフハッカー[日本版]|仕)
Top Stories from Yesterday


text:
Roll-N-Go Cosmetic Bag
Sale Price: $14.95
List Price:
You Save: $5.00 25% off
Roll-N-Go Cosmetic Bag is your best travel buddy for cosmetics and toiletries. The Roll and Go makeup organizer bag holds everything in separate compartments. With 4 spacious zippered compartments, Roll-N-Go as seen on TV can hold and store cosmetics, toiletries, jewelry and more. This compact yet roomy cosmetic and toiletry bag stores easily and made with a convenient hanging loop. Wipes clean. Polyester. Rolled up measures 10 x 4 ½ x 5 ½. Rolled out measures 10 x 20.


text:
Lawn Mower on Fire
"Dad! There's something wrong with the mower!"
(Source: College Humor)
oh fuck… that shit must of exploded!
Now there's your problem
Hahaha! Flames!
I hate choirs… 'nuf said
The CollegeHumor Staff Blog is the official Tumblr of CollegeHumor.com's staff. Here you can find regular updates from some folks with way too much time on their hands, plus the best and newest pictures, original comedy, links, articles and videos from CollegeHumor.com.
Send us all the funny! Submit stuff to CH's Tumblr


text:
He tricked them… the doctor tricked them… they're looking at each other.. they're never gonna move again.
this episode AHMAHGAD.
This part was creepy, sad, and discomforting all at the same time.
Just watched this episode and oh my god IT'S AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Qué excelente capítulo de Doctor Who.
this episode was so so good


text:
Holiday Classic The Nutcracker by Marat Daukayev Ballet Theatre
* Additional fees apply.
All offers for Marat Daukayev Ballet Theatre's The Nutcracker have expired.
The last date listed for Marat Daukayev Ballet Theatre's The Nutcracker was Sunday December 15, 2013 / 2:00pm.
Venue Details
Casual dress. Nicely kept, organized, attractive, intimate theatreAntonio Zambujo info • Jan 27 2014 star this tip starred
9 of us drove to eat at Korean BBQ, in Korea town, that took us about 10 min or so to arrive to. If your in such a large group I suggest breaking it up in two to be seated much faster, also read rules as restuarant we sat at charged for meat left over by the pound? We also ended choosing the 9.99 menue each and somehow ended up paying a $20 gratuity fee, that unless it was written in Korean we did not know about prior, nor told about. This turned out to be less than what we normally would have tipped., hidden fees are just not fun.Marat Daukayev Ballet Theatre's The Nutcracker dining • Dec 20 2013 star this tip starred
Reviews & Ratings
Featured review from Goldstar MemberRed Velvet
view more less of this review
my daughters first ballet. can't wait till next year
star this review starred report as inappropriate
It was just O.K. - I was disappointed that the Nutcracker remained a doll throughout the entire performance. He usually comes to life & participates in the dream, as all of the other characters & animals do. Only the main "prince" was priceless...continued
star this review starred report as inappropriate
Enjoyed the mesmerizing experience of the Marat Daukayev Nutcracker ballet. Beautiful choreography and expert performance. Would definitely see again yearly with different themes.
star this review starred report as inappropriate
Took my daughter to see this very traditional Christmas event. We had a good time.
Special Guest Performances:
On Saturday evening, December 14 and Sunday afternoon, December 15, the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy will be performed by Maria Kochetkova, principal with San Francisco Ballet, and the Prince will be performed by Joaquin De Luz, principal with the New York City Ballet.
Born in Moscow, Russia, Maria Kochetkova trained at the Bolshoi School in Moscow and danced with The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, and as a guest artist with Tokyo Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, and Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg before joining San Francisco Ballet as a principal dancer in 2007. Kochetkova's honors include gold medals at the International Ballet Competitions in Korea and Italy in 2005; a gold medal at the International Ballet Competition of Luxembourg in 2003; a silver medal and the jury prize at the Varna International Ballet Competition in 2002; a silver medal at the Prix de Lausanne that same year; and a bronze medal at Moscow International Competition in 2001. In 2013, Kochetkova was appointed Herbert Family Principal Dancer.
Joaquin De Luz* was born in Madrid and received his training at the Victor Ullate School of Ballet. In 1996, he joined the Pennsylvania Ballet as a soloist. De Luz joined the American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in 1997 and was promoted to soloist in 1998. He joined New York City Ballet as a soloist in 2003, and in January 2005 he was promoted to the rank of principal dancer. In March 1996, De Luz won the Gold Medal at the Second Nureyev International Ballet Competition in Budapest, Hungary. In February 1997, De Luz was awarded the Rising Star prize by Seven Arts Magazine in Philadelphia. He represented Spain at the Expo '98 in Lisbon, dancing in the gala Stars of Spanish Ballet. Most recently, De Luz was awarded the Benois de la Danse award in 2009 for best male performance of the year for his role in Prodigal Son. He also toured with Kings of the Dance in Russia in 2008.