Andrew Becevich is appropriately critical of the American impetus to hegemonic empire that grew out of its post World War Two ascendency and the commitment to communist containment. That was the subject of his 2008 The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Essential to any continuing practicability of this American role, he argues […]
The Argument: Defense is Offensive
We know the adage: the best defense is a good offense. Generally speaking, that was the argument for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That is the doctrine of preemptive attack. That is what Israel did in 1967. That is not the argument I mean to address. Perhaps coincidentally – or maybe not, after consideration I […]
The Liberal Conscience
There is much else I would like to be writing about besides Israel, other kinds of writing I would like to be posting – and I’ll continue to try – but now is an urgent moment. One point I will make repeatedly is the necessity for liberal supporters of Israel to stand up against the […]
Politics as a Continuation of War by Other Means
Clausewitz has been upended. In On War, he famously wrote, War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means. However, he also said, The aim of war should be the defeat of the enemy. But what constitutes defeat? The conquest of his whole […]
Jews Denied Entry
Good. I got your attention. Yesterday we got the double whammy – fodder for the BDS (Bias, Deceit, Sensationalism) movement – of news of Noam Chomsky’s denied entry to the West Bank and Peter Beinart’s lamentable New York Review of Books article buying into the prevailing Left narrative of the American Jewish leadership’s moral decline […]