Free Republic

I’m busy reading final papers for the grand strategy seminar at Bard this spring, and the students are finishing up their exams and thinking about summer. It’s already time to start reading and thinking about the syllabus for the fall course in Anglo-American grand strategy. British and American strategic thinkers and policy makers developed a new form of global strategy in the last 300 years that enabled the two English speaking powers to build a global political and security order resting on a foundation of liberal capitalism. Understanding the grand strategy that shaped the modern world is surely something that...

When it comes to foreign policy, it can be difficult these days to distinguish between Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are advocates of big government internationalism. Their differences on a range of issues—from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran and North Korea—are more stylistic than substantive. And when it comes to the big strategic questions (e.g., For what purpose does the U.S. engage in foreign affairs?) the major parties are in lockstep. Both subscribe to a Wilsonian, liberal international agenda of democracy promotion and nation building with little regard for cost—or the Constitution. A reformulation of American foreign...

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward N. Luttwak Belknap Harvard, 498 pp. Civilization in the city of Rome was extinguished by the year 476, but scholars today recognize that the Roman Empire continued to thrive in its eastern capital of Constantinople, in what we call the Byzantine Empire. As Edward Luttwak notes, the Byzantines did not use the word "Byzantine." They called themselves Romans, and their enemies called them Romans as well. The Byzantine Empire carried on Roman traditions of civilization, commerce, law, and education for nearly a thousand years until they met a heroic end...

It's long but very interesting read. Please, don't get hung up at his obvious leftisms. Stay the course, please. The professor really gets it. He deserves applause for his intellectual honesty. And if he is not pure breed FReeper, he is a galaxy ahead of the irreconcilable, partisan, "Whatever it is, I'm against it" Left. His is a very valuable contribution to the debate, not that usual childish shrieks from the Left producing noise instead of feedback   I take allies whenever I see them. Chapomatic A Must Read On Grand Strategy I got this speech transcript from someone just now, and...

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a visit to India where she discussed Washington's desire to help India become a "major world power." Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao followed suit with Beijing's most recent wooing of New Delhi by announcing a "strategic partnership" between the world's two most populous countries. India has clearly become an object of desire for the major powers in Asian politics; how this courtship plays out will have global ramifications. Several factors have coalesced in recent years to thrust India into a prominent role on the global stage. China and the United States are...

The United States is currently experiencing a Grand Strategy Crisis— and the most powerful nation in the world since the Roman Empire better get it right. Such a crisis typically comes along once a generation, when the nation drops its old grand strategy and selects a new one. Unfortunately, this significant change, which has happened three times in U.S. history and will likely occur again in the next two decades, is hardly noticed by the large majority of the people. It affects them in many ways, but by the time most people know about it it’s too late to change....

<p>The Boston Globe — the respected, liberal newspaper owned by the New York Times — ran an article last week that Bush critics may wish to read carefully. It is a report on a new book that argues that President Bush has developed and is ably implementing only the third American grand strategy in our history.</p>

The Boston Globe -- the respected, liberal newspaper owned by the New York Times -- ran an article last week that Bush critics might wish to read carefully. It is a report on a new book that argues that President Bush has developed and is ably implementing only the third American grand strategy in our history. The author of this book, "Surprise, Security, and the American Experience" (Harvard Press), which is to be released in March, is John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of military and naval history at Yale University. The Boston Globe describes Professor Gaddis as...

WASHINGTON — Retired general Wesley Clark warned Sunday that the failure to capture Saddam Hussein was likely to undermine any new Iraqi government. And he said it was important to capture Saddam alive so he could be tried for war crimes. Clark's comments, at a session with USA TODAY and Gannett News Service reporters and editors, came as the Bush administration was accelerating the turnover of civilian authority to Iraqis. Clark praised the decision as a move "in the right direction" but said no regime was likely to succeed if Saddam stayed on the lam. "It's going to be...