All posts tagged: From Across the Pond

America’s way of war isn’t working – POLITICO

America’s way of war isn’t working – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Decades later in Afghanistan, U.S. officials marveled at their own ingenuity — special forces on horseback, precision bombs and a regime toppled in mere weeks. Yet it was only days before the bombing started that Bush asked “who will run the country” once the Taliban was toppled — a fair question no one thought to ask before fueling the B-52s. The men on horseback were brilliant, but there was no theory as to what came next. Moreover, al Qaeda’s longtime leader Osama bin Laden remained at large. Then came Iraq, with the war’s architects predicting a cakewalk in which U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators. But the occupation disbanded the Iraqi army, sending hundreds of thousands of armed, humiliated men into the streets with no jobs or prospects. The insurgency that followed should have surprised no one, and yet it surprised everyone. The logic collapsed even faster in Iran. The strategy, such as it was, amounted to this: Kill the country’s supreme leader and hope for a more moderate successor. According to the New …

The ever-diminishing role of Marco Rubio – POLITICO

The ever-diminishing role of Marco Rubio – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Similarly, one would be forgiven for asking to see any evidence of a well-functioning policy process that would provide the president with different options, detail their costs and benefits, and provide coherent strategies for implementation — all of which are normally the responsibility of the national security adviser, the other hat Rubio now wears? Indeed, few people have been better positioned to dominate U.S. foreign and national security policy than the person who currently serves as both. And yet, what is most remarkable about Rubio is the increasingly shrinking role he seems to play. The U.S. secretary of state is the nation’s chief diplomat and foreign affairs spokesperson, responsible for carrying the U.S. flag overseas and leading diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts, prevent new ones and advance America’s national interests. But Rubio is largely AWOL on all these efforts. While his predecessor, Antony Blinken, traveled to the Middle East at least once a month after the region went up in flames following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Rubio has been to Israel just three …

Time for a different kind of NATO – POLITICO

Time for a different kind of NATO – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Some of the U.S. president’s hostility was to be expected. Trump has been disparaging U.S. security alliances for decades, dating all the way back to his famous Playboy interview in 1990, when he called on allies to pay the U.S. for the security it was providing. As a real-estate mogul, Trump felt the burden of having allies outweighed the benefits, and that has remained his view as president. In 2017, he entered the White House declaring NATO “obsolete.” More recently, he’s called it a “paper tiger,” “useless,” and with NATO allies now refusing to join his attack on Iran — and some even denying the U.S. military access to their airspace and bases — the president has gone even further. For Trump, the Iran war was a test for NATO, and it failed. “We will remember,” he said, insisting that “we’ll come to their rescue but they will never come to ours.” And when asked whether he would consider withdrawing from the alliance earlier this month, he said it was “beyond reconsideration.” Still, commentators assume …

Trump’s ‘gut’ let him down in Iran — and we’re all paying the price of his failed diplomacy – POLITICO

Trump’s ‘gut’ let him down in Iran — and we’re all paying the price of his failed diplomacy – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Rather than relying on diplomats with the necessary negotiating skills and background to engage with Iranian counterparts — who, even he admits, are “great negotiators” — Trump has relied on friends and family who lack the required experience and know-how. The president, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his friend and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff are all convinced their private sector experience as dealmakers make them perfect diplomats. But the skills needed for those two jobs are very different — and not easily transferable. In the private sector, dealmakers settle on the broad points of an agreement, leaving the details to lawyers. But in diplomacy, strategic and historical context matter — as does knowledge of what drives the other side, which is very different than simply making a buck. Relatives say prayers over the body of a Palestinian killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, on March 29. | Doaa Albaz / Middle East Images/ AFP via Getty Images We can see all this in Witkoff and Kushner’s go-to …

Thought Iraq was a blunder? Iran is far worse. – POLITICO

Thought Iraq was a blunder? Iran is far worse. – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

That, too, will have a lasting impact well beyond anything the war in Iraq did. Finally, the fact remains that when Bush decided to invade Iraq, Russia and China were still minor global powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin was only just starting his effort to stabilize the economy and rebuild Russia’s military power, while China had just joined the World Trade Organization and was still a decade or more away from becoming an economic superpower. In other words, America’s blunder in Iraq occurred at a time when the strategic consequences for the global balance of power were still manageable. Trump’s Iran debacle is occurring at a time when China is effectively competing with the U.S. for global power and influence, and Russia is engaged in the largest military action in Europe since the end of World War II. A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in Tehran, Iran on March 15, 2026 after it was damaged by missile attacks two days before. | Majid Saeedi/Getty Images Both stand to benefit greatly. Russia is …

Trump’s Iran gamble carries a political cost – POLITICO

Trump’s Iran gamble carries a political cost – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

For one, Trump and his aides have cited many different objectives: deposing the regime, ensuring Iran never has nuclear weapons, destroying the country’s missile capabilities, vanquishing its navy, ending support for its proxies and terrorism, exacting revenge for past attacks killing Americans, as well as ensuring Iran can never project force beyond its borders. All these constitute a tall order, to say the least. Regime change, for one, is hard to achieve from the air, and yet it seems Washington has no intention of deploying ground troops to depose Iran’s regime, maintain order and assist a new one in taking over. And though airpower can do a lot to degrade and destroy the country’s nuclear program, missile capability and military in the short run, those are a means to an end. What political objective would be served by effectively disarming Iran? What would constitute success for the U.S.? And how much force would be needed to achieve it? On this, the administration and the president have been silent. A key part of that strategy, Pete …

In Trump’s world, look to the middle powers for hope  – POLITICO

In Trump’s world, look to the middle powers for hope  – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Through tariff policies, threats to invade allied countries, unilateral use of force in Venezuela and elsewhere, Trump’s America has returned to acting like the imperial powers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Indeed, Rubio seemed to bemoan the fact that this era had ended. “For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.” If this is what the United States seeks to offer the world as the new global order — a return to imperialism, empire building, exploitation of national resources, the imposition of Christendom — than surely the rest of the world can be forgiven for saying: No, thanks! Nor did Rubio’s nostalgic appeal to Western civilization as the basis of transatlantic unity go over well. “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization,” Rubio declared. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations …

Europe’s 5 stages of grief – POLITICO

Europe’s 5 stages of grief – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Next, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. and Russia would negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine — without Ukraine’s or Europe’s involvement. And then came Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said that the biggest threat to Europe wasn’t Russia or China but “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” Finally, at the end of the month, Trump and Vance confronted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, on live television. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump exclaimed, berating Ukraine for failing to end a war it had not started, and ignoring how Ukrainians had valiantly held off their subjugation and occupation by a much larger foe for more than three years. So, by February’s end, Europe’s denial turned to anger. When I met with a foreign minister of a major ally just days after Munich, the longtime supporter of the U.S. appeared despondent. “You stabbed us in the back. You’re leaving us to …