(First in a series on National Security and the 2016 presidential election) On the same day, September 27, 2016, nine days before the first presidential debate between Clinton and Trump, a Somali American, Dahir Adan, stabbed nine people in a Minneapolis mall and an Afghan American, Ahmad Rahami detonated a pressure-cooker bomb in the heart [...]
The recent killing of the Taliban Chieftain, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, by a drone inside the Pakistan province of Baluchistan, is a striking reminder that we have entered a futuristic world where war is waged by flying killer robots and that we have witnessed a massive leap forward in the history of human conflict. Given that [...]
At the outset of the first Iraq war, Colin Powell warned President Bush 41 that he saw no exit strategy for the U.S. if our forces pursued Iraqi troops from Kuwait all the way to Baghdad. He followed his warning with an admonition that has become known as the “Pottery Barn” allegory and is now [...]
I spoke to Cliff May who is the founder and President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies which he created immediately following 9/11. FDD today is one of the nation’s most highly regarded national security policy institutes. Kelley: Do you agree with my assessment that we are losing the war on terror which, of course, is a misnomer? [...]
Before Obama’s election in 2008, in the halls of American academia, among the deans of international studies, the concepts of soft power versus hard power had been well-established bipolar modes of operation by which America conducted its foreign policy. For the academics, soft power was comprised of diplomacy such as the offering of mutually beneficial [...]
A new Gallup poll concludes that Americans hate their government much more than they did when Obama first took office. In 2009, the burden of government was ranked fourth on the list of problems faced by Americans. At that time, seven percent of those surveyed ranked burdensome government as the worst problem they faced. At [...]
In speaking with Carly Fiorina, I began by saying, “I’m worried about a knockout blow to the U.S. delivered by what I call the new “Axis of Evil,” that being, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and their satellites. I’ve heard you say that on your first day in office, you would call Khamenei (Iran’s Supreme [...]
Last Thursday night, October 22, in a daring raid, U.S. Special forces teamed with Kurdish Peshmerga forces and attacked an ISIS controlled prison in Hawijah, just outside the now autonomous Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. They heroically liberated 70 prisoners scheduled for beheading on the following day after prayers. Sadly, a titan of the U.S. Special [...]
In my book, Lessons from Fallen Civilizations, I developed a list of ten immutable principles which govern the fall of great peoples and which can be seen to repeat over the last three millennia. My Immutable Law #3 reads: Appeasement of a ruthless outside power always invites aggression. Treaties made with ruthless despots are always [...]
Just one year ago, on September 10, 2014 Obama said that we would “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS.” And while Donald Trump’s campaign antics, a plunging stock market and Hillary Clinton’s criminality have dominated the news, the horrifying global growth of ISIS continues. Concomitantly, many intelligence and military experts have publicly stated that they believe [...]
