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Gullible Superpower examines the most prominent cases in which well-meaning Americans have supported misguided policies to aid highly questionable individuals, organizations, and movements. A dismal track record over nearly four decades underscores the need for future U.S. leaders to adopt a policy of skepticism and restraint toward foreign movements that purport to embrace democracy.
The domestic phase of Washington's war on drugs has received considerable criticism over the years from a variety of individuals. Until recently, however, most critics have not stressed the damage that the international phase of the drug war has done to our Latin American neighbors. That lack of attention has begun to change and Ted Carpenter chronicles our disenchantment with the hemispheric drug war. Some prominent Latin American political leaders have finally dared to criticize Washington while at the same time, the U.S. government seems determined to perpetuate, if not intensify, the antidrug crusade. Spending on federal antidrug measures also continues to increase, and the tactics employed by drug war bureaucracy, both here and abroad, bring the inflammatory "drug war" metaphor closer to reality. Ending the prohibitionist system would produce numerous benefits for both Latin American societies and the United States. In a book deriving from his work at the CATO Institute, Ted Carpenter paints a picture of this ongoing fiasco.
Since the Mexican government initiated a military offensive against its country’s powerful drug cartels in December 2006, some 50,000 people have perished and the drugs continue to flow. In The Fire Next Door, Ted Galen Carpenter boldly conveys the growing horror overtaking Mexico and makes the case that the only effective strategy for the United States is to abandon its failed drug prohibition policy, thus depriving drug cartels of financial resources.
The decision to expand NATO eastward is a fateful venture that has received surprisingly little public attention. Advocates of enlargement insist that the step will foster cooperation, consolidate democracy, and promote stability throughout Europe. But the contributors to this volume conclude that an expanded NATO is a dubious, potentially disastrous idea. Instead of healing the wounds of the Cold War, it threatens to create a new division of Europe and undermine friendly relations with Russia. Even worse, it will establish expensive, dangerous, and probably unsustainable security obligations for the United States.
The United States confronts a host of foreign policy problems in the 21st century, yet the Republic’s security strategy is increasingly muddled and counterproductive. The litany of misplaced priorities and policy failures grows ever larger. Disagreements over Iraq policy as well as other matters have soured Washington’s relations with its long-time European allies. NATO, the centerpiece of Washington’s transatlantic policy for nearly six decades, is foundering in Afghanistan and displays a growing lack of cohesion and relevance. Tensions between the United States and Russia are on the rise as authoritarianism has reemerged in that country and Moscow resists Washington’s assertive pol...
The Clinton administration and the other NATO governments boast that the alliance won a great victory in its war against Yugoslavia.
Questions whether or not the United Nations can be reformed
NATO's military intervention in Yugoslavia highlights the choices and problems confronting the alliance as it approaches the new century. An alliance created to keep Western Europe out of the Soviet orbit during the Cold War has sought to reinvent itself as a "crisis-management" organization to suppress conflicts on Europe's periphery - and perhaps beyond. Is NATO suited to playing such a role, or is the alliance a Cold War anachronism? How will Russia react to an enlarged NATO focused on out-of-area peacekeeping and conflict-prevention missions? Are there alternative security institutions that might better address Europe's security needs in the post-Cold War era?
Donald Trump’s presidency has triggered a growing debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S. policy regarding the alliance. In NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur, Ted Galen Carpenter outlines how NATO in its current form has outlived its purpose, and burden sharing is only part of the problem. Continuing to expand NATO eastward, encroaching on Russia, will only endanger the alliance.
The US seems to be heading directly toward a confrontation with North Korea as Koreans in the south, and nations around the world, anxiously witness mounting tension. Carpenter and Bandow take a look at the twin crises now afflicting US policy in East Asia: the reemergence of North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the growing anti-American sentiment in South Korea. They question whether Washington's East Asia security strategy makes sense with the looming prospect of US troops stationed in South Korea becoming nuclear hostages. Carpenter and Bandow put forth the most provocative solution yet to this gnarled and dangerous situation.