Free Republic

This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress—overextend and unbalance—Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime's political standing at home and abroad. Some of the options examined are clearly more promising than others, but any would need to be evaluated in terms of the overall U.S. strategy for dealing with Russia, which neither the report nor this brief has attempted to do.The maxim that “Russia is never so strong nor so weak as it appears” remains as true in...

**SNIP** But though the United States and Iran each face domestic pressures against closer relations, some analysts see a more collaborative relationship as an inevitable if uneasy consequence of the negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal — despite the insistence of leaders on either side that the American-brokered agreement would be limited to Iran’s nuclear program. “Both the Iranian and American governments are going to approach expanded dialogue very gingerly,” said James Dobbins, a senior follow at the RAND Corporation. “But there will still be a gradual increase in at least communication between the two governments on areas beyond...

As congressional appropriators, slashed Afghanistan by half and barred U.S. defense officials from embarking on major new infrastructure projects Obama had long hoped to describe the end of America's longest war as a (yet another) foreign policy success. But Washington's appetite to remain engaged in Afghanistan appears to be eroding precipitously, because of the poisonous its relationship with the country's president.U.S. officials said the cuts and restrictions might appear starker than they actually are because agency heads will retain significant flexibility to use unspent funds from previous years or draw from other sources. President Karzai, has refused to sign a...

The History Channel now is must taping. At this moment!!

As American post-conflict combat deaths in Iraq overtook the wartime number, the administration counseled patience. "The war on terror is a test of our strength. It is a test of our perseverance, our patience, and our will," President Bush told an American Legion convention. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice embellished the message with what former White House speechwriters immediately recognize as a greatest-generation pander. "There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes," she told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25. "But as some...