Scott talks to Stephen Zunes about Joe Biden’s track record on foreign policy, and its potential implications for his presidency. Zunes rehashes some of the bad parts of Biden’s record, beginning with his support for the invasion of Iraq. Although many Democrats voted for the war, Biden specifically and energetically advocated for it. Zunes worries that Biden is a true believer in the American empire, whereas President Trump doesn’t really have firm beliefs about anything. This made Trump...

Frank Ledwidge, a British former intelligence officer, discusses the futility of the war in Afghanistan (and the rest of the terror wars), which many of the world’s countries have now been mired in for nearly two decades. Ledwidge begins by reminding us just how much the Afghans hate foreign armies. Like most people, they don’t take kindly to an occupying military force telling them how to live; unlike most people, a huge percentage of the rural villagers, especially in the Helmand Province,...

Scott interviews Dan Caldwell of Concerned Veterans for America about President Trump’s plans to withdraw troops from the Middle East in what are looking to be his final weeks as president. The appointment of Colonel Douglas Macgregor to a senior role in the Pentagon gave hope to many in the antiwar movement, speculating that Trump might be trying to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for good before he left office. Now that future is less clear; although he plans to order a few thousand...

Scott talks to Jacob Sullum about the allegations of widespread fraud in November’s presidential elections. Sullum concedes that errors in counting, illegal votes and deliberate obfuscation do sometimes happen in isolated situations—but maintains that the widespread conspiracy alleged by the Trump team would be basically impossible. Even in the handful of cases where Trump has won temporary legal victories, they simply don’t amount to anything close to what he would need to reverse the results...

Kevin Gosztola discusses the abominable record of some of Joe Biden’s key transition team officials, people who are likely to become high-level members of Biden’s eventual cabinet. This list includes the usual war hawks and D.C. insiders, who are sure to return the country to the bipartisan foreign policy consensus of the last few decades, including increased sanctions on Iran and Russia, regime change in Venezuela and Syria, and increased troop levels in the Middle East and Eastern Europe....

Gareth Porter is back for a retrospective on Trump’s foreign policy. Despite campaigning on a relatively non-interventionist platform, and indeed despite explicitly denouncing the policies of the Bush and Clinton families along the way, Trump has not been especially effective in delivering on his promises to bring American troops home from the forever-wars. Porter lays the blame for this failure primarily on the fact that Trump surrounded himself with terrible people who worked to actively...

Ray McGovern discusses the recent personnel changes in the Trump administration and what they could mean for his final months in office. McGovern thinks that John Brennan and his allies are getting nervous that as a lame duck, Trump might decide to simply release documents that incriminate these deep-state officials for their roles in the “Russiagate” plot, and potentially even worse things. Brennan is trying to make it seem like Trump could be endangering national security with these...

Scott interviews Doug Bandow about the missed foreign policy opportunities of the Trump administration. Bandow laments that Trump didn’t push harder to get U.S. troops out of our wars in the Middle East, theorizing that he was worried the political cost in the eyes of wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson would outweigh the benefits in terms of popularity with voters. Bandow hopes that Trump’s policy toward North Korea, at least, will be preserved in the next administration—a policy that...

Scott talks to Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center about the shameful state of U.S. foreign policy. In particular, Maharrey explains the way that congress has completely abdicated its role of declaring wars—instead, they have ceded that power fully to the president. Maharrey reminds us that all empires collapse eventually, and indeed that empire is often the final stage in a civilization’s existence. If we want to preserve our republic, he says, we must do so at the cost of abandoning...

Pentagon reporter Mark Perry discusses the recent appointment of retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor to a senior advisory position under President Trump’s new secretary of defense. Perry calls Macgregor one of the greatest military minds in America; after a distinguished Army career that included one ofAmerica’s swiftest and most lopsided victories in the Persian Gulf War’s Battle of 73 Easting, Macgregor became a military historian and scholar. He continues to openly share his sometimes...

Grant Smith discusses the concept of “QME”, or “Qualitative Military Edge,” and how Israel and their lobby in the U.S. use it to get billions of dollars from the American taxpayers. Smith explains that during the Cold War, the doctrine of QME was used to keep the U.S. ahead of the Soviet Union and its allies—today, the same doctrine is being advocated by those who see Israel as a beacon of freedom and goodness amid a sea of enemies. And they use this concept to justify billions of dollars...

Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about where his former commanders from Afghanistan have ended up in the years since the surge. Sjursen goes through a handful of these men: almost without fail, his former generals have ended up with profitable jobs in the arms industry or at hawkish think tanks, and his colonels have been promoted to take the place of those retired generals—and will surely join them in the private sector soon enough. The fact that none of this surprises us should be a reminder...

Scott interviews author and peace activist David Swanson in honor of Veterans’ Day, or Armistice Day, as it was originally known. Swanson begins by describing the way World War II has become the justification for just about every use of military force by the United States since then. This particular part of American history has made an impression on many people that war can be necessary and good, and that America can be the world’s police force. In a new book, Swanson tries to shift that...

With Joe Biden apparently poised to be America’s next president, Scott talks to Dave DeCamp about some possible foreign policy changes under the new administration. To begin with, DeCamp worries that Biden will use a recent uptick in violence as an excuse to keep American troops in Afghanistan indefinitely, basically the strategy he advocated as Vice President. On Israel, DeCamp says that Biden was known as one of the strongest zionists in Washington until Trump showed up, and so we can expect...

Jeff Deist discusses the idea that the best path forward for America may be some kind of peaceful breakup. He reminds us that America has never truly been one country, the way that, for instance, many small European nations are—and indeed the United States was never really supposed to be a single unified monolith. With such a diversity of culture over such a huge geographical area, a federal government was meant to serve a very limited purpose while leaving most decisions up to the individual...