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If no one reports a massacre somewhere on earth, has it still happened?

By Merve Şebnem Oruç | Published: January 4, 2021

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” Philosopher George Berkeley asked this question while he was looking for answers to the notion that perception creates our reality. “Sound” is used to describe a physical phenomenon, an audible wave of pressure; but it is also an […]

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How the Syrian War Became the Gravest Mistake of Our Era

By Merve Şebnem Oruç | Published: November 30, 2020

When the Kwantung Army of Japan invaded Manchuria crushing Chinese forces in 1931, the world did nothing. It was the first sign of the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Then, in 1937, Japan started to invade China capturing city after city. When Nanking fell, they killed hundreds of […]

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Departures Podcast with Philip Gordon

By Editor | Published: November 17, 2020

For the past 70 years, the United States has toyed with interventionism in the Middle East on numerous occasions, from Iran to Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, among others. And yet, despite the consistently disastrous consequences of these efforts, the same policies continue to attract support, as US decision-makers consistently underestimate the costs […]

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Departures Podcast with Noah Feldman

By Editor | Published: October 9, 2020

Only a few years after the Arab Spring failed to convert Middle Eastern dictatorships into democracies (with the exception of Tunisia), many scholars and analysts stopped talking about it entirely, as if to pretend these events never took place. Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar Noah Feldman set out to change that with his latest […]

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Departures Podcast with Michael Scharf

By Editor | Published: August 18, 2020

As the Syrian conflict has raged on for almost a decade, and the United Nations is hamstrung with Russia’s veto power over proposed legal instruments to intervene, international law finds itself being innovated at light speed in response. Michael Scharf, the co-dean of the Law School of Case Western Reserve University and the co-author of […]

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From Libya to Syria, French-Turkish Interests Collide

By Merve Şebnem Oruç | Published: July 20, 2020

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Friday that Turkey is still waiting for an apology from France over a naval standoff last month in the Mediterranean Sea. To recap, an incident happened between the navy forces of Turkey and France, two NATO allies, in the Mediterranean on June 10. Paris accused a Turkish navy of […]

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Five Things to Read on Trump’s Syria Withdrawal

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: December 20, 2018

President Donald Trump’s completely unexpected decision to pull 2,000 U.S. troops out of the conflict in Syria – announced this week via Twitter without much visible consultation – has predictably caused a bit of a shitstorm in the natsec community in Washington DC. There seems to be wide-ranging speculations about Trump’s motivations to make this […]

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Assad Just Gassed Putin’s Chance at a Deal

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: April 5, 2017

It’s always difficult to pinpoint the moment in which a policy changes, but yesterday’s horrific chemical weapons attack in Idlib appears to signal a shift in how the Trump administration may view its options in the conflict. The attack, which has already killed more than 100 people and injured another 400, including a great number […]

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Bibi’s Big Day in Washington

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: March 3, 2015

The level of attention directed toward today’s speech before the U.S. Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nothing short of remarkable. He’s on the front page of pretty much every news service, on every channel (even the disinterested European broadcasters), clogging the Twitter timeline of everyone remotely interested in politics. Bibi’s goal is […]

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Israel, United States More Unpopular than Russia

By Robert Amsterdam | Published: March 7, 2007

Yesterday the BBC released the results of the latest GlobeScan International Policy Attitudes survey, which asks respondents to rate countries according to whether they have a negative or positive impact on the world. The most unpopular countries are the following: 1. Israel (56% negative) 2. Iran (54% negative) 3. United States (51% negative) 4. North […]

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