Tag: Libya

Wednesday Links

By
George Scoville
Topics: 
Cato Publications

Political Trends and Gun Control Politics

By
Tim Lynch

From today’s Washington Post:

During his campaign, Obama supported reintroducing the lapsed assault weapon ban, promised to eliminate an amendment requiring the FBI to destroy records of gun buyers’ background checks and advocated closing the gun-show loophole. Since taking office, the president has done none of that, and before the midterm elections, he shelved a proposal requiring gun dealers to report bulk sales of high-powered semiautomatic rifles. In his State of the Union address, just weeks after the Giffords shooting in January, Obama made no mention of guns. … Other leading Democrats, even those traditionally willing to offer full-throated support for gun-control efforts, have grown surprisingly less vocal as they take on more of a national role.

The Dems have lost enthusiasm for gun control.  No question.  But seems to me that media interest is also a big factor here.  When the news media turned from Gabrielle Giffords to Libya, that’s where Obama went next.

For related Cato work, go here and here.

Topics: 
Law and Civil Liberties

Friday Links

By
George Scoville
Topics: 
Cato Publications

George Will on Libya

By
David Boaz

President Obama’s incomprehensible “kinetic military action” in Libya has driven George Will to distraction, and to mordant wit:

At about this point in foreign policy misadventures, the usual question is: What is Plan B? Today’s question is: What was Plan A?

Not to mention literary allusion:

Perhaps the CIA operatives should have stayed home and talked to some senators who seem to know what’s what. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) refers to the Libyan rebels as part of a “pro-democracy movement.” Perhaps they are. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) must think so. Serving, as usual, as Sancho Panza to Sen. John McCain’s Don Quixote, Graham said last Sunday (on “Face the Nation”), “We should be taking the fight to Tripoli.”

Read the whole thing.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security, Government and Politics

Monday Links

By
George Scoville
  • “One of the first rules of negotiating is never to threaten to do something unless you are prepared to do it.”
  • Policymakers and pundits assume the U.S. is so dominant that we’re prepared to fight multiple fronts at once, and that it won’t affect our security.
  • Candidates for office should prepare to raise money, not rely on taxpayer subsidies.
  • More market liberalization could help prepare Japan for any other natural disaster.
  • Are Tea Party-backed Republicans prepared to go the distance on spending cuts?


Topics: 
Cato Publications

The Trouble with Doctrines

By
Benjamin H. Friedman

Many presidential foreign policy doctrines ago, George Kennan figured out what was wrong with them. In my latest post for The Skeptics, I rely on his insight to try to stop pundits from inventing an Obama Doctrine.

The national effort to discern an Obama Doctrine from our attack on Libya is likely to be futile. If it succeeds, it will be harmful. No one can make foreign policy without some theory or strategy. But as Kennan’s lament about the Truman Doctrine points out, doctrines tend to be post-hoc rationales of actions that confuse policy later. If taken seriously, they typically encourage foolish wars.

Kennan attributed the American desire for doctrines to our love of law and rules. I see it more as a product of divided power, which heightens the need for sales. Doctrines have a pseudo-scientific air that helps legitimate policy. They endow the messy process of presidential decision-making with false order. They over-generalize.

The rest of the post briefly applies this formula to all our presidential doctrines, from Monroe to Bush. With the exception of Nixon’s, almost all arose to justify military action and thus tend to encourage war. While I can imagine doctrines, like Weinberger-Powell, that might marginally help keep us out of trouble, even that substitutes a formula for careful consideration of action based on theory.

So I propose the Kennan Doctrine, which says don’t have a doctrine.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security

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