Britt and Tuberville enter Trump’s fantasy world at Alabama’s expense

  I have no inside sources in the White House.

  I do not have access to military intelligence. Or any expert knowledge of the Middle East.

  But I’ve spent my adult life watching American presidents try to bomb the region into peace. It never works.

  Which leaves me wondering how Alabama’s senators, who on paper have better sources than us Goat Hill wretches, think that President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iranian nuclear facilities solved anything.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran(q)

  President Trump says it was necessary for him to order U.S. pilots to bomb Iran to prevent that nation’s government from building a nuclear bomb.

  Wait a minute. Something is coming to me. Just give me a moment. It’s coming into my mind. Oh, yes, I remember:

  “WMDs! WMDs, Jacob! We have to invade Iran, I mean Iraq, because Saddam Hussein is coming to get us with his WMDs! We have to invade now! Tomorrow will be too late. WMDs! WMDs!”

AI disinformation is a threat to elections − learning to spot Russian, Chinese and Iranian meddling in other countries can help the US prepare for 2024

  Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence.

  Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016 when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. Over the next seven years, a number of countries – most prominently China and Iran – used social media to influence foreign elections, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. There’s no reason to expect 2023 and 2024 to be any different.

  But there is a new element: generative AI and large language models. These have the ability to quickly and easily produce endless reams of text on any topic in any tone from any perspective. As a security expert, I believe it’s a tool uniquely suited to internet-era propaganda.

Conservative hard-liner elected as Iran’s next president – what that means for the West and the nuclear deal

  Iran’s conservative rulers’ effort to orchestrate the outcome of the June 18 presidential election triggered a voter boycott – but the result may still bode well for ongoing negotiations over the lapsed 2015 nuclear deal.

  Iran’s Interior Ministry on June 19 announced that the winner is Ebrahim Raisi, chief of Iran’s judiciary and close ally of the supreme leader. He was all but assured of victory after the candidates who could have posed a serious challenge to him – including three reformists – were disqualified and prevented from participating in the election.

Racial bias makes white Americans more likely to support wars in nonwhite foreign countries – new study

  The effects of American racial bias and anti-Asian sentiment do not end at the nation’s borders. The racial attitudes of white people also influence their support for American military intervention abroad according to our working paper on U.S. foreign policy and racism.

U.S. needs to be prepared for increasing nuclear threats to homeland

  In a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Glen VanHerck, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, brought some necessary attention to the growing nuclear threats to the U.S. homeland.

  Russia was at the top of his concerns. To match a more assertive nuclear doctrine, Russia is undertaking a massive nuclear modernization effort. This includes a first-of-its kind heavy intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry a hypersonic glide vehicle that is able to evade U.S. early warning systems.

Russian cyberthreat extends to coronavirus vaccine research

  A Russian cyberespionage group that hacked into election networks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine information from researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. The governments of those three countries issued a warning on July 16 saying that the group known as APT29 or “Cozy Bear” is targeting vaccine development efforts. The group, which is connected with the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, had gotten inside the Democratic National Committee networks prior to the 2016 election.

Brain injuries from interventionism

  The number of U.S. soldiers who have suffered traumatic brain injuries from the Iranian missile attack last month in Iraq has now risen to more than 100. The injuries demonstrate the sheer inanity of foreign interventionism.

2020: The year to support, defend – and trust – our free press

  How about a new New Year’s resolution: To more appreciate a free press, in whatever brand, flavor, or medium you prefer.

  In that spirit, let’s start using a new term: Identifiable News Media. Time to let go of the vanilla-flavored “mainstream media” and drop the pejorative “lame stream” tag — its use as timely political snark ran out some time ago.

Trump’s self-painted corner on Iran

  President Trump may not realize it yet, but it will almost certainly dawn on him at some point that he has painted himself into a corner with his bullying tactics against Iran.

  Trump’s plan was the following: He first would withdraw from the nuclear accord that the United States entered into with Iran, claiming that the deal that the Obama administration had struck was bad for the United States. He would then enter into a new agreement with Iran, which he would then trumpet as being far superior to the previous agreement and which would demonstrate his toughness and his skills in the “art of the deal.”

The solution to Trump’s Iran mayhem

  Undoubtedly, President Trump is fantasizing about the possibility of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for deciding at the last minute to not bomb Iran in retaliation for Iran’s shoot-down of a Pentagon drone. Apparently experiencing a crisis of conscience, Trump called off the strike when he learned that it would kill an estimated 150 people, which he decided would be disproportionate to the downing of an unmanned drone.

  Meanwhile, Trump is not only continuing his brutal system of sanctions on Iran but actually ratcheting them up even more. His goal? To kill more Iranians through economic deprivation, either through starvation, illness, or domestic plane crashes arising from an inability to secure needed parts for maintenance and repair.

The Trump administration’s 10 most dangerous actions concerning Iran

  President Donald Trump’s erratic Iran policy has left America more isolated and less safe. In his first week in office, he alienated Iranians by banning them from America. Then he ignored the warnings of the world, nuclear experts, and his own national security team to shred a functioning nuclear agreement. For all Iran’s continued destabilizing behavior, President Trump’s actions have made America the instigator of the current crisis in the eyes of the world. He has ratcheted up tensions with no plan for success.

  Even now, there remains a serious risk that Trump and his team will blunder into a preventable and unnecessary war. Trump’s clumsy attempts at diplomacy with Iran are likely to fail—just as they have with North Korea. The chaos is obvious, and productive results are nowhere to be seen.

Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea’s nukes

  From the start of the brouhaha that President Trump initiated against North Korea for refusing to destroy its nuclear weapons, I have consistently maintained that the communist regime would never rid itself of its nukes. Even when Trump suddenly did an about-face and fell in love with North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong-Un and convinced himself that his new-found communist friend would “denuclearize,” I said it just wasn’t going to happen. I also said that there was zero chance that Kim would trade his nukes for Trump’s promise of beautiful condo projects along North Korean beaches.

  Why was I so certain that Kim would never let go of his nukes? Because he knows that his nukes are what is deterring U.S. officials, including Cold War anticommunist dead-enders like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliott Abrams, from initiating a regime-change war against his regime.

Which new war next: Iran or Venezuela?

  Pity President Donald “America First” Trump, Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) Mike Pompeo, National-Security Advisor (and Cold War fanatic) John Bolton, and Special U.S. Representative to Venezuela (and Cold War fanatic) Eliott Abrams. Knowing that the American people have grown weary with their forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, these four interventionists can’t decide whether to initiate a new war against Venezuela or against Iran, or against both. They just know that they want a new war, an exciting war, a winnable war against a poor Third World country, a war that will cause Americans to forget about the ongoing fiascoes in the Middle East and Afghanistan and that will hopefully restore America to greatness through “mission-accomplished” conquest, bombing, death, destruction, and regime-change. One can easily imagine the arguments that must be taking place in the White House: “Iran! They ousted our Shah from power!” “No, Venezuela! It’s part of the worldwide communist conspiracy to take over America!”

Horrific, long-term consequences of regime change

  84-year-old Emma Thiessen Alvarez has never forgotten the day in 1981 when Guatemalan officials came to her house looking for her daughter, a student leader who had escaped from military custody. Unable to find her, the officials settled for Thiessen’s 14-year-old son. She never saw him again.

  Thiesen’s story was highlighted in a recent New York Times article because the Guatemalan legislature is now contemplating granting blanket amnesty to military officials who participated in the reign of terror that the Guatemalan national-security establishment inflicted on the Guatemalan people for a period of some 36 years.

The U.S. government's love of foreign dictatorships

  Lest anyone be tempted to believe that President Trump and other U.S. interventionists are intervening in Venezuela because of some purported concern for the Venezuelan people, let’s examine just a few examples that will bring a dose of reality to the situation. This latest intervention is nothing more than another interventionist power play, one intended to replace one dictatorial regime with another.

  Egypt comes to mind. It is ruled by one of the most brutal and tyrannical military dictatorships in the world. The U.S. government loves it, supports it, and partners with it. There is no concern for the Egyptian citizenry, who have to suffer under this brutal tyranny and oppression.

Omnipotent government, not Trump, is the problem

  Many of the people who are critics of President Trump don’t realize that they themselves are partly responsible for much of what Trump is doing. That’s because over the years they have supported the assumption of dictatorial powers by the president. In doing so, they always assumed that their favorite ideal candidate would end up being the one wielding and exercising such powers. They assumed the risk that someone like Trump would end up being the one doing so.

  The United States was founded as a limited-government republic. What that means was that the charter that brought the federal government into existence strictly limited the powers of the president and the other branches of the government. The idea was that no one should be trusted with dictatorial powers, not even people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton: The path to war

  President Donald Trump is putting the United States on a dangerous path to devastating wars by shuffling his national security team to assemble a war Cabinet. To fill the position of America’s top diplomat, President Trump has chosen the hawkish current CIA Director Mike Pompeo—a man who notoriously prefers regime change to diplomacy. And newly appointed National Security Adviser John R. Bolton was one of the principal architects and defenders of the Iraq War; wants to abrogate the Iran deal; and appears eager to launch preventive military strikes against North Korea. Both Pompeo and Bolton replace less hawkish advisers and will enable the worst instincts of the already erratic and reckless President Trump. By nominating Pompeo and appointing Bolton, Trump has chosen a path that could lead to war.

Open questions on national security for President-Elect Donald Trump

  The Center for American Progress National Security and International Policy team is deeply committed to the democratic values that have made America great and is collectively determined to ensure that America remains secure, prosperous, and just.

  The initial steps taken by President-elect Donald Trump, including the nomination of several manifestly unsuited candidates for key national security positions, raise a series of very serious questions that the administration will need to answer in the days and weeks ahead.

Steven Bucci: Growing ballistic missile threats cannot be ignored

  China, Russia, Iran, North Korea—all are U.S. adversaries, and all are making remarkable and continual advances in long-range ballistic missile capabilities.  Maintaining and modernizing our upper-tier missile defense system has never been more vital in order for the U.S. to be able to win on the future war landscape.

  Repeated cuts to the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) budget over the last eight years have already put us behind where we should be.  Moreover, the entire BMD enterprise has been retarded by leaders who reject a modern view of how technology should be developed and deployed.