PUBLICATIONS BY Peter Brookes
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2008 Commentary
July 07, 2008
IAEA indicts Iran: Nuclear innocence claim is strongly contested
By Peter Brookes
New intelligence continues to blast away like a sledgehammer at Iran’s rocklike insistence that its nuclear program is purely peaceful and not a nuclear weapons effort as many strongly believe.
June 27, 2008
Korean nukes: Don't get giddy
By Peter Brookes
North Korea gave the world some good news this week - finally handing over a declaration about its nuclear program and promising to blow up the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear facility. But don't break out the best bubbly just yet.
June 06, 2008
The not-so-final frontier
By Peter Brookes
China destroyed one of its own aging, low-Earth-orbit (LEO) weather satellites last winter while it was circling at 500 miles above the planet, using a ground-based, direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.
June 03, 2008
The Newest Trends in Terror
By Peter Brookes
The good news is that al Qaeda's in bad shape; the bad news is that the terrorist threat is evolving. If we don't adapt, the tide could turn back.
June 03, 2008
Flashpoint: The not-so-final frontier The race for space is back on
By Peter Brookes
China destroyed one of its own aging, low-Earth-orbit (LEO) weather satellites last winter while it was circling at 500 miles above the planet, using a ground-based, direct ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.
May 09, 2008
Looking beyond Iran's space launcher desire
By Peter Brookes
Iran's space programme may be about launching its communications or scientific satellites, but Peter Brookes warns of the intercontinental ballistic missile capability that could soon follow.
May 02, 2008
Flattop Follies: Navy cuts back on carriers
By Peter Brookes
Check this: After cutting the number of active aircraft carriers from 12 to 11 last year, the Navy is now requesting Congress' permission to go down from 11 flattops to 10 for the years 2012 to 2015.
April 21, 2008
America's Perils in the Orient
By Peter Brookes
While the world seems ablaze with problems, no area or issue, including terrorism, will shape the course of the 21st century for good - or bad - more than the region across the Pacific Ocean: East Asia.
April 14, 2008
War & Pieces
By Peter Brookes
New information continues to blast away at last November's controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the supposed dormant state of Iran's nuclear weapons program, which the US intelligence community believes ended in 2003.
April 14, 2008
Copy of War & Pieces
By Peter Brookes
New information continues to blast away at last November's controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the supposed dormant state of Iran's nuclear weapons program, which the US intelligence community believes ended in 2003.
April 07, 2008
Separation anxiety
By Peter Brookes
While it was welcomed in some parts of the world — including Washington, London, Paris and Berlin — many other capitals viewed Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in mid-February as nothing if not controversial.
March 24, 2008
Perils From Across the Pond
By Peter Brookes
If asked, most Americans wouldn't say that Europe is going to be a big challenge for the next president, especially in comparison with the hotspots that splash across the headlines everyday.
March 14, 2008
The Case for European Missile Defense
By Peter Brookes
After seemingly endless rounds of talks with its Polish and Czech counterparts about fielding a missile defense system in Europe, the United States made some progress
in early February when Warsaw and Washington jointly announced they had reached an agreement—in principle—to move forward with the deployment of ten interceptors in Poland.
March 10, 2008
South Asia: Cauldrons of Chaos
By Peter Brookes
The next occupant of the White House better have an iron grip on the national-security challenges facing the United States in the geopolitical hotbed of South Asia well before taking the oath of office next January.
March 10, 2008
The Cyber Challenge
By Peter Brookes
It is no secret that modern warfare is increasingly dependent on advanced computers — and no country’s armed forces are more reliant on the digital age for information superiority than those of the U.S. This is both the American military’s greatest strength— and potentially its greatest weakness.
February 27, 2008
Mullahs In Space
By Peter Brookes
As the world continues to hem and haw about Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program, Tehran continues, slowly but surely, to present clues as to its likely true intentions.
February 13, 2008
Saving the Sailors: Greens vs. National Defense
By Peter Brookes
In spite of a presidential waiver, last week US District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper re-issued a January injunction against the Navy's use of active sonar in anti-sub training off southern California, claiming it violates existing environmental statutes.
February 12, 2008
Israel vs. Iran: 1st Strike Strategies
By Peter Brookes
In late December, Tehran crowed that its 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant, supposedly meant to produce peaceful nuclear energy, would be “online” as early as this spring, cementing in place another important building block of its questionable nuclear program.
February 06, 2008
Missile Defense Delay Undermines Security
By Peter Brookes
The US and its allies are leaving themselves dangerously vulnerable to attack if they fail to implement the ballistic missile defense system that has been proposed for Europe, argues Peter Brookes
January 31, 2008
Uncle Sam's Latin Challenge
By Peter Brookes
MAINTAINING - or regaining - America's influence in our own neighborhood will be a key challenge for the next US president.
January 23, 2008
Bad News Bears
By Peter Brookes
The next American president will likely face an increasingly frosty relation ship with an increasingly mighty Mother Russia.
January 09, 2008
The Pakistan problem
By Peter Brookes
Perhaps no word better describes Pakistan today than "uncertainty." From questions about the security of its nuclear arsenal to its political turmoil, from the resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaida to its trying relations with India, the moniker fits.
January 03, 2008
Iran's Dangerous Nuke Game: Why Israel Might Rush to Strike
By Peter Brookes
Iran turned up the heat this week on still-simmering concerns about its atomic aspirations. It crowed that its 1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear-power plant would be "online" as early as this spring, putting in place another important building block of its nuclear program.
2007 Commentary
December 27, 2007
The UN's Metastasizing Budget
By Peter Brookes
Government spending will not be curbed by wishful thinking.
December 19, 2007
Bear Paws with Iran's Nukes: Fuel Delivery Stokes Dangerous Game
By Peter Brookes
Like the bone-chilling Siberian winter winds, the bad news just keeps howling out of Mother Russia these days.
December 07, 2007
Missile mistrust
By Peter Brookes
In a way, Russian-American relations since the fall of the Berlin Wall haven’t changed that much. During the Cold War, the security relationship was characterized as one of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Today, it's still MAD — but now it's mutually assured distrust.
December 06, 2007
Iran nuke report shows need for vigilance
By Peter Brookes
With President Bush talking just weeks ago of the possibility of World War III if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, the newly-released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian program this week is nothing if not a shocker.
November 26, 2007
A Small Mideast Step: Annapolis Meeting is Progress
By Peter Brookes
The Bush Administration's long-awaited Middle East conference to resuscitate the near-dead Israeli-Palestinian peace process is slated to converge this week on tiny Annapolis, Md.
November 20, 2007
The Tribal Option: Lessons Learned in Iraq Might Help in Pakistan
By Peter Brookes
The US Special Operations Command is considering a forward-leaning plan to aid and train Pakistani tribes for operations against both al Qaeda and the Taliban that have found safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
November 06, 2007
A Friend in France-Finally
By Peter Brookes
Nicolas Sarkozy, the recently elected leader of America's oldest ally - and possibly the most pro-U.S. president in France's history - begins his first official visit to the United States today, a country he's called the world's "greatest democracy."
November 05, 2007
Arms racing
By Peter Brookes
Instability in Iraq, sectarian violence, Islamic extremism, ethnic rivalries, the rise of Iran and questions about America's long-term commitment to the region are making for a Middle East more unsettled than at any time in recent memory.
October 22, 2007
Turkey's Iraq Threat: Real Fears on Kurdish Terrors
By Peter Brookes
This week, the Turkish parliament gave the central government the go-ahead to undertake cross-border operations into Iraq against the Kurdish terrorist-separatist group, the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK.)
October 18, 2007
Putin's Persian Pals
By Peter Brookes
At his press conference yesterday, President Bush seemed surprised to learn of Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments in Tehran rejecting the use of force in the Caspian region - a clear warning to the United States not to use the military option to deal with Iran's nuclear program.
October 15, 2007
Countering the art of information warfare
By Peter Brookes
While France, Germany, the UK and the US do not see eye to eye on everything, there is one thing they probably can agree on: the growing problem of Beijing's intrusions into their government computer systems.
September 27, 2007
Iran the Bully
By Peter Brookes
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spent much of his U.N. speech yesterday complaining of "bullying" by the West. Funny - in addition to its well-known bloody works in Iraq and Lebanon, Tehran's meddling in Afghanistan is a major, and rising, menace.
September 18, 2007
Nukes in Syria?
By Peter Brookes
With Congress' hearings on Iraq grabbing the nation's attention last week, hardly anyone took notice of the news that Israel may have conducted a military air strike on a suspected nuclear facility in northern Syria.
September 13, 2007
Putin's Puzzling PM Pick
By Peter Brookes
Russia has been nothing if not full of (mostly unpleasant) surprises recently, from the resumption of bomber patrols to planting flags on the Arctic seabed. And while the collapse of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's government yesterday really came as no surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin's pick for a successor certainly did.
September 05, 2007
Is Moscow revisiting Soviet era?
By Peter Brookes
Despite consistent Kremlin claims that Moscow isn't trying to resurrect the Cold War, a landslide of Soviet-style actions over the last few weeks is doing a pretty darn good job of indicating the exact opposite.
September 04, 2007
Checking China
By Peter Brookes
Starting today, the navies of India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the United States will hold several days of exercises in the Bay of Bengal in the largest multilateral, peacetime naval maneuvers in the Indian Ocean - ever.
August 27, 2007
Bear Chooses Chill
By Peter Brookes
Despite consistent Kremlin claims that Moscow isn't trying to resurrect the Cold War, a landslide of Soviet-style actions over the last few weeks is doing a pretty darn good job of indicating the exact opposite.
August 04, 2007
Flashpoint: Russia resurgent
By Peter Brookes
Both Moscow and Washington insist one Cold War was enough. But considering the chilly rhetorical winds blowing back and forth between the two capitals recently, it appears at least a passing cold front has descended on the relationship.
August 02, 2007
Barack's Blunder
By Peter Brookes
In an "I am too tougher than Hillary" speech, Sen. Barack Obama warned Pakistan yesterday that as commander-in-chief he might act unilaterally if Islamabad didn't do more against the terrorists there.
July 25, 2007
Tea with Iran: Risky At Best
By Peter Brookes
There will be no shortage of people gnashing their teeth today when the United States —once again--meets with Iran in Baghdad over the issue of stabilizing Iraq.
July 11, 2007
The Forgotten Front
By Peter Brookes
When the U.S. counterterrorism operations against the Abu Sayyaf Group, the Philippines-based al Qaeda affiliate, kicked off in late 2001, the Bush administration dubbed it the "Second Front" in the War on Terror. Today, it's more like the "Forgotten Front."
July 10, 2007
Venezuelan Vagaries
By Peter Brookes
If you think the passing of Cuban President Fidel Castro -- the larger-than-life leader of the anti-Yanqui, Latin left for almost 50 years -- will eliminate a major problem for us in the Americas, think again.
June 25, 2007
China: World's Polluter-Ama
By Peter Brookes
China last week became the world's biggest air polluter, according to a Dutch government-funded environmental watchdog. The People's Republic now out-belches the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases - two years ahead of predictions.
June 18, 2007
The Siege of Lebanon: After Gaza, the next domino?
By Peter Brookes
The Gaza Strip may be only the first domino to fall this summer in Iran and Syria's push to establish an arc of influence across the Middle East, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon, already teetering on the brink of instability, could easily be next.
June 04, 2007
A Turkey-Iraq War? Ankara Seething with Rage at Kurdish Terrorists Group
By Peter Brookes
Turkey could send troops into Iraq any day now. It's massing ground forces on its southeastern border for a possible strike against the terrorist/separatist group the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
June 04, 2007
Peril in Pakistan: Mountainous border with Afghanistan provides haven for the Taliban
By Peter Brookes
In the global struggle against Islamic extremism and terrorism, Pakistan may be the most important country most Americans don't know is important. That state of blissful ignorance had better change — and soon.
May 31, 2007
Putin's Excuses: Missiles and Misdirection
By Peter Brookes
Yesterday the Kremlin seemed to put another nail in the coffin of U.S.-Russian relations by testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile supposedly capable of penetrating any missile-defense system.
May 29, 2007
Messing Up the Mullahs: Dubya's Covert Action Plan
By Peter Brookes
According to a news account supposedly based on a leak from inside the government, President Bush recently signed off on a classified intelligence "finding," authorizing the CIA to undertake a non-lethal covert-action program to destabilize Iran's nearly out-of-control government. If true, it's about time.
May 23, 2007
The Niger Delta Blues
By Peter Brookes
With U.S. gas prices at record highs--and the peak summer driving season upon us--most Americans still think we get the bulk of our imported oil from the sands of the Middle East.
May 14, 2007
Where Jackals Play Watchdog
By Peter Brookes
The U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development last week elected Zimbabwe as its chair. It's obscene: The panel is supposed to facilitate economic growth as well as environmental integrity - while Zimbabwe's government has transformed Africa's breadbasket into Africa's basket case due to gross economic mismanagement.
May 07, 2007
Iran v. The Saudis: Their Proxy Wars Rage in Iraq and Across the Muslim World
By Peter Brookes
Sunni insurgency, Sunni-Shia sectarian violence, al Qaeda terror - Iraq doesn't need more problems.
April 30, 2007
Congress & Iraq: Declaring Defeat
By Peter Brookes
Early this week, Congress will finally deliver on the president's request for emergency war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan - after more than 80 days (yes, 80 days) of needless dithering with our national security.
April 27, 2007
Horn hotbed
By Peter Brookes
Since the early 1990s, the Horn of Africa - the descriptive name for the East African countries of Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan - has been considered by many a major source of Islamic terrorism, radicalism and political instability. Unfortunately, that conclusion is accurate.
April 23, 2007
Squeeze Sudan: To End Darfur's Agony
By Peter Brookes
Despite endless rounds of shadowboxing with the dodgy Sudanese government over the ongoing nightmare in Darfur, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is asking us to give appeasement, er, diplomacy, one more chance.
April 16, 2007
Iran's Evil Game: Arms Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis
By Peter Brookes
Last week's U.S. military re port alleging Iran is now giving weapons to Iraqi Sunni insurgents may seem downright illogical next to earlier claims that Tehran was arming Iraq's Shia militias.
April 09, 2007
Empowering Evil China Aids Sudan's Killers
By Peter Brookes
The death, destruction and human misery in Sudan's western region of Darfur may now be worse than at any time since the conflict started four years ago - if that's possible.
April 02, 2007
Iran emboldened: Tehran seeks to dominate Middle East politics
By Peter Brookes
With the creeping possibility of a nuclear breakout, its vigorous sponsorship of international terrorism and its escalating intervention next door in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a triple threat - at least - to international security and America's Middle Eastern interests.
March 26, 2007
The Next Threats: Military Able But Stretched
By Peter Brookes
The U.S. military has now made over 2 million individual deployments to Iraq and or Afghanistan. The preponderance, of course, has been our "ground-pounding" soldiers and Marines - many on multiple tours.
March 19, 2007
Pacific Power Play: China's Naval Expansionism
By Peter Brookes
Recent military news out of China includes double trouble. First, Beijing announced a jaw-dropping 18 percent jump in its defense budget - 5 percentage points more than last year's alarming rise -at the yearly meeting of the National People's Congress.
March 12, 2007
Japan: A Needless Dishonor
By Peter Brookes
For well over a week now, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been insisting that Japan's Imperial Army didn't "coerce" as many as 200,000 to work as "comfort women" in its military brothels before and during World War II.
March 06, 2007
Japan: Coming of Age
By Peter Brookes
Arguably, the U.S.-Japan alliance has never been better. Building on efforts begun in the latter years of the Clinton administration—and accelerated on President George W. Bush’s watch by a combination of unforeseen events and determined efforts on both sides of the Pacific—bilateral security ties between Tokyo and Washington have expanded beyond all expectations. As both Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and President Bush look back over the last five years, they can take satisfaction in knowing that they have taken bold steps toward developing the U.S.-Japan alliance into a truly global partnership, capable of addressing more international security challenges than ever before.
March 05, 2007
Korea: A Long Way To Peace
By Peter Brookes
Some have gotten a bit giddy - or a bit nervous - about the prospects for vastly improved U.S.-North Korean relations coming out of the bilateral talks that start this week.
February 28, 2007
Terror formula intensifies
By Peter Brookes
In a satanic race to the depths of depravity against their evil sidekicks, the Shia militias and al-Qaeda-suspected Sunni insurgents have now begun to use what the Iraqis are calling “dirty weapons.”
February 19, 2007
Iran's Iraq meddling: Pointing the finger
By Peter Brookes
The confusion among the White House, Pentagon and our military in Baghdad last week over the presence of Iranian weapons in Iraq - and whom to finger for sending them there - was, let's just say, a bit awkward for the administration.
February 13, 2007
Putin's Pique
By Peter Brookes
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin went off on the United States and the West this past weekend in a keynote at a German security conference, claiming Washington and its European allies were jamming their agenda down the world's throat.
February 05, 2007
Where Iraq Stands
By Peter Brookes
The long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq - "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead" - is finally on the streets after months of delay.
January 29, 2007
Bear Growls at U.S. Missile Plan
By Peter Brookes
The Russians are going ballistic over the possibility the United States will deploy a missile-defense system in Central Europe in the coming years.
January 22, 2007
China's Space-Attack Test
By Peter Brookes
After several attempts, the People's Republic of China has successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon. The kinetic-energy "kill vehicle" destroyed its target - one of Beijing's own aging weather satellites - orbiting over 500 miles above Earth.
January 16, 2007
Persian Peril: Prez Hones in on Tehran
By Peter Brookes
Almost nobody noticed last week's second most important speech. President Bush's address on Iraq deserved our undivided attention - but so did Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte's Senate testimony on the intelligence community's consensus views of global threats.
January 08, 2007
When the U.N. Fails
By Peter Brookes
Topping the New Year's resolution list for new Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon should be a good hard scrub of U.N. peacekeeping operations.
2006 Commentary
December 18, 2006
When Jackals Play Watchdog
By Peter Brookes
What do China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have in common? Well, for one, they have dreadful human-rights records.
December 11, 2006
A Big Problem with Pakistan
By Peter Brookes
Pakistan's getting worse on the terrorism front - or maybe the problem has just grown more obvious. Either way, we've got a major terrorism threat on our hands.
December 04, 2006
Baker's Iraq Advice: Too High a Price
By Peter Brookes
With Defense Secretary- designate Robert Gates' confirmation hearings starting tomorrow, and the Baker-Hamilton Commission report out on Wednesday, it's going to be Iraq, Iraq and more Iraq this week.
November 27, 2006
Putin's Poison?
By Peter Brookes
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
November 20, 2006
Ukraine: A Revolution Recedes
By Peter Brookes
Just two years after Ukraine's Orange Revolution inspired the world's democratic imagination, the movement has all but collapsed - and many of the antidemocratic politicos swept away by "people power" are making a strong comeback.
November 13, 2006
A Mideast Nuke Mistake: Arabs May Arm in Fear of Iran
By Peter Brookes
We may have a nuclear-arms race on our hands in the Middle East.
November 06, 2006
Hez Power Grab
By Peter Brookes
Political tensions are again at the boiling point in Lebanon as Hezbollah attempts an overt power grab this week, seeking to wrest the reins of the largely pro-Western central government from the hands of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
October 31, 2006
The Defeatocrat Agenda
By Peter Brookes
If the "Defeatocrats," er, Democrats, triumph next week, taking the majority in Congress, expect U.S. foreign and defense policy to veer sharply left, with little guiding philosophy beyond ABB - Anything But Bush.
October 16, 2006
Korea's Nightmare: Horrors of Life in the North
By Peter Brookes
As many problems as North Korea's Stalinist dictatorship makes for the rest of the world, what it inflicts upon its captive population is far, far worse. Life in Kim Jong Il's iron-fisted police state is a hellish nightmare.
October 10, 2006
Korean Fallout
By Peter Brookes
It appears that North Korea's kooky leader, Kim Jong Il, did exactly what he said he'd do: conduct Pyongyang's first nuclear-weapons test.
October 06, 2006
Korean Ka-Boom: "Dear Leader” feels ignored
By Peter Brookes
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is known for being mercurial, but this time he's promising to go absolutely nuclear: Pyongyang announced Tuesday that it will test its first nuclear weapon - perhaps this weekend.
October 02, 2006
Pakistan Pickle
By Peter Brookes
The Pakistani government's summer truce with the pro-Taliban tribesman in northern Waziristan, on the Afghan border, may be good for President Pervez Musharraf's political health, but it's sure hurting Afghanistan - where the Coalition fight with the Taliban is definitely on.
September 25, 2006
El Loco's Next Gig: He May Nab a Security Council Seat
By Peter Brookes
Despite his lunatic anti-American rant last week, El Loco is in the running for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.
September 18, 2006
Afghan anxiety: No 'Cut & Run'
By Peter Brookes
Last Thursday, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee and a potential '08 candidate, tried to turn the rhetorical tables on the Bush administration by accusing it oddly enough of a "cut and run" strategy in - of all places - Afghanistan.
September 11, 2006
9/11: Five Years On
Connecting a lot more dots
By Peter Brookes
There has been no bigger whipping boy in the shadow of 9/11 than the U.S. intelligence community (IC) - and rightly so.
August 22, 2006
Lebanon's soul at stake
By Peter Brookes
Now that the guns in southern Lebanon have gone silent - at least for the moment - the real battle for the political hearts and minds of Lebanon begins.
August 21, 2006
Dealing with Damascus: Isolate Assad
By Peter Brookes
Notice anything different about the recent round of diplomatic efforts to resolve Lebanon's latest crisis? Strikingly, Syria was nowhere to be found. Thankfully, for the first time in years, Damascus played no visible role in resolving a Lebanese predicament. Just like Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon last year after a 30-year occupation, this is good news.
August 16, 2006
Triumphant Iran's Next Moves
By Peter Brookes
As Hezbollah's sugar daddy, Iran clearly profited from the death and destruction. In fact, though criticized at the conflict's outset for spurring Hezbollah into provoking a war, in the end, Iran actually burnished its image and elevated its standing in the Middle East - and the Muslim world.
August 11, 2006
The other enemy: Lessons of the latest plot
By Peter Brookes
The British busting up of a terrorist plot - one that was within days of blowing up as many as 10 U.S. airliners somewhere over the Atlantic - demonstrates once again that we have two enemies in the War on Terror: terrorists and our own complacency.
July 31, 2006
Lebanon: The U.N. dance
By Peter Brookes
Fireworks started yesterday as the U.N. Security Council met in emergency session to craft a resolution that would - among other issues - deploy a stabilization force to Lebanon to end the fighting between Israel and its terrorist nemesis, Hezbollah.
July 27, 2006
Hire This Temp: Bolton merits permanent job
By Peter Brookes
You don't often get an opportunity to right a terrible wrong. But the Senate has a chance to do just that when it gives the nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations a second look starting today.
July 24, 2006
Ground zero for Mideast instability is Iran: Arab world, take notice
By Peter Brookes
While the world focuses on the smoldering conflict in the Middle East, the war's instigator and puppeteer, Iran, must be pretty darn pleased with itself.
July 17, 2006
What China really wants
By Peter Brookes
China's foot-dragging on getting tough with North Korea and Iran at the U.N. Security Council has been giving the United States and others fits recently - and for good reason.
July 15, 2006
Why Japan is so concerned
By Peter Brookes
There's nothing like a whiff of possible resurgent militarism from the Land of the Rising Sun to get people – on both sides of the Pacific – to sit up and pay attention. Yet Tokyo's assertion this week that it may choose to deal with the North Korean ballistic missile threat using pre-emptive military strikes doesn't mean we should now call Japan the "Land of the Rising Gun."
July 10, 2006
Putin's new low: Vlad Punks America
By Peter Brookes
Next weekend's meeting between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, will likely mark a new post-Cold War low in U.S.-Russian relations.
July 06, 2006
Missile Miscue
By Peter Brookes
Despite worldwide calls for restraint, North Korea chose to honor July 4 by going ballistic, launching seven missiles of various ranges into the Sea of Japan. It was a classic moment out of "Fatal Attraction" - a Glenn Close "I will not be ignored!" scream.
July 04, 2006
Why they need us: Imagine a world without America
By Peter Brookes
For all the worldwide whining and bellyaching about the United States, today - America's 230th birthday - provides an opportune time for them to consider for just a moment what the world might be like without good ol' Uncle Sam.
June 29, 2006
The price of leaks
By Peter Brookes
The unauthorized exposure of the overseas terrorist-finance-tracking program in The New York Times is just the latest example of gutless bottom-feeders advancing their own agendas at the expense of national security. These people have betrayed their colleagues, and Americans have - or will - die as a result.
June 19, 2006
It's time for wrath over Khan
By Peter Brookes
Check this out: While the United States gives Pakistan $700 million a year in aid, Islamabad still won't give us access to the former CEO of Pakistan's nuclear Walmart, A.Q. Khan - the only outsider with insider knowledge of Tehran's nuclear program.
June 12, 2006
Club For Dictators: An ugly agenda for Asia
By Peter Brookes
Some see it as a NATO counterweight. Others call it a Club for Dictators - or at least near-dictators. Some consider it an anti-American stalking horse for Chinese and or Russian hegemony, with the potential to become "OPEC with nukes."
June 08, 2006
The Oil Weapon
By Peter Brookes
As Iran mulls a fresh offer of U.S. and European Union incentives to halt its nuclearweapons program, the regime's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this week brandished the oil state's most powerful weapon - disrupting Middle East energy supplies.
June 05, 2006
The FBI's failure
By Peter Brookes
This weekend's arrest of 17 homegrown al Qaeda wannabes just across the border in Canada is a nightmarish reminder of the horrors that have been - and could be - right here at home again if we don't fully get our counterterrorism act together soon.
June 02, 2006
Iran's friends prevent progress
By James Phillips and Peter Brookes
When you live in a tough neighborhood, it's important to have friends -- and the Middle East is one of the world's toughest neighborhoods. So on one level, it makes sense that Iran has gone out of its way to cultivate friendships with some of the world's most powerful countries.
June 01, 2006
The Spies among us
By Peter Brookes
A recently-released FBI report about the compromising ties between a Chinese-American Mata Hari and her FBI-agent lover is a stark reminder that after terrorism, the greatest threat to our national security at home is espionage.
May 22, 2006
Living with the Crazy Colonel
By Peter Brookes
The Bush administration's decision last week to normalize diplomatic relations with Libya is — without doubt -- an exercise in big-picture foreign-policy thinking.
May 16, 2006
Connecting Dots: NSA needs phone records
By Peter Brookes
GEN. Michael Hayden is going to get an early Memorial Day BBQ-ing on Thursday. The CIA director-nominee will appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the senators are sure to go ballistic over the National Security Agency's telephone-calling-record database.
May 08, 2006
The rap on W's new CIA pick
By Peter Brookes
Today the White House will name Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, now the principal deputy director of National Intelligence (PDDNI), as the new Central Intelligence Agency director, replacing Porter Goss, who was unceremoniously sacked last Friday.
April 29, 2006
Iran vs. UN: Tehran ups the ante
By Peter Brookes
Tossing a little fat on the fire before today's U.N. Security Council deadline calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, Tehran upped the ante this week by offering to share its nuclear know-how with others.
April 24, 2006
Reform-and-Dagger: Fixing U.S. intelligence
By Peter Brookes
Last thursday, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, had a chance to appease his growing chorus of critics. He failed.
April 17, 2006
Back to the Maoist Future: China's African ambitions
By Peter Brookes
Amid festering concerns about China's burgeoning global power, Beijing has set its sights on expanding its influence in Africa
April 17, 2006
Hu's not coming to dinner
By Peter Brookes
In the world of diplomacy, form is often way more important than substance. Consider Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington this Thursday.
Last September, Hurricane Katrina postponed what was to have been Hu's first D.C. trip since taking the helm as president in 2003. Remarkably, Beijing engaged in nearly eight months of diplomatic kung fu over the level of pomp and circumstance.
April 10, 2006
Drug-War Don't: It's a Bad Time to Neglect Colombia
By Peter Brookes
In largely unheralded good news, the Bush administration has made great strides helping Colombia fight the double-barreled threat of a deadly insurgency and ultra-powerful drug lords.
April 03, 2006
A Bit less special
By Peter Brookes
Although he's likely to stay in power for another year, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is on something of a valedictory tour - making foreign-policy speeches at home, in Australia and (as soon as this week) in the United States.
March 27, 2006
Ugly Entente
By Peter Brookes
A Blossoming Sino-Russian romance is undercutting U.S. global interests on an unprecedented scale. Indeed, Russia and China seem to have their eyes on restraining European and Japanese power, too.
March 21, 2006
Pushing Iran
By Peter Brookes
While the world dithers over Iran's runaway nuclear (weapons) program, the House International Relations Committee last week called for action against the Tehran regime: It passed the Iran Freedom Support Act by an overwhelming 37-3 margin.
March 13, 2006
Growing Iran-Syria ties
By Peter Brookes
TOP Iranian officials just threatened to inflict "harm and pain" on the United States, vowing to "use any means" to "resist any pressure and threat" over its nuclear program. It's not just rhetoric. Iran is making preparations to deliver on both promises by expanding its alliance with its evil twin, Syria.
February 27, 2006
Outreach to India: W's Atomic Pickle
By Peter Brookes
President Bush finds himself in a bit of a "proliferation pickle" as he begins an historic visit to South Asia this week.
February 21, 2006
New Radical Chic: UNESCO's Bizarre Hero
By Peter Brookes
Here's one for you: Early this month, in front of 200,000 screaming supporters in Havana's Revolutionary Square, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro bestowed Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez with UNESCO's 2005 International José Marti Prize for promoting Latin American heritage, liberty and values.
February 13, 2006
Back to Rebuilding: The Next Challenge in Iraq
By Peter Brookes
Conventional wisdom has long been that without security in Iraq, political and economic progress would be stymied. But a corollary is becoming equally true: Halting advances in reconstruction and economic development are hampering progress on the political and security fronts.
January 30, 2006
How Iran Buys Friends
By Peter Brookes
Masterfully pitting the East versus the West, this week Iran is once again likely to slip the noose over its nuclear (weapons) program — avoiding a vote of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors, meeting in emergency session in Vienna, to refer the Iran case to the U.N. Security Council.
January 23, 2006
Iran: Our Military Options
By Peter Brookes
A reporter last month asked Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israel Defense Force's chief of staff, how far Israel is willing to go to stop Iran's nuclear (weapons) program; the general answered: "2,000 kilometers" — the flying distance from Israel to Iran's key nuclear sites.
January 17, 2006
Mob Nation
By Peter Brookes
North Korea has become a gangster nation, pocketing $700 million to $1 billion a year from counterfeiting of U.S. greenbacks, trafficking illicit narcotics, smuggling contraband smokes and even peddling knockoff Viagra, according to U.S. government estimates.
January 09, 2006
Osama: Quiet as a Corpse
By Peter Brookes
OSAMA bin Laden hasn't made a single peep publicly in over a year — his longest absence since 9/11. The ghoul's eerie silence is both disturbing — and odd — for the leader of a global terrorist organization hellbent on changing world order.
2005 Commentary
December 27, 2005
Hearts and Minds
By Peter Brookes
Military operations against terrorism are essential in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islamic extremism will be defeated as much — if not more — in the Muslim heart and mind as on the battlefield
December 14, 2005
Breeding Freedom
By Peter Brookes
Tomorrow's historic Iraqi election is about a heck of a lot more than choosing 275 new parliamentarians for Iraq's first full-term, post-Saddam government.
December 05, 2005
Gaining Ground: Clear Progress in Iraq
By Peter Brookes
The "Cut and Run Crowd" are proving to be the worst kind of pessimists on Iraq - refusing to see the significant evidence that things are starting to go our way militarily.
November 28, 2005
Planning to Win
By Peter Brookes
American, or even future Iraqi, military prowess won't be enough to defeat Iraq's bloody insurgency. Victory in Iraq is going to come as much — or more — from political/economic progress in that battered nation as it will from military dominance.
November 22, 2005
Military Diplomats
By Peter Brookes
Scuttlebutt has it that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his new top Pacific brass, Adm. William Fallon, have been going at it hammer-and-tong over the depth and breadth of our relationship with China's military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
November 14, 2005
A Vital Alliance, Built by Bush
By Peter Brookes
When President Bush lands here tomorrow, he deserves a victory lap for a singular foreign policy accomplishment — growing and deepening the U.S.-Japan alliance.
November 07, 2005
The Torture Test
By Peter Brookes
A key factor in planning any covert operation is full consideration of "blowback" — the painful consequences of an "op" gone bad.
October 31, 2005
Iran-Al Qaeda Axis: Tehran Protects Top Terrorists
By Peter Brookes
The most immediate threat Iran poses to American national security isn't its nuclear (weapons) program. It's the safe haven Tehran is giving al Qaeda terrorists, who are planning and directing jihad across the globe.
October 19, 2005
Mauling MacArthur
By Peter Brookes
This time, South Korea's anti-American crowd has gone too far.
Uncle Sam-bashing is, unfortunately, quite popular these days among South Korea's left, teachers and youth - burning the Stars and Stripes and massive anti-U.S. street protests are all too common.
October 11, 2005
CIA's Bad Show
By Peter Brookes
October 10, 2005---CIA Director Porter Goss decided last week to not release the CIA Inspector General's report on 9/11 intelligence failures - and also to not convene accountability review boards.
September 26, 2005
Goss' Good Grades
By Peter Brookes
The only good thing about taking over an organization that's hit rock bottom is that the only direction to go is up.
September 19, 2005
Nuclear Nightmare
By Peter Brookes
Not only has Tehran thumbed its nose at diplomatic efforts to settle disputes over its nuclear (weapons) program, now it's offering to share its nuclear know-how with others.
September 13, 2005
Why Kofi Can't Fix the U.N.
By Peter Brookes
The damning, 840-page Volker Independent Inquiry Commission report on the United Nations' horrific mismanagement of the pre-war Iraqi Oil-for-Food program wasn't exactly the type of "birthday present" the international body was hoping for as it turns 60 years old this week.
September 12, 2005
Freedom as nothing more than a concept
By Peter Brookes
The only thing I remember from grad school is the "hypothetical counterfactual" - an idea that attempts to answer the intellectually elusive question: What if?
August 30, 2005
The Art of (Cyber) War
By Peter Brookes
Modern warfare is increasingly dependent on advanced computers, and no country's armed forces are more reliant on the Digital Age than ours are.
August 23, 2005
Facing the Facts About Iran
By Peter Brookes
Iran is becoming a foreign-policy problem of almost immeasurable proportions — from its nuclear-weapons brinkmanship to its feverish support of Islamic fundamentalism and international terrorism.
August 17, 2005
Australia and the U.S.: Regional and Global Partners
By Peter Brookes
Despite a long, righ history of partnership, especially on the battlefield, the US-Austalia alliance is, arguably, stronger than it has ever been. Re-forged in the crucible of the tragic events of 9/11, Australia has more than proven its mettle as America's ally.
