All posts tagged: military installations

Hamas Must Go – The Atlantic

Hamas Must Go – The Atlantic

One morning in November 2012, I knocked on the door of President Obama’s suite in the Raffles Hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, so early that he was barely out of bed. I had an urgent question that could not wait for the president to finish his morning coffee: Should we try to broker a cease-fire in Gaza? Then, like now, the extreme Islamist terror group Hamas had sparked a crisis by indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians. Israel had responded with air strikes, and a ground invasion of Gaza appeared imminent. The president and I debated whether I should leave Asia, fly to the Middle East, and try to negotiate a halt to the fighting before the situation escalated further. The reason to go was clear: Stopping the violence would save lives and prevent the conflict from spiraling into a wider regional war. The reasons not to go were more nuanced but also compelling. President Obama and I were both wary of suggesting that Israel did not have a right and a responsibility to defend itself against …

What American Delays Have Cost Ukraine

What American Delays Have Cost Ukraine

The United States is finally getting around to supplying Ukraine with some of the long-range weaponry that the Ukrainians have been requesting for months. For far too long, Ukraine’s Western allies have largely been arming that country to fight a caricature of modern war, not the real thing. The results of that decision are evident on maps that, more than 500 days after Russia’s invasion, show only small, incremental changes in the front line. The Ukrainians started a much anticipated counteroffensive almost four months ago and have pushed the Russians back in a few places in the Zaporizhzhia region but have not achieved a full-scale armored breakthrough. By contrast, Ukrainian missile strikes behind enemy lines have produced noteworthy successes in recent months—most notably in forcing Russia to withdraw major elements of the Black Sea Fleet from its base in the port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea. When Russia prepared to invade Ukraine in February 2022, many military analysts imagined tank-led columns advancing rapidly and overwhelming the Ukrainian army—a vision of war that has continued to …

Senators Need to Stop Abusing the ‘Hold’ Procedure

Senators Need to Stop Abusing the ‘Hold’ Procedure

What is a “hold” in the Senate? This is not a question that many casual observers of American politics would normally ask. But Tommy Tuberville, the senator from Alabama, has made it a more urgent one with his blanket hold on all key military promotions that have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Tuberville’s action, now in its seventh month, has kept hundreds of military leaders, including top officials, in limbo, doing real harm to the nation’s armed forces. As Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told CNN, Tuberville is “playing Russian roulette with the very lives of our service members by denying them the opportunity to actually have the most experienced combat leaders in those positions to lead them in times of peace and in times of combat.” The three top service secretaries wrote jointly in The Washington Post earlier this month, decrying what Tuberville is doing. No specific rule created the Senate-hold procedure; it is a custom, but one that flowed from the rules of a legislative body that values consensus …