Journal of International Studies

[This epilogue to Scahill's bestselling book,  Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield , is posted with the kind permission of its publisher, Nation Books.]  On January 21, 2013, Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term as president of the United States. Just as he had promised when he began his first campaign for president six years earlier, he pledged again to turn the page on history and take US foreign policy in a different direction. "A decade of war is now ending", Obama declared. "We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war."  Much of the media focus that day was on the new hairstyle of First Lady Michelle Obama, who appeared on the dais sporting freshly trimmed bangs, and on the celebrities in attendance, including hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and his wife, Beyonce, who performed the national anthem. But the day Obama was sworn in, a US drone strike hit Yemen. It was the third such attack...

In  Principles of War , Carl von Clausewitz states as his second rule governing strategy that a concentration of power against the enemy force is crucial to victory, as well as a willingness to suffer setbacks in strategically secondary engagements.  Many historical leaders have disregarded this principle and opted to commit important assets to sideshows of little strategic consequence. To the chagrin of Republicans, former US president George W Bush was one of them.  Phillip II had his Netherlands, Napoleon had his Portugal, Winston Churchill had his Gallipoli and the 43rd administration had the "global war on terror".  In this conflict, the elite of the US Army was bogged down in the Iraqi insurgency for the best part of a decade, with its intelligence distracted with such "vital" theatres as Afghanistan, Somalia or the Sahel.  While the struggle against terrorism certainly merited attention from the US defense establishment after 9/1...

In the 1960s, John Kerry was distinctly a man of his times. Kennedy-esque, he went from Yale to Vietnam to fight in a lost war. When popular sentiments on that war shifted, he became one of the more poignant voices raised in protest by antiwar veterans. Now, skip past his time as a congressman, lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, senator, and presidential candidate (Swift Boated out of the race by the Republican right).  Four decades after his Vietnam experience, he has achieved what will undoubtedly be the highest post of his lifetime: secretary of state. And he's looked like a bumbler first class. Has he also been - once again - a true man of his time, of a moment in which American foreign policy, as well as its claim to global moral and diplomatic leadership, is in remarkable disarray?  In his nine months in office, Kerry's State Department has one striking accomplishment to its name. It has achieved a new level of media savvy in promoting itself and plu...