Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute

Nikki Haley, the Most Reckless Candidate for President

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Aug 28, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

After the initial debate among GOP presidential aspirants, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is clearly the darling of the hawks who have given us debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Indeed, the laudatory assessments of her debate performance among conservatives in the pro-war news media seemed to be a sophisticated, highly coordinated propaganda campaign. The key feature that Haley and her cheerleaders have in common is an unwillingness to consider any alternatives to the policies that have brought America and the world so much grief. Congenitally hawkish New...

Desperate U.S. Hawks Face Tough Choice in Ukraine

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Aug 22, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Even during the period of wild optimism in the United States during 2022 and early 2023 about Ukraine’s chances of defeating Russian forces, there was a small, dark cloud of doubt about what the Joe Biden administration would do if the prospects of victory unraveled. That question has now become more pertinent and urgent as Kiev’s vaunted offensive clearly is faltering. Territorial gains in Russian-occupied regions are minimal, and they have occurred only with great cost in the lives of Ukrainian troops. For Ukraine’s forces, the war has become a meat grinder reminiscent of the fighting in...

Seoul Needs to Divorce Washington

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Aug 3, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The bilateral military alliance between South Korea and the United States has become increasingly unproductive and needlessly perilous for both countries. Astute American analysts have argued for decades that the arrangement is not a good deal for the United States. The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been one of the most blatant security free-riders among Washington’s roster of “allies”—or more accurately, Washington’s clients and dependents. U.S. officials have repeatedly pressed South Korea to spend more on its defense and pay a greater share of costs for U.S. forces stationed on the...

Is the United States Pursuing a Permanent Cold War with Russia?

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Jul 11, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

There is growing speculation about how the Russia-Ukraine war might eventually end. Three competing scenarios are strong possibilities. The most likely outcome is a definitive Russian victory after a grinding, bloody struggle lasting several more years. As time drags on, Russia’s larger population and military will confer greater and greater advantages in the fighting, despite the lumbering, inefficient nature of the Kremlin’s forces. The second most likely outcome is a frozen conflict roughly along the current battle lines. Fighting would end with an armistice rather than a formal peace...

By Gambling on Deterrence, Washington Must Prepare for Failure in the Pacific

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Jun 19, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

It has become increasingly apparent that any notion of U.S. “strategic ambiguity” with respect to Taiwan is dead. Both the Joe Biden administration’s rhetoric and U.S. military deployments in the western Pacific indicate that the United States will come to Taiwan’s defense if the People’s Republic of China (PRC) uses force against the island. The logic underlying this more confrontational stance is that it will deter Beijing from taking rash actions. It is far more likely to produce a potentially catastrophic military collision between the United States and China. The reliability and...

Paul Krugman’s World War II is a Propagandistic Fairy Tale

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Jun 8, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

In his June 6 New York Times column commemorating the 79th anniversary of the D-Day landing, Paul Krugman manages to regurgitate nearly every self-serving Western cliché about World War II. According to Krugman, “World War II was one of the few wars that was clearly a fight of good against evil.” It is safe to assume that the vast majority of Americans would agree with him, but his description is wildly inaccurate. Unlike some analysts who confer sainthood on the Allied powers, Krugman at least concedes that “the good guys were by no means entirely good. Americans were still denied basic...

Washington’s Never-Ending Love Affair with Sanctions

by Ted Galen Carpenter | Jun 1, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

One of the more puzzling features of the U.S. approach to world affairs is how officials persist in their enthusiasm for economic sanctions as a worthwhile policy tool despite massive evidence regarding their futility. More than three decades ago, Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot debunked the notion that sanctions were effective in their seminal book, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered. Subsequent historical scholarship and contemporary studies by other experts have largely confirmed that conclusion. Sanctions have a nearly unique quality of being simultaneously both...

On Korea, Joe Biden Is Choosing Every Bad Option

by Ted Galen Carpenter | May 15, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Joe Biden has managed to embrace nearly all of the worst, most dangerous options with respect to U.S. policy on the Korean Peninsula. Washington’s policy toward North Korea is utterly sterile and ineffective. The glimpses of hope during Donald Trump’s administration that the United States might adopt a fresh approach instead of clinging to its longstanding, unattainable demand that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program have vanished. Biden abandoned even Trump’s modest policy deviations. Instead, his administration has resumed the insistence on Pyongyang’s complete...