Columns
Regular Columns
Fighting Wars During Peace-Time
Mon 02 Apr 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Britain’s magazine The Economist once made an interesting point about democracies and fighting wars. “Democracies,” the magazine said—and I offer a paraphrase rather than quote precisely—“find it difficult to fight wars during peace-time.” The point is a subtle one. Essentially, it is that democratic societies are seldom prepared to engage in sustained war-fighting if they do not believe that their county is really at war.
The Fifth Year of War
Fri 23 Mar 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman muses on the US war in Iraq.
A major landmark in American foreign policy was passed this week: the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. As the US enters its fifth year of fighting in Iraq, many observers have noted that America has been at war there longer than it fought in World War I, World War II, or Korea. Americans, it is fair to say, do not like fighting wars, and especially in peace-time. On this topic, more below.
The original reasons given by the administration for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were to locate and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. Much has been made of the fact that, after US forces had conquered Baghdad and subdued most of the remainder of the country, no weapons of mass destruction were found. This fact has been used to support assertions that President Bush lied to the American people by using the WMD argument to initiate hostilities against Iraq.
The Presidential Race and Religion
Tue 06 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Candidate affiliations and the role of ‘the religious factor’
Senior Fellow David Aikman looks a little deeper at the religious affiliation of current U.S. presidential candidates—including Clinton, McCain, Obama, Romney, Brownback, and Giuliani—and how that may affect the nomination races. With nearly half of American voters either evangelical or Catholic, faith should not be overlooked.
