news
9/4/09: SHAFR Annual Elections Underway read more…
9/1/09: SHAFR Announces Search for Conference Consultant read more…
9/1/09: SHAFR.org Unveils New Blogging Team for Fall 2009 read more…
9/1/09: SHAFR Opportunities in 2010 read more…
Featured this month
After three months in office, Barack Obama traveled to Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009 to attend the Fifth Summit of the Americas. Already his presidency had been consumed by issues of major importance, both at home and abroad; Obama no doubt spent his days thinking about the global economic crisis, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and consequential domestic priorities such as the upcoming push for health reform. On that future day when the Obama presidential library opens its archives, we should not be surprised to learn that top policymakers were not poring over Latin American affairs during their first weeks in office. Read more…
Posted in Americas, Barack Obama administration: 2009-present, Central America & Caribbean, International Economic Relations, International Trade and Economics, Op-Eds, Policymaking--International, Post-9/11: 2001-present, Public Opinion, South America, World Trade Organization | No Comments »
Cross-posted from Balkinization
Originally posted on September 27, 2009
In my west coast copy of the New York Times today, two stories are side-by-side: one on disagreements within the Obama Administration about Afghanistan, and one titled 
“U.S. Drone Strikes Office of Sunni Party In Iraq’s North.” These stories are related, for the politics of war, necessarily at issue in presidential decisionmaking about Afghanistan, are affected by the technologies of warfare. Drones are a technological step that further isolates the American people from military action, undermining political checks on contemporary warfare. And the isolation of the people, historians of war have argued, helps enable on-going, endless war.
When contemplating the scope and limits of presidential war power, constitutional scholars tend to focus on the relationship between the branches and the impact of public opinion. But the existence of drones, the reliance on private contractors, and the absence of a draft are part of a shift in the political structure of American warfare, enabling presidential power.
The role of drones might cause us to believe that an inevitable march of technology, together with strategies of contemporary warfare, have led to the disconnect between most Americans and the wars their nation is engaged in. But military historian Adrien Lewis suggests that these developments were not at all inevitable, and that a fundamental shift in the political structure of American warmaking has occurred since Vietnam, resulting in an isolation of the people from their wars. Read more…
Posted in Afghanistan, Afghanistan War: 2001-present, Barack Obama administration: 2009-present, Iraq, Op-Eds | No Comments »
Over the past several months, the United States has confronted continually the problems of the Horn of Africa in the form of Somali pirates, political instability, and the rising threat of Al-Qaida. Daring rescues, supportive resolutions, and assassinations of terrorist leaders have formed the major part of the U.S. response. Although these decisive actions emerged out of immediate crises, they remain part of a long pattern of drift in American policy towards Africa and its decolonization over the past half-century. The pattern of inaction, disinterest, and inconsistency followed by crisis management with a quick return to somnolence clearly emerges in the history of U.S.-Somali relations. Read more…
Posted in Barack Obama administration: 2009-present, Harry Truman administration: 1945-1953, John Kennedy administration: 1961-1963, Lyndon Johnson administration: 1963-1969, Op-Eds, Post-9/11: 2001-present, Race and ethnicity, Revolutions, Terrorism, United Nations | No Comments »
