2015-11-27 Readers of Second Line of Defense were not surprised by the Turkish shootdown of the Russian aircraft. Hardly, an unpredictable event, the shootdown is a function of the evolving situation and Turkish objectives. With regard to context, Professor Amatzia Baram highlighted two important data points going into this phase of developments…
2015-11-25 Europe is in the throes of fundamental transformation. Certainly, this is not the top down transformation experienced in the 1990s. This is crisis engendered transformation, where what is not done is as important as what is done in the reshaping of Europe. The Eurozone crisis raises fundamental questions about…
2015-11-23 By Kenneth Maxwell Last week, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, released a digital text of a newly discovered poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, first published in London anonymously in 1811. Shelley was 18 years old at the time. The poem was long lost. It has now been made public for the first time in…
2015-11-23 By Richard Weitz Second Line of Defense had the opportunity to attend this year’s 12th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, where more than one hundred foreign and Russian participants heard President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials and various international experts discussed recent international developments.…
2015-11-16 Dateline: Paris By Murielle Delaporte A new reality is born from the bloodshed which occurred in the streets of Paris last Friday. 8 terrorists, 7 points of attacks, 30 minutes, close to 500 persons hit by Kalashnikovs or explosives, more than 2000 relatives mourning a loved one, 64 million…
2015-11-08 By Ed Timperlake The Honorable Allen Clark, a decorated combat veteran who lost both legs in Vietnam, has written two books that capture the Vietnam war perfectly and his challenging journey home. His book Valor in Vietnam, 1963-1977 Chronicles of Honor, Courage and Sacrifice should be on the shelf of…
2015-10-26 by Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake The Russian intervention in Syria is a strategic turning point in the Middle East. The intervention alters the conflict and affects the alliances playing out in a fluid and dynamic situation. To get beyond the Inside the Beltway discussions, and get a sense…
2015-10-20 By Kenneth Maxwell Lincoln Gordon, former U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, wrote a book called Brazil's Second Chance which was published by the Brooking's Institution in Washington DC in 2004. Gordon had been a visiting fellow at Brooking's for many years. He is famous (or rather notorious) in Brazil for his role…
