Andrew Cockburn is Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine.
“Operation Epic Fury is concluded,” declared Marco Rubio, holding his first White House press conference yesterday. The Secretary of State explained that the new mission – reopening the Strait of Hormuz – would essentially be a humanitarian operation, resulting in military exchanges only if US ships came under fire while clearing the passage of mines
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Trump Always Chickens Out, TACO, has been a profitable guideline for Wall Street traders over the course of his second term. Now however, according to commodities markets reporter Javier Blas, the safer bet has become NACHO, Not a Chance Hormuz Opens. This is sound advice, given the multiple ways that Iran controls passage, including the
Ever since World War Two, America’s aircraft carrier fleets have served as imposing instruments of imperial power, roaming the oceans to cow recalcitrant nations into obedience. Favored by the Trump administration for this purpose, current experience indicates their day is done thanks to the proliferation of anti-ship missiles and the increasing ubiquity of drones. In
Napoleon is supposed to have defined strategy as ‘on s’engage, et puis on voit’, loosely translated as ‘get stuck in and then see what happens’. Donald Trump is not normally deemed Napoleonic, yet in his approach to strategy he appears to have taken the great general’s precept to heart, launching initiatives without much forethought regarding consequences
Close examination indicates that in the US, one branch of the bureaucracy buys weapons from another
The Saudis have poured money into other people’s bomb-making programs
The firm stands free of the embarrassments of over-priced and underperforming programs that burden the record of legacy defense giants
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29 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Aidan McLaughlin, the editor in chief of Mediaite, and Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine, as the Democratic National Convention draws to a close. Kamala Harris has had a dramatic rise to the top of the democratic ticket, but what does she really believe in? And is opposition to
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31 min listen
This week Freddy speaks to Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine, about America’s response to the developments in the Middle East. On the podcast they discuss the ‘squad’ (a section of Democrats who have been making pro-Palestinian noises), how America and Israel’s surveillance system allowed the attack to happen, and the importance of the
The Caribbean nation is losing the people necessary for a reconstruction of the state
Kyiv knows that manned aircraft won’t make a big difference on the battlefield
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The purpose of economic sanctions was aptly summarised back in 1960 by a US State Department official in a secret memo on Cuban sanctions ‘to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.’ Twenty years later, the CIA concluded that ‘economic sanctions… have not met any of their objectives’. Worse, the measures strengthened the regime,
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In a submission for the hotly contested prize for fatuous belligerence over Ukraine, Ben Wallace, UK secretary of state for defence, has spoken of a ‘whiff of Munich’ regarding negotiations to end the crisis. It may only be a matter of time before he, or some fellow tub-thumper, reaches into the historical locker and pulls
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Back in the 1960s, a senior Pentagon official would greet incoming recruits to his department with a cheery announcement: ‘Welcome to the world of strategic analysis, where we program weapons that don’t work to meet threats that don’t exist.’ The recent media excitement over Chinese tests of a hypersonic nuclear weapon which, anonymous Pentagon officials
Trillions of dollars have flowed through the Pentagon’s war budgets in the last two decades
Why should anyone buy Lockheed Martin’s deficient jet?
Party bosses appear to espouse the betrayal of their base as a core value
A short history
