Foreign Affairs
National Security Oversight: Still a Man’s World
Katina Slavkova | December 5, 2019
Women’s representation has made significant gains in politics. Women are major contenders for the Presidency and are increasingly winning office at the national, state, and local levels. Women comprising a quarter of Congress may be small in an absolute sense, but it is truly historic. Yet within the legislative branch, that influence is not felt
National Security Confirmations: Politics Beyond the Water’s Edge
Katina Slavkova | April 4, 2018
March 2018 marked a curious milestone for national security that may portend some unexpected clashes ahead for President Trump and congressional overseers. New personnel selections have dredged up divisive political memories; while the choice of Mr. Bolton (for National Security Advisor) may draw more commentary, Gina Haspel (for CIA Director) will draw the oversight that
At the Water’s Edge: Is House Intelligence Oversight As Good As It Gets?
Katina Slavkova | December 18, 2017
There is a common adage in national security and foreign policy debates that “partisan politics stop at the water’s edge.” This famous statement was first coined by the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) who, at the outset of the Cold War, overcame his political
Our Kind of War
Katina Slavkova | July 14, 2016
How do we justify our military actions and what is Congress’s role? Legend has it that the late Congressman Charlie Wilson from Texas had managed to singlehandedly defeat the Soviet aggressors in Afghanistan in the 1980s by orchestrating an extraordinary covert operation that took ragged bands of fearless mujahedeen fighters to deliver a
Desperate but not serious
Katina Slavkova | October 31, 2014
“The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.” A select few foreign policy and Middle East experts will quickly recognize the origin of this sobering assessment, but for the most casual observers of world events this statement perfectly captures the latest
A History of Violence
Last Friday Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced that he would appoint a select committee to further investigate the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound and the CIA facility in Benghazi, Libya. This decision comes in the midst of a midterm election season and predictably it has generated panoply of partisan
“Tell Me How This Ends”
“Tell me how this ends” This is what former CENTCOM Commander and CIA Director David Petraeus had posited to journalist Rick Atkinson back in early 2003 when he was still a commanding officer of the 101st Airborne Division and in preparation to invade Iraq. While General Petraeus had made this comment with respect to the