The managers of U.S. interventions abroad tout quantitative measurements as "metrics of success" in pacifying the natives. So here's a metric the counterinsurgency crowd might find interesting: the number of U.S. soldiers seeking treatment for opiate dependency rose 50% in conjunction with Washington's recent "surge" into Afghanistan.

The rise in opiate addictions among U.S. servicemen is no mere coincidence with the surge in the Hindu Kush. Afghanistan produces over 90% of the world's supply of heroin. Over the course of five years, the Army's figure has "skyrocketed" over 500%, from 89 in 2004 to 529 in 2009. And these are only the reported instances, which usually compose a minority of actual cases of drug abuse. It's becoming increasingly hard to ignore the nexus between narcotics trafficking in Eurasia and U.S. foreign policy.

The webzine Foreign Policy is a little too globalist and USA Today-ee for my taste, but Stephen Walt is a real bright spot.  A few days ago he made a numerical argument about how silly it is for the US to be worrying about the military capabilities of Iran.  And for all the talk about the Iranian regime being made up of insane irrational actors, Walt reminds us

Iran hasn't invaded anyone since the Islamic revolution, although it has supported a number of terrorist organizations and engaged in various forms of covert action.  The United States has also backed terrorist groups and conducted covert ops during this same period, and attacked a number of other countries, including Panama, Grenada, Serbia, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.

By any objective measure, therefore, Iran isn't even on the same page with the United States in terms of latent power, deployed capabilities, or the willingness to use them.

One place I differ with Walt is when he says “the idea of preventive war against Iran [isn’t] going to go away just because Barack Obama [is] president.”  Fighting a preemptive war isn’t something a president can sort of be nudged into, like raising or cutting the top tax rate by a few percent or giving a chest thumping speech to the Nobel committee.  A president really has to have his heart into it the way Bush’s was.

More importantly is the psycho-sociological reason Obama won’t bomb Iran.  Anybody who talked to a liberal during the Bush years knows that their biggest complaint was that the president had ruined America’s reputation abroad.  And the main reason for anti-Americanism abroad was the Iraq war.  Obama is part of the SWPL culture which lives and dies by the opinions of Europe. Since he has to deal with political realities he obviously can’t go completely isolationist, but he’s not going to attack another country unprovoked either.  Not if it means losing the rock star reception in Berlin.

All in all, I’d be shocked if America actually struck Iran during an Obama administration regardless of what the Israel lobby wanted.

Ukraine's announcement that it will pass a law that will bar the country from joining NATO has been greeted with barely concealed relief in Moscow, Paris, Berlin and Rome. It is also good news for the security interests of the United States. The time has come not only to give up on NATO expansion, but also to abolish the Alliance altogether.

Encouraging an impoverished, practically defenseless nation such as Ukraine to join a military alliance directed against the superpower next door, thereby stretching a nuclear tripwire between them, had never been a sound strategy. Article V of the NATO Charter states that an attack on one is an attack on all, and offers automatic guarantee of aid to an ally in distress. The U.S. would supposedly provide its protective cover to a new client, right in Russia's geopolitical backyard, in an area that had never been deemed vital to America's security interests.

From the realist perspective, accepting Ukraine into NATO would mean one of two things: either the United States is serious that it would risk a thermonuclear war for the sake of, say, the status of Sebastopol, which is insane; or the United States is not serious, which would be frivolous and dangerous.

The U.S. appears to be gearing up for it...