“ The essential qualities of integrity, dedication and grit that lie at the heart of an intelligence professional ultimately may suffer as an unintended consequence of these firings and associated acts. And our senior executives who are making the policies that impact every American’s daily life and futures will be left to fly blind and […]
“Never, ever…was there ever a hint that an analyst would be fired because they produced conclusions that did not fit with the administration’s policy preferences. Until Now.” I served on the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the mid-1990’s as the Deputy to the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia under Ezra Vogel, the brilliant and […]
During 36 years of service, I witnessed the critical value of accomplished, experienced, leaders—men and women—providing vital, level-headed, advice in the many complex situations they encountered.. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The unexpected February dismissal of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief […]
The first 100+ days of the Trump regime have weakened both freedom in the US and also US leadership in the world. The more obvious assaults on our freedom include political kidnappings on our streets by plain clothed, masked thugs as well as the evisceration of federal agencies vital to our society. But these distract […]
The “Horizons Project”, a think tank headed by two former civil servants, has produced a series of eye-opening documents warning about creeping authoritarianism in the United States; one of these documents is the “Authoritarian Playbook.” After studying systems around the world and lessons in the United States from over the past several decades, the authors […]
When I was growing up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, you heard folks asking not infrequently, “How could Hitler have taken power and do the things he and his government did?” My mother who was born in 1928 and lived through WWII often asked this question, once in the mid-1960s seeking but not really […]
Foreign policy professionals discuss worst-case scenarios to be prepared for even unlikely eventualities, to see if there are fixes to possible security gaps. Common sense, law and custom tended to guard against extreme outcomes. But now, what was unthinkable has become our daily reality. Imagine one such situation. It’s the summer of 2025. The Supreme […]
A brief recollection of one chapter in our nation’s history tells of great wisdom. In 1861, upon entering office, Abraham Lincoln brought with him two things: one, the idea that a lot of differing ideas and preferences for governing would be useful to him in administering the government in the face of what everyone knew […]
The Department of State billed the 60th annual Foreign Affairs Day on May 2 as a celebration of six decades of “foreign affairs excellence.” Unfortunately, this year there has been little to celebrate. Through untargeted tariffs, abolition of key agencies, threats to annex foreign territories and denigration of once-shared values, the Trump Administration has alienated […]
[The below comment was formally submitted by the Steady State in response to a proposed rule, now in the public comment phase, which will create a “Schedule F” in the US Civil Service. Although ostensibly to improve “performance, accountability and responsiveness,” the actual intent is clear — to ensure that civil servants are loyal to […]