Atlantic Council

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, several commentators have asked why we label some acts of mass violence "terrorism" while others are considered ordinary crime. Why do we treat those two so very differently, despite the latter being responsible for far more American deaths?

The Terror Label

Karl Marx mused that history first appears as tragedy and then as farce. That may not apply to the United States, as Americans are too often amnesia-prone when it comes to history. Americans' ability to ignore or forget history is legion. Three cases underscore this point.

The funny thing about writing a book on NATO and Afghanistan that is pretty critical of the alliance's performance is that I still end up being a NATO defender.  How so?

 Henrik Liljegren, an Atlantic Council board member, served 42 years in Sweden’s diplomatic corps, including stints as Ambassador to the United States, Turkey, East Germany, and Belgium.  In June 2009, we discussed the Russia "Reset" and the political climate in Turkey. Today, I had the opportunity to revisit these issues with him.

Recent testimony by US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey illustrated quite nicely one outcome of a troubled interagency national security system: US senators seemed to be more perplexed about American policy toward Syria after the hearing than they were before.

Exercise Joint Warrior 2013 is certainly Europe’s, and possibly the world’s biggest maritime amphibious military exercise this year, and I am having the pleasure to observe and be sea-sick all over it.

Since the news broke this morning that the likely perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing are two brothers from Chechnya, speculation has been rampant about their ties to militant groups there. That zero evidence supports that proposition seems irrelevant.

The shadow of North Korea's latest provocations for the moment has obscured Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Another war on the Korean Peninsula would be a disaster for the Korean people even though the military defeat of the North that is sure to follow would no doubt end the Kim ruling dynasty.

Standing before both houses of Congress, President Obama announced he would launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement with the European Union in his State of the Union address in February.

After years of silence, the United States has finally had enough of Chinese cyber-theft of trade secrets. American officials have repeatedly raised the issue with their Chinese counterparts in language that is increasingly frank.