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Begin New Search Political Geography United States Author Tom Farer

1. What Syria Has to Teach Neo-Conservatives and Liberals about US Foreign Policy

Author:
Tom Farer
Publication Date:
06-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The only means available to the US to assume a responsibility to protect the Syrian people from slaughter was by credibly threatening Bashar al-Assad and the security and military elite surrounding him with a decapitating air strike if they did not immediately cease murdering protestors and begin negotiations with opposition figures to the end of making the regime broadly representative of the Syrian population. Credibility probably demanded an initial decimation, a technically possible move. In part because the US lacks the ideology and institutional structure of a real imperial power, in part because it is post-Bush a careful calculator of national interests, Syria, unlike Libya but much like Sudan and the DRC, was a bridge too far.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Sudan, Libya, and Syria

2. Latin America's Cold War by Hal Brands

Author:
Tom Farer
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Americas Quarterly
Institution:
Council of the Americas
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and Latin America

3. A Symposium on Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism: The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy

Author:
Richard Falk, Tom Farer, Dino Kritsiotis, and Paul Taylor
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Human Rights and Human Welfare - Review Essays
Institution:
Josef Korbel Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver
Abstract:
Reading Tom Farer's challenging and eloquent Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism evoked two persistent reactions. The first, and foremost, was the reminder of my long unfulfilled wish that the U.S. was a country where the “liberal” presidential candidate of the Democratic Party would have the courage and clarity of mind and heart to rely on someone with Farer's deep understanding of how to (re)shape American foreign policy in the early twenty-first century rather than turn the job over to those tired “old hands” that might improve things by five percent, but not by much more. (even the word liberal is now disfavored by liberals in public discourse almost as much as the taboo word “socialist,” the former having been effectively discredited by George H.W. Bush two decades ago; the rhetorical preference in general discussion has shifted to “progressive,” but I will stick with liberal here taking advantage of the greater latitude of academic discourse). It is not actually an indictment of any particular individual, and certainly not Barack Obama, but rather the constraints of a climate of public opinion, reinforced by media gurus and special interests, that restrict the roster of credible candidates for high elective office in the United States to those who quibble at the margins, while affirming the consensus verities however discredited and bereft of any basis for the necessary drastic modifications of future policy. To his credit, Farer does not shy away from such disqualifying affirmations so as to keep alive the chance he might be called upon to play a prominent role in the future making of American foreign policy. On the contrary, he practices his form of controversial truth-telling with vivid prose, disarming wit, lucid and persuasive reasoning, an unflagging respect for evidence, as well as an engaging willingness to push provocatively the hottest red button issues.
Topic:
Public Opinion
Political Geography:
United States