Aaron MacLean
Free Beacon
Washington, DC, United States
Contact Aaron
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
| Past: |
|
Past articles by Aaron:
'Jules, This is Brian': A Visit to New York City’s 9/11 Museum
The 9/11 Museum’s main exhibit is a by-the-minute walkthrough of the events of the day in question, housed in what was once a sub-basement of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Shortly after beginning it, one encounters the following artifact: the final recorded words of Brian Sweeney. The visitor listens to them by using a telephone mounted on the exhibit’s wall. → Read More
At Mar-a-Lago, Focus on North Korea
The Trump administration is dealing with a lot. Just consider the agenda this week: a nuclear war for its Supreme Court nominee on Capitol Hill, dueling investigations and political fights over contac → Read More
What the Jim Webb Debacle in Annapolis Is Teaching the Military
Imagine you are a young midshipman processing the news that Jim Webb has been forced to decline an award for distinguished alumni at your school this week. → Read More
What to Expect When You’re Expecting Chinese Marines
Recent press reports that have received little attention in the West indicate that China is quintupling the size of its marine corps. → Read More
Korea on the Brink
The speed of now-former South Korean President Park Geun-hye's spectacular fall from power took many foreign observers by surprise. → Read More
China's Dangerous Long Game in Taiwan
Just over twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton responded to Chinese missile tests and amphibious exercises designed to intimidate Taiwan by dispatching two U.S. aircraft carriers to the vicinity o → Read More
Our New Afghanistan Strategy Must Get Tough on Pakistan
Yesterday the Pentagon presented its recommendations to the White House for how to defeat ISIS. It is likely that the military campaign that will follow President Trump's final decision will look a go → Read More
Progress Comes to the Military
The thing to keep in mind about Ash Carter’s announcement yesterday directing the military to open all ground combat jobs to women is that it was preordained. When then-Secretary Panetta and Chairma → Read More
You Should Really Read Michael Doran on Obama and Russia
Your reading assignment this week is Michael Doran's latest contribution to the growing body of Kremlinology on the motives of the Obama administration. In February, Doran published a thought-provoki → Read More
It’s Not All Doom and Gloom: Holiday Book Buying for 2015
Sure, a glance at the headlines may indicate that the global order is in collapse—but life goes on, and with it, the pleasant duty to purchase holiday gifts. When it comes to buying something for th → Read More
The Case for Permanent American Bases
In the now infamous press conference in Turkey last week, President Obama laid out his case against using American ground troops in Iraq and Syria. In the course of doing so, he tossed what he su → Read More
Philip Larkin’s Photography
In a poem he wrote in 1953 about perusing a photo album that belonged to Winifred Arnott—one of the many objects of his frequently anticlimactic erotic pursuits—Philip Larkin had this to say about → Read More
There’s Plenty to Like in Jeb’s Defense Plan
Speaking right now at the Citadel, Jeb Bush is outlining a defense policy that emphasizes American hard power, and calls for a stop to the current bleeding in defense spending. His proposals—li → Read More
Degrading and Ultimately Dishonest: Obama Changes Nothing After Paris
Twice during his train wreck of a press conference this morning in Turkey, President Obama cited the prospect of American military casualties as a major part of his reason for not using U.S. ground t → Read More
If It Ain't Baroque...
Around the turn of the fifth century B.C. the followers of Parmenides and Heraclitus got into a rather lively debate about whether the universe was characterized by static being or constant flux—bu → Read More
Obama Has a Strategy in the Middle East, and It's Working
The Obama administration is “operating on a crisis basis” in the Middle East, says Leon Panetta, and doesn’t “have any kind of larger strategy” for the region. The president’s recent actio → Read More
The Trump-Paul-Obama Foreign Policy
In the course of a heated exchange with Marco Rubio over foreign policy tonight in Milwaukee, Rand Paul attacked the junior senator from Florida for proposing both family tax credits and an increase i → Read More
A Brief History of Photography on the Mall
For just over a decade, Washington’s National Gallery of Art has provided dedicated space on the ground floor of its West Building for the exhibition of photography. This was a significant devotion → Read More
Why Obama Didn't Announce the Syria Deployment Himself
It isn't surprising that, under pressure from the Pentagon, the president has agreed to escalate the U.S. role against the Islamic State by deploying → Read More
At Least It's an Ethos
The imminent-future dystopia portrayed in Michel Houellebecq’s new novel is not nearly so bad as the worlds described in other examples of the genre. In 1984, to cite an obvious case, post-war Engla → Read More