John Wohlstetter

John C. Wohlstetter is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute (beg. 2001) and the Gold Institute for International Strategy (beg. 2021). His primary areas of expertise are national security and foreign policy, and the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He is author of Sleepwalking With The Bomb (2nd ed. 2014), and The Long War Ahead and The Short War Upon Us (2008). He was founder and editor of the issues blog Letter From The Capitol (2005-2015). His articles have been published by The American Spectator, National Review Online, Wall Street Journal, Human Events, Daily Caller, PJ Media, Washington Times and others. He gave over 1,000 radio interviews (2008-2015), many on nationwide programs, and guest-hosted the August 14, 2013 Dennis Miller Show. He was the subject of a cover story in the May 2022 edition of the subscription newspaper Charleston Mercury: A Talk with John Wohlstetter: Nuclear Threat, Beethoven and N.Y. Pizza.

He worked on the international securities arbitrage trading desks at Goldman Sachs (1969-73) & Drexel Burnham Lambert (1973-74). As an attorney for Contel Corp. (1978-91), he practiced corporate and communications law, then turned to strategic assessment, a task he continued at GTE Corp. (1991-2000) & Verizon, retiring in 2000. During his tenure at Contel he served as senior adviser to The Committee on Review of Switching, Synchronization and Network Control in National Security Telecommunications (1986-1989). Created by the National Research Council, it published its final report, Growing Vulnerability of the Public Switched Networks: Implications for National Security Emergency Preparedness, in 1989.

He holds degrees from the University of Miami (B.B.A., 1969, Finance major, Art History minor); Fordham University School of Law (J.D., 1977); and The George Washington University (M.A., Public Policy/Telecommunications, 1985). He is a National Trustee of the National Symphony Orchestra (beg. 2014), and served on the NSO Board (1992-2014). He serves on the Board of the Billy Rose Foundation (beg. 1996). He served as a trustee of MyFace (1980-2016), and the Washington Bach Consort (2002-2018). He also served on the Boards of the Hudson Institute (2000-2012), the Harbor League (2009-2012) and the London Center for Policy Research (2013-2018), where he also was a senior fellow.

He is an amateur concert pianist, residing in Charleston, South Carolina.

Archives

John Wohlstetter Explores U.S. Presidential Succession

_{John Wohlstetter
August 21, 2024}

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John Wohlstetter examines U.S. presidential succession, including historical precedents, legal and constitutional issues (including the 25th Amendment), what-if scenarios, and recommendations for how the succession process could be improved.

Presidential Succession

_{Constitution, Congress and National Security}_{John Wohlstetter
April 1, 2024}

Presidential Succession traces the history from the 1787 founding of the American constitutional republic to the present. It covers the relevant provisions of the Constitution, associated laws, and how they worked in practice. It also traces the history of presidential protection, with special emphasis on the evolving role of the Secret Service, plus sections on continuity of government and mass casualty events. The author offers conclusions and recommendations for addressing unresolved problems. …

The Gathering Middle Eastern Storm: Israel’s Dilemma — Part Four

_{The timing issue and lessons not yet learned.}_{John Wohlstetter
September 4, 2023}

Since Iran’s program was revealed in 2002, the Israelis and Americans have been unwilling to, either individually or together, carry out operations that would end Iran’s nuclear program.

Casablanca at 80: Greatest-Generation America

_{John Wohlstetter
July 13, 2023}

Released November 26, 1942, the film’s debut neatly coincided with the November 8, 1942 Allied landing in North Africa, and the British stopping Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps at El Alamein on the same day (an event alluded to in Bogart’s next film, Sahara). The film opened in Los Angeles on Jan. 23, 1943, the penultimate day of the wartime Casablanca Conference featuring FDR and British PM Winston Churchill, noted for its demand for “unconditional surrender” by the Axis powers.

Time Travel Travail

_{Can America 'Leap Forward' Forever?}_{John Wohlstetter
May 3, 2023}

The year-round DST bill’s chances in the 118th Congress may hinge on whether people in the fall hate four months of afternoon darkness more than they love an extra hour’s pre-dawn slumber.

Torquemada Airways: Flying Today’s Unfriendly Skies

_{Whatever happened to the Golden Age of Travel?}_{John Wohlstetter
July 17, 2022}

A recent newspaper article lamented the end of what it called the “Golden Age of Travel” having ended with the pandemic, airport, and train station chaos, and soaring costs.

2016: The West’s Last Chance — Last Gasp?

_{Will it defend itself or not?}_{John Wohlstetter
January 21, 2016}

Behold recent developments: the moral inversion elevating Hamas over Israel, skewered by Dennis Prager (4:12); the fascism of militant Islam; insanely strict rules of engagement that tie our hands in battle; Miss Puerto Rico suspended from the Miss Universe pageant for an anti-Muslim online rant; rampant political correctness describing as “peaceful or moderate” Muslims who take offense at those who link Islam to terrorism; the government questioning the loyalty of an American dentist, two of whose siblings had emigrated to Israel, seeking to provide dental services to veterans per a federal program; the feds funding a radical mosque linked to Islamist terror groups; the Muslim Michigan ACLU official who refuses to …

Obama’s Iran Deal: The SALT Precedents

_{John Wohlstetter
March 28, 2015}

President Obama’s decision to avoid congressional scrutiny of his emerging nuclear deal with Iran led 47 GOP senators to write a letter warning Iran – and the president – that the Senate expects to be consulted. A subsequent bipartisan letter signed by 367 members of the House of Representatives also urged the president to consult Congress. A look at major 20th-century strategic arms accords lends decisive weight to the position taken by Congress. President Obama’s decision to avoid congressional scrutiny of his emerging nuclear deal with Iran led 47 GOP senators to write a letter warning Iran – and the president – that the Senate expects to be consulted. A subsequent bipartisan letter signed by 367 members of the House of Representatives also urged the …

The Great Obama Retreat

_{John Wohlstetter
February 5, 2015}

Just before he was elected president in 2008, Barack Obama declared, “We are just five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He may not succeed in his aim to transform the domestic landscape. Instead his legacy may be a different transformation entirely: a tectonic shift in America’s position in the world, diminishing America’s status abroad to its weakest international profile in more than a century. As the Great Recession became shorthand for the deep, prolonged recession that was triggered by the global financial crisis, so the president’s serial retreats abroad may come collectively to be known as the Great Retreat. The momentous consequences of the president’s policy of retreat are already manifested as 180-degree reversals in three …

Who Are We at War With, and Who Is a Threat?

_{John Wohlstetter
September 16, 2014}

Our “war” confusion is that we aren’t necessarily at war with countries and/or terror groups whose leaders have declared war on us.

Sleepwalking with the Bomb

_{John Wohlstetter
March 24, 2014}

About the Book Sleepwalking with the Bomb shows how we can forestall nuclear catastrophe. It offers familiar faces, cases and places to illustrate how the civilized world can face the most pressing nuclear dangers. Drawing from both history and current events, John Wohlstetter assembles in one place an integrated, coherent and concise picture that explains how best to avoid the “apocalyptic trinity” — suicide, genocide and surrender — in confronting emerging nuclear threats. Plaudits John Wohlstetter has given us a tour de force of our troubled nuclear condition… For many years Sleepwalking With the Bomb will be the standard against which all other work on nuclear issues will be measured. R. James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence; Chair, the …

Ariel Sharon: 1928 – 2014

_{John Wohlstetter
January 15, 2014}

Bravest in battles, whether at war or at peace…. A giant passes on, who looms especially large compared to the pygmy who sits in the White House. Readings well worth it: Times of Israel obituary: Israel’s indomitable protector. How Sharon narrowly escaped near-certain death in the 1948 war. Elliott Abrams, who worked closely with Sharon for five years, “His Eye Was Not Dim”; Abrams recounts how Sharon encompassed the security dilemmas of Israel in two contexts, geography and the Palestinian Arabs: He saw himself as a Jew whose job it was to protect the Jewish state. In early 2003, President George W. Bush sent deputy national security advisor Steve Hadley and me (I was the senior Mideast official on the NSC) to meet with him, hear him out, and …

Who Knows Who Has The Bomb? Not Us

_{John Wohlstetter
June 12, 2013}

The stunning revelation that a segment of the intelligence community believes that North Korea already has a nuclear weapon compact enough to be placed upon a ballistic missile shows anew the limits of what intelligence agencies can determine as to what goes on in closed societies. What matters from a standpoint of intelligence acuity is less whether Pyongyang can put a nuclear bomb atop a missile-though in the substantive sense of military and terror threats it hugely matters-than whether we can ascertain for sure if they can. In fact, we rarely can ascertain such, if history is a guide. Our agencies have been serially surprised over the years. Days before the August 1949 detonation of the former Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb our intelligence asserted that the first test was …

Neo-Disarmament

_{Five Cold Warriors who'd like to ban nuclear weapons.}_{John Wohlstetter
February 10, 2012}

The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the BombBy Philip Taubman(HarperCollins Books, 478 pages, $29.99) Just as an Israeli airstrike against Iran appears increasingly likely, author Philip Taubman has published a book celebrating a growing movement among movers and shakers aiming to abolish nuclear weapons as soon as possible. The effort is spearheaded by some big names: Nixon-era national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, prime architect of American foreign policy during the Nixon years; Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz, who became an advocate of nuclear weapons abolition during his tenure; Clinton-era Secretary of Defense William Perry, also a key architect of the development of Stealth technology; and former Georgia Democrat …

Nuclear Terrorism Sinks Savannah — and U.S. Civil Society

_{Former Defense Secretary William Cohen's nightmare thriller understates what would actually transpire.}_{John Wohlstetter
January 6, 2012}

Blink of an Eyeby William S. Cohen(Tom Doherty Associates Book, 368 pages, $24.99) Former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen has published this, his second novel, and struck terrifying gold. Blink of an Eye compellingly presents a nightmare nuclear scenario that has kept national security professionals and senior political leadership awake nights since September 11, 2001: a nuclear bomb detonates, destroys an American city, and the government is having trouble figuring out who did it. Cohen brings to his novel the intimate knowledge of a longtime Washington insider and veteran of countless high-level meetings, negotiations, and political crises. His tale wends its way through several surprise turns, as befits a novel. It also stretches the circumstances under which a …

U.S. Powerless Against Nuclear Proliferation in Asia

_{John Wohlstetter
December 5, 2011}

Much has been made of nuclear proliferation dangers in the Mideast, where a nuclear-armed Iran would set off a regional nuclear arms race. But we should be so lucky as to have only one regional nuclear crisis to worry about. There are several others. Much has been made of the possibility of an India-Pakistan regional nuclear conflict. In her memoir, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that only the timely intervention of the Bush administration in late 2001 prevented an Indo-Pak nuclear exchange then. A staple of our assessment of Pakistan is whether Islamists will gain control over its nuclear arsenal, either by winning an election or by coup, or by raiding Pakistan’s nuclear sites, which are estimated to contain at …

Palestinians at the U.N.: The Cost of Folly

_{John Wohlstetter
September 23, 2011}

President Obama spoke Wednesday at the United Nations, reiterating his talking points on the Mideast. In his Sept. 23, 2010, speech he had set a goal of an Arab-Israeli final accord and a Palestinian state admitted to full membership at the UN by this session. Instead, the Palestinians will push for a recommendation for full admission from the Security Council, demanding a vote despite Obama’s promise to veto the resolution if need be. Failing that, the Palestinians will seek a General Assembly vote granting them observer-state status, and likely get it. The Palestinians will not delay their statehood request, but won’t press for a quick vote either. This makes them look diplomatically reasonable, working to avoid a confrontation. They can count on the U.S. and Europeans to press …

Debt Ceiling Showdown: Republicans Should Make Democrats Bet the Company

_{John Wohlstetter
July 15, 2011}

There is a maxim in the business world: Never bet the company. Wall Street “masters of the universe” ignored that maxim. The result was the financial meltdown in 2008. Republicans ignored it in the famous 1995 budget showdown with President Clinton. The result was that voters blamed the GOP for the subsequent government shutdown and Clinton was re-elected in 1996. Republicans must learn one lesson from 1995: It is not possible to govern via control of one-half of Congress. The president is the Big Kahuna in American politics. And he is an even bigger Kahuna if the mainstream media is on his side. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell parlayed smashing victories in the 2010 elections into a superb budget win in late December, when President Obama caved on taxes. Obama was reeling …

Obama Sells Out Israel — For Nothing in Return

_{John Wohlstetter
May 23, 2011}

Betrayal is not too strong a term. The president’s May 19 speech turned Israel upside down. It was a shocking sellout of our only reliable Mideast ally, and can only energize Palestinian maximalist sentiments. There are two money paragraphs of Obama’s May 19 speech. First, on final borders: The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and …

Hostage Hell is a Civilized Country’s Dilemma

_{John Wohlstetter
March 2, 2011}

There is an old chestnut that often resurfaces when Americans are taken hostage: Emulate Thomas Jefferson’s resolute dispatch of forces to free hostages held by the Barbary pirates. Yet the historical truth is quite different, and explains why Somali pirates have killed American hostages with impunity. The depressing reality is that in our republic’s earliest years, most hostage crises were resolved by paying tribute money, even when military force was also used. The fabled taming of the Barbary corsairs by Thomas Jefferson—“to the shores of Tripoli ” in the Marine Corps hymn—was accompanied by a $60,000 ransom (around $850,000 today) to the Dey of Algiers. In 1904, Teddy Roosevelt, legendary Rough Rider he, paid $70,000 ($1.7 million today) to free Ion …