If you’re following the 2016 Presidential campaign closely (and, at this early stage, I’m not suggesting that’s necessary), you’ll find an interesting subplot. While much of the media is focussing on the rise of Donald Trump and, to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders, the two pre-race favorites, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, are continuing to […]
It was a brilliant stroke in 1971, when Nixon and Kissinger took advantage of China’s fears of the USSR with the historic U.S. opening to China. That chess move created a strategic triangle with the United States in the catbird seat and turned ideology on its head, dividing the two communist regimes. Now amid a […]
There are at least three very real scenarios whereby Google—perhaps even without its leaders’ knowledge—could shape or even decide the election next year. Whether or not Google executives see it this way, the employees who constantly adjust the search giant’s algorithms are manipulating people every minute of every day. The adjustments they make increasingly influence […]
The legend of the surge has become this era’s equivalent of the legend that America was winning in Vietnam until, in the words of Richard Nixon’s former defense secretary Melvin Laird, “Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975.” In the late 1970s, the legend of […]
Foreign policy was hardly the centerpiece of the Republican candidates’ first debate, but when the topic came up, their answers revealed that none of these White House hopefuls have given the world and its problems an hour of serious thought. Read Here – Slate
Perhaps no one in the world would relish a general election campaign between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush—apart from the two candidates themselves—more than the mandarins in Beijing. Already, official Chinese news coverage of the 2016 primary season is highlighting the back-and-forth baton exchange between the Clinton and Bush families. Other U.S. presidential candidates are often […]
When the United States threw off the British crown to become one of the world’s first republics, it also jettisoned the belief that some people are destined to rule over others because they were born or married into a particular family. Some two hundred and forty years later, the wife of a former President is […]
There is much to be said for what is commonly called a “zero-based review”—a fresh look at a problem or project unencumbered by existing assumptions and practices. Just about any organization or mission could benefit periodically from such an assessment, to make possible the removal of accumulated historical impedimenta. This is true of U.S. foreign […]
With Burma, Cuba, and now Iran, the Obama administration has sought to put old fights behind it, freeing the U.S. government to focus on emerging challenges in Asia and the rise of China. Read Here – The Atlantic
Every player of the popular video game Civilization knows to hit the save button before engaging in the risky, stupid invasion of foreign country. In the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it became apparent after the first few months that the war was not working out as its framers had envisioned. The failure […]
