The year 2012 will go into the history books as one of contrasting transitions. China’s five- year cycle for Communist Party congresses and leadership turnover overlapped with the U.S.’s four-year electoral calendar. And if that once-in-20-years coincidence wasn’t enough, Egypt’s rocky shift from dictatorship to democracy continues to remind us of what transition looks like in […]
Syria’s Alawite regime collapses from within and without. High-level defections march in step with rebel gains through the Sunni heartland. The Obama administration’s signature regional strategy — described in a Freudian slip by a French career diplomat here as “waiting from behind” — now badly trails events. That would not constitute a disaster for Washington if the fate […]
Though there was no major dissension at OPEC’s Dec. 12 meeting in Vienna, there were signs that Saudi Arabia and Iraq are headed for a face-off over how much oil to pump. Before the start of the meeting, Abdul Kareem Al-Luaibi, Iraq’s oil minister, told reporters that his country plans to produce as much oil […]
The 2008 Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Agreement was supposed to mark a watershed moment for India – U.S. relations, ending the two democracies long-standing estrangement and ushering in a new era where New Delhi and Washington would be “indispensable partners.” But four years after the deal came into effect, much of the initial enthusiasm that it […]
It’s that time of year again: Experts of all kinds are coming out of the woodwork to offer up forecasts and predictions for the year ahead. It can be amusing, but this is not the most productive way to think about the future. Perhaps you’re familiar with Philip Tetlock’s landmark 2005 UC Berkeley study that looked at […]
For decades, Democrats and Republicans alike have invested heavily in governance schemes that erode the Constitution’s separation of powers and mar its proper functioning. The Federal judiciary has uniformly rubber-stamped these schemes. The consequence has been an unsustainable spree of borrowing, spending and overregulation at the Federal level, cyclical fiscal crises at the state level, […]
The European Central Bank has managed to calm the markets with its promise of unlimited purchases of eurozone government bonds, because it effectively assured bondholders that the taxpayers and pensioners of the eurozone’s still-sound economies would, if necessary, shoulder the repayment burden. Although the ECB left open how this would be carried out, its commitment […]
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the son of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and President Zardari, made his first major public speech on Thursday to vast crowds gathered in Garhi Khuda Baksh to mark the fifth anniversary of his mother’s assassination. Hundreds of thousands of people, including Pakistan Peoples’ Party’s (PPP) workers, supporters and the party’s top leadership, had congregated […]
Bloomberg News mapped the families of Communist China’s “Eight Immortals” to reveal the origins of princelings, an elite class that has been able to amass wealth and influence, and exploit opportunities unavailable to most Chinese. Bloomberg tracked 103 people – descendants including children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and their respective spouses. The Immortals, now all […]
People who are surprised by certain recurrences in Russian history apparently are not aware that popular culture changes very slowly, if at all. U.S. history is a good example. The U.S. emancipated itself from Britain 250 years ago, forming a republic intended to be unique. Yet even today, our political and legal culture is thoroughly imbued with concepts and values inherited from Britain. Russians are no […]
looking beyond borders 