It is not clear why a chunk of the blue-collar working base has swung almost overnight from Left to Right, but clearly we are seeing the delayed detonation of two political time-bombs: rising unemployment and the growth of immigrant enclaves that resist assimilation. — The Telegraph I am . . . . Continue Reading »
How long before we look back on the American ‘imperial age’ as a hiccup, a fling with power never really actualized, stabilized, or formalized? Christian Brose at Foreign Policy ‘s Shadow Government points us to Andrew Schearer writing yesterday in the Wall Street Journal : . . . . Continue Reading »
Don Rumsfeld has left us with the momentarily illuminating but ultimately distracting vision of Old Europe and New Europe, a distinction that divides geographically along the aftershadow of the Iron Curtain, with snooty/fuddy Western Europe versus freedom-appreciating/US-embracing Eastern Europe. . . . . Continue Reading »
Im spending the morning (and now part of the afternoon) on one of those fancy buses that has an internet connection. Since I didnt have the foresight to download an episode of Battlestar Galactica, Ive got nothing better to do than read tomorrows New York Times, and to . . . . Continue Reading »
There is a compelling start of a conversation, I see, between Daniel Larison and Noah Millman . Noah began in reaction to Andrew Bacevich’s latest introduction to a book . Bacevich, of course, takes the anti-imperial position of William Appleman Williams to be a clarion wake-up call for any . . . . Continue Reading »
Of the many reasons why NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine is a bad idea, the worst must surely be that these two states would immediately add intractable instabilities to the alliance’s list of unmanageables. Abkhazia , Transnistria , Crimea — just to list these statelets, . . . . Continue Reading »
(1) NATO’s worryingly inadequate and incredible shrinking performance in Afghanistan (2) NATO’s determination to go ahead with wargames in Georgia Best possible absurd justification: the Georgia exercises are training for Afghan missions! Is anyone else filled with concern by this turn . . . . Continue Reading »
In the mid-1980s, it was Ethiopia. Next, it was Bosnia, then Somalia, and later Rwanda. In each case, as war and famine caused thousands of deaths, the media were on or near the scene, demanding immediate action. Meanwhile, the plight of the Sudan, geographically Africa’s largest country, has been . . . . Continue Reading »