Without economic recovery there is no political consensus; without political consensus there is no economic recovery. If Washington fails to overcome its current stalemate, a long period of monetary stagnation and moral decline will set in.
Bipartisanship: the Holy Grail of American politics. Long the go-to buzzword for presidents, elusive cross-aisle support at home has all too often been purchased at the price of good policy abroad.
Europe’s problems go far beyond deflating currency and rising debt. It suffers from a lack of will, a crisis of confidence—and a serious identity problem. The once-great superpower has already fallen. Centuries of predominance slip away.
China must choose between kowtowing to domestic nationalism and submitting to a peaceful rise. Lately, nationalist belligerence has ruled the day. Washington is overreacting, encircling China. A latent rivalry ratchets up to dangerous levels.
Two lost wars. Eroding infrastructure. A crippled economy. The time when the United States could create and lead a political, economic and security order in virtually every part of the world is over. The cure? A new American strategy.
Sunni vs. Shia. Kurd vs. Arab. Nationalist vs. Islamist. Iraq circa 2011 is looking an awful lot like Iraq circa 2004. The country is headed back to the anarchic depths from which it ever-so-briefly emerged.
Nearly fifty years ago, India and China met in a brief, bloody border clash that would come to define—and destroy—the legendary Nehru. Was this the first step in an inevitable clash between two rising civilizations?
The gold standard is making a comeback! Tea partiers looking to push the government out of the monetary-policy-making business would have all of us carting bullion-laden trolleys to the grocery store.
Saudi Arabia is the guardian of the Mideast counterrevolution—and America is its greatest enabler. A club of royals under the Kingdom’s protection is now a reality.
It took Tony Blair one speech in 1999 to trap the Western world in an unending series of interventionist wars. We may care about the people of Tibet, Baghdad and Libya, but are we the knight-errant of the human race?
