The archives contain political, social, and economic commentaries posted between January 2001 to December 2014. For more recent articles, visit Strategic Updates.
Declining birthrates in many nations will have a devastating effect on living standards and government finances, especially in the nations and regions with the most unhealthy demographic profiles: Japan, Russia and most of Europe. The generational implications are equally alarming, as fewer young people will be responsible for supporting a larger number of seniors.
We explore why the growing U.S. military engagement in the Middle East will guarantee massive instability for many years to come, sporadically dislocating financial markets, impairing economic growth and curtailing our civil liberties.
How could 9/11 have been allowed to happen? And how could the intelligence establishment have told the White House that Saddam had significant stores of weapons of mass destruction? Like Britain before it, the U.S. keeps responding to the effects of its own actions: place ogres like Saddam in power, show them how to oppress, supply them with weapons, and when you can’t control them, feign surprise and use faulty intelligence to justify war.
During the Clinton years, as U.S. technological advances led to an economic miracle, huge numbers of American jobs were exported to China; manufacturing was thought to be a thing of the past. Meanwhile, U.S. corporations invested billions in China that could have been invested domestically. The result: China is now being accused of doing well at the expense of the United States. How convenient.
After spending two decades in a protracted downtrend, it’s time to reconsider gold. We’re looking at gold’s technical and fundamental positions and explain how we’ve positioned ourselves to take advantage.
We revisit the U.N. Charter and review what happened to an institutional concept that once inspired. We examine the U.S. Security Council’s agenda of the past 25 years and conclude that if the world experiences occasional periods of stability, it’s not because the idealism enshrined in the UN’s guiding principles got us there, but because an impasse between the permanent Security Council members or mutual fear between them held everyone in check. We offer some remedies that might improve the situation.
The duplicity of the anti-American lobby is as disturbing as America’s habit to serve up lies and hoist the banner of morality when its intention is to coerce and oppress. What’s really disturbing is that it works. Propaganda is the mainstay of political success in America. And, as recent evidence shows, in the world.
The concept of “pre-emptive strike” marks the beginning of an openly Imperialistic America. Depending on how the doctrine is applied, it may also mark then end of moral leadership and the dawn of an era in which corporate interests dominate the militarily and economically most powerful nation. 20th century type democracy may be on its way out; oligarchy might be its logical successor. In this four-part essay, we explore the set-up to the Iraq War, the new U.S. doctrines that resulted from the confrontation, and how they will change our lives.
Recent surveys suggest that the public’s faith in corporations is even lower than that in government. We discuss why it’s not capitalism that is the problem, but a failure of governance, both within corporate constructs and the authorities. We also identify other culprits: merger mania and the wholesale destruction of small business, and lobbyism, which is rapidly leading to corporate ownership of the political class.
Why is it that Europe keeps marginalizing itself? We look at the central reasons, including the continent’s persistent lack of vision, which is complicated by cultural complexity and a massive bureaucracy.
America’s habit of moralizing has become a constant irritant to the rest of the world. How far more instructive it would be to foreigners if they heard about America’s failings and the nation’s ability to overcome them: instead of criticizing Tiananmen Square, why not explain domestic crimes, such as Kent State or McCarthyism and how they shocked Americans into positive change?
A transcript of a speech given to an international audience in Aspen, Colorado—not long after one of America’s most traumatic days.