Countries with divided democratic government that have to pay off constituencies to hold together coalitions often run up government debt and put at risk not only sovereign creditworthiness, but also economic performance. I have in mind Italy, Japan, Israel and Brazil. India, alas, is the posterchild of this phenomenon. By contrast, governments which alternate between parties or at […]
I’ve been pondering the similarities between the Arizona immigration law and the new Israeli policy of forcefully removing from the West Bank Palestinians who lack appropriate documentation. Apparently, so has Juan Cole. He wrote earlier this week: The Israeli law resembles the one recently enacted in Arizona in one respect. Recently-arrived European Jews are demanding […]
Government debt is mounting all across the developed world. While Emerging Market countries such as China have low debt levels, and Brazil and India are beginning to grow out of their debts, the next crisis (or even the second half of this one) could be a fiscal shock — perhaps even a government bond default — in the industrialized […]
Bill Maher gave some sound advice to the Tea Partiers over the weekend. If you really care about the deficit, he said to them, you’ll start talking about cutting our country’s largest jobs program: defense spending. This advice should also have been considered by the group from the Industrial College for the Armed Forces that […]
In today’s CSFB column on China (see below), Dong Tao and Christiaan Tuntono report that PBoC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan commented that China would like greater monetary policy flexibility in order to combat inflation. Not that inflation is so high in China, but the Asian giant’s return to breakneck rates of growth (11.9% growth year-on-year in 1Q10) may push prices higher. […]
The year was 1996 and I was in the process of learning the ropes at my new job at United States Strategic Command, the keeper of the nation’s strategic nuclear triad (submarines, bombers, and land based ballistic missiles). One day I ran into an acquaintance in the hall that I hadn’t seen for a number […]
Victor Davis Hanson is very very worried about Obama’s Israel policy. According to Hanson, Obama’s administration “seems as angry at the building of Jewish settlements in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies.” This is a huge huge problem, Hanson asserts, with potentially immensely destabilizing results. He […]
As the Washington Post reported last week, a group of 15 people at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces recently determined that the U.S.’s still fragile economy is the biggest threat to U.S. national security. Sensible. The group’s proposed solutions, though, are strange, as they are primarily geared toward “constrain[ing] entitlements growth,” focusing specifically […]
Unsurprisingly, John Bolton doesn’t like the new START. Also unsurprisingly, his arguments against the treaty are severely flawed. He believes countries like Iran and North Korea will perceive the treaty as a signal of U.S. weakness and warns of the resulting dangers: Faced with the Obama mindset, Iran and North Korea are now more likely […]
Charles Krauthammer tears into the Nuclear Security Summit. Max Bergmann tears into Krauthammer. Enjoy.
After taking a close look at the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), my conclusion is it’s neither the dramatic change in strategy hoped for from Obama supporters nor does it represent a significant weakening of U.S. national defense. The only change I saw was for the first time, the U.S. has said it would not use […]
As leaders of 47 countries gather in Washington to discuss how to better secure nuclear materials, not a few observers are noting that what’s not happening may be more interesting and significant than what’s happening–and that’s not to belittle the importance of what’s under formal discussion, by the way. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled plans to […]
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