Obama will announce his Afghanistan strategy next week. Reports indicate that troop levels will most likely be close to the 40,000 requested by General McChrystal. According to the New York Times, the three possibilities being seriously considered were: 1) Send 40,000 troops. This plan involves sending about 10,000 troops to Kandahar (where now there are […]
Eric Posner accurately describes Eric Holder’s decision to try KSM in a civilian court: [T]he Obama administration has decided to offer a two-tiered system of justice. We might call them the “high-quality” (civilian) tier and “low-quality” (military) tier. The high-quality approach offers greater accuracy; the low-quality approach offers less accuracy. The Obama administration will use […]
A central challenge of our times: America, Europe, and countries the world over will have to figure out a way to staunch the hemorraging red ink we are currently sustaining. As a result of fiscal stimulus packages and bank bailouts, in addition to the standard generous provision of guns and butter, we will be talking a […]
The FPA-o-sphere has been rife with Law and Security Strategy posts this week. Here are some good ones to check out: 1) As the Transitional States Blog reports, the U.S. Senate is considering a resolution condemning the 1915-1916 Turkish mass expulsions of Armenians as genocide. Will this scuttle the Turkish-Armenian peace process? Read the whole […]
Or, how to scuttle promising international developments with senseless moral posturing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has agreed to co-sponsor a resolution condemning the Turkish mass expulsion/massacres of 1915-1916, and labeling it a “genocide.” It clearly meets the definition of ethnic cleansing, and no one is absolving Turkey of blame. 1.5 million Armenians were […]
The Economist this week (Nov. 14-20) featured a mediocre special report on Brazil. Its message: Brazil is a good investment. So, you finally noticed! Better to have invested in late 2002, when Brazilian assets were selling at prices implying a sovereign default (which didn’t happen). Some good points were made though, notably how this is […]
1) Speculation in Pakistan is increasing over whether President Asif Ali Zardari will survive in office much longer. The constant threat of military coups is the elephant in the room, especially after Zardari attempted to place the ISI under civilian control. Moreover, Pakistani politics are riddled with ever-shifting alliances and corrupt political actors lacking any […]
There are many arguments floating around, including the one I touched on earlier this week, against trying 9/11 suspects in New York. Let’s examine them. 1) It signals the end of the War on Terror. As John Yoo writes in the Wall Street Journal, the decision “is in effect a declaration that this nation is […]
Despite the global recession, the number of Indian billionaires has nearly doubled in just a year. Political science and democratic theorists have long held that the more unequal distribution of wealth, the harder it is to sustain democratic government. Indeed, the Guardian writes that .00001% of India’s population account for a full quarter of its […]
Presidents Hu and Obama finished their summit in Beijing and issued a joint statement. Below, Christiaan Tuntono of CSFB notes that President Obama didn’t get a commitment from China to revalue the RMB against the U.S. dollar, which would effectively increase Chinese demand for U.S. exports. As RMB undervaluation is a key focus of such […]
1) To nobody’s surprise, Somalia is the most corrupt country on earth—followed closely by Iraq and Afghanistan. Transparency International wrote in its report, “When essential institutions are weak or non-existent, corruption spirals out of control.” The task, then, for America is institution building—but is it willing to spend the time and effort to create civil […]
President Obama did a good job this week in China. Goodwill is a valuable intangible in politics, and he engendered some on his Asian trip. Still, the gloss is off the family car — the superpower with hat in hand is an oxymoron. The spectacle of the United States having to go to Beijing to […]
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