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Perhaps this increasingly ridiculous spy saga was just a brilliant marketing ploy to promote the upcoming spy thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie?

The U.S. has a time-inconsistency dilemma with North Korea.  In a time-inconsistency dilemma, someone’s preferences change over time.  The concept is usually applied to behavioral economics, but it also applies to security situations. Take terrorism.   The U.S. may want to negotiate with a terrorist to prevent him from committing future attacks.  But negotiating might encourage […]

At the 2010 G20 Summit held recently in Toronto, world leaders committed to more funding to address climate change and food security across the globe. Predictably, the global financial crisis has impacted those living in poverty the most, raising food prices above the reach of millions, resulting in an estimated addition of 109 million people […]

After some reflection, I can think of nothing good to say about the Alberta tar sands.  The best thing that most people say here is that Canada is not Saudi Arabia or Venezuela and therefore if the US is importing billions of barrels a year (4.28 in 2009), then we’re getting more (900 million) from […]

We’ve been waiting since mid-June to find out what consequences will follow from North Korea’s presumed sinking of a South Korean warship, since the Obama administration has repeatedly said that such a wanton act cannot be allowed to stand without consequences. As yet the UN Security Council has not adopted tougher sanctions to punish the […]

A while ago I read the book, The Marketplace of Revolution, in which T. H. Breen writes of the British Empire: Eighteenth-century writers seemed uncertain how best to describe Britain’s relation to its many overseas possessions.  Only tepidly did they employ the concept of “empire,” since for them it carried uncomfortable intellectual baggage from ancient […]

In spite of President Obama’s popularity in Europe, there is a relatively wide gap between the U.S. and Europe on several of the issues tackled at the recent G20 meeting held in Toronto on June 26-27.  This phenomenon creates an opportunity for countries to attempt to bridge the divide between the two sides – a […]

Photographer Steve McCurry, perhaps best known for his National Geographic cover photo of an Afghan woman with haunting eyes, talked with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty recently about how Afghanistan has changed in the past 30 years. A woman in Paris looks at a poster of the famous photograph of Sharbat Gula. July 06, 2010 Steve […]

The protection of the rights of women and girls and the increasement of opportunities to women across the globe is often overlooked or undervalued, however they are vital to are vital to the overall economic development and prosperity from the individual family unit, communities, countries, and our global comunity. Last week, the Economist Intelligence Unit launched the […]

Steven Chapman at Population Services International (PSI) has written a thoughtful piece on PSI’s approach to sustainability.  He comments: More than 10 years ago, PSI published its first position statement on sustainability – distancing itself from the almost exclusive focus on financial sustainability used by other social marketing organizations. Instead, we emphasized producing health and quality-of-life benefits at […]

In chess, zugzwang is when a player has no good moves.  Anything he does will weaken his position.  However, since it is his turn, he must move.  Therefore, he is forced to weaken his position. This is America’s current situation in Afghanistan.  Should the U.S. continue fighting a long and costly war or withdraw? Last […]

In the book, ‘This Time is Different,’ by Ken Rogoff & Carmen Reinhart of Harvard and Univ of Maryland, respectively, arrogance and ignorance has been the driving themes leading up to severe financial and economic crises over 800 years of availalble data.