Section: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (USA)
Why we like Ike
In a recent column, Commentary’s Seth Mandel contends that Dwight Eisenhower was no great model for conservatives — that, in fact, his foreign policy was “muddled, improvised, confused, and often shallow.” Mandel further contends that there is already a robust, reigning GOP foreign-policy consensus, which Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) does...
Global economic worry list for 2015
The coming year is likely to prove to be one of the more challenging years for the global economy. At the very start of the year, there are all too many stresses in the world economy that can be identified even before the U.S. Federal Reserve begins normalizing interest rates. In a world of rising geopolitical risks, one also needs to worry about...
Maybe 1914 wasn’t so bad: It gave us these famous babies
One hundred years ago might have been the start of the Great War, but by any measure, the 20th century rocked when it came to famous babies born in the year ’14. Our annual list of centenary births begins with some of the most important people in modern history.Start with two scientists whose work saved uncounted millions of lives: Jonas...
Resolutions 2015: Foreign and defense policy
For a sneak peek at the entire Resolutions 2015 blog series, download AEI Essentials to your mobile device.With the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham, a North Korean cyberattack, President Barack Obama’s diplomatic opening with Cuba, and Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as its newest territory, the...
Advice on ‘advice and consent’
Editor’s note: This article appears in National Review’s December 31st print edition. Access the original content here.Despite the Democratic party’s losses in November’s elections, President Obama has audaciously begun ignoring constitutional restraints in order to impose his policy views. This is true not only on...
Russian Caveat
The sudden financial crisis in Russia is providing a “teachable moment,” as our Democratic friends like to say. In this case, it should be a master class in strategic thinking. Before we get too confident in our assumption that Vladimir Putin has fatally overreached, or too self-congratulatory that Western sanctions have crippled the Russian...
Time for the IMF in Russia
The last thing that a beleaguered Vladimir Putin will want to hear is that Russia has now reached the stage where it desperately needs an IMF supported economic adjustment program. Without such a program it is difficult to see how Russia can regain domestic and international confidence in the management of its economy. Absent the IMF, it is also...
Are low gas prices good or bad?
Oil prices have been falling — and with them the quality of reporting and writing about this periodic event. Stock market “guru” Laszlo Birinyi (just to select one of many annoying examples) claims that “It [the oil price drop] is just a black swan. It comes clearly out of the blue. Four standard deviations out of anything else [ie, exceedingly...
US defense cuts may undermine security in Western Pacific
In its January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG), the Obama Administration stated that the United States “will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.”1Yet one month later, the administration released its 2013 defense budget request, including $487 billion in cuts mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), which provided...
The ruble and Russia’s food imports: More than Putin’s life source
Following the downward trajectory of the price of oil, the Russian ruble continues to plummet. And amidst this currency free-fall, it is the political ramifications of the country’s skyrocketing food prices, caused by heavy dependence on food imports that are most troubling. An increase in the price of food that outpaces inflation has the...
