Section: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (USA)
Ignoring risks to national security
Yesterday’s release of a critical, one-sided report on the Bush-era interrogations of terrorist leaders will assume a place in the annals of congressional recklessness. Led by Senator Dianne Feinstein and conducted only by Democrats, the partisan investigation in the short term could provoke retaliation against Americans. In the longer...
Why EU’s problems should matter to Americans
Important American interests are at stake in what may seem, from a distance, arcane disputes within and among members of the European Union. Nonetheless, European debates over issues such as the common currency, immigration and economic regulations all reflect fundamental disputes over the EU’s ultimate purpose.Whether and how EU members...
Pearl Harbor and our world disorder
Three years ago yesterday, I wrote for the Corner a short reflection on Pearl Harbor, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary. Back then, the big conversation in Washington, D.C., was over looming budget cuts to the military. Some (including me) were warning that a hasty draw down of our military forces might not be the wisest move in an...
Can Ash Carter save the Pentagon?
President Obama has nominated Ash Carter to be his new secretary of defense. Carter would be a good pick in any administration. His bio gives an indication of his experience and talents (I’m probably just brainwashed to believe that anyone who double-majors summa cum laude in medieval history and physics, then follows it up with a doctorate...
Putin pushes back: Beware the wounded Russian bear
Contrary to what he would like us to believe, things are going very poorly for Vladimir Putin these days. Having found the West more united than he expected on the issue of sanctions against Russia, he now discovers that the bottom has fallen out of the international oil market. As if that were not enough, he also finds Europe nixing his pet...
Clinton’s stock declining in futures market
Is the market in Hillary Clinton futures collapsing? Quite possibly so.A year ago Clinton seemed likely to become the next president. Presumably she and her husband had not yet started to call themselves, Bush style, 42 and 45. But she had an overwhelming lead in the polls for the Democratic nomination and was getting 50 percent or more in most...
Happy holidays from the Saudis and shale oil
While Americans were enjoying their thanksgiving feast this year, they received an extra blessing from two sources: the shale (cheaper) oil revolution and Saudi Arabia. Due to pressure from a surge of shale oil supply coupled with weaker global demand for energy, oil prices had, by the week before Thanksgiving, dropped about 30 percent from $110...
A tale of two leaders and two elections
Before the recent nationwide elections in Taiwan and the U.S. in November, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou and U.S. President Barack Obama shared one overriding thing: low approval ratings. On the eve of the American mid-term elections, Obama’s favorable-unfavorable margin was the lowest it had been since he was first elected to the...
Novorossiya!
In April, in a four-hour call-in show televised across Russia, Vladimir Putin assigned the name New Russia—Novorossiya—to the lands in Southeastern Ukraine he claimed were and are historically part of Russia. The term Novorossiya had been used only once before in history, during the three decades from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries, to...
Tuesday evening links
1. Chart of the Day. Based on new data from the Department of Energy, the US had produced domestically 86.2% of the energy consumed this year through August – that the highest level of energy self-sufficiency for the US since 1986. 2. Photos of the Day I. From the NY Times, what would North Dakota look like if its oil drilling lines were above...
