Walter Russell Mead
New Iran Crisis Wrinkle: Who’s Bluffing Whom? Yesterday, the Iranians threatened to call what they hope is Europe’s bluff.  Today, Israel is musing out loud whether it is Iran that is bluffing. ... How Thick is Your Bubble? In his forthcoming book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, Charles Murray argues that A new upper class that makes decisions affecting the ... Trend #10: Hope and Change In many respects, this year’s list of ten trends paints a chaotic picture of the next decade: exacerbating economic upheaval, religious conflict and mass proliferation ... Anti-Colonial Troll Studies At Harvard Is there something wrong with the Boston-Cambridge water supply? Via Meadia has written previously about the plague of so-called “awesome” courses in the academies that ... The Great Game: Philippine Edition The Obama Administration may soon come to an agreement with Philippines to station U.S. troops or naval vessels on its territory. The talks are still ... Churchill And Mead Agree: Fake Meat Will Save The World Winston Churchill understood Gaia better than most greens. Seventy years ago, Churchill made a prediction: “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken ...
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Liberalism on Life Support: A Response There's the Beef A few of us who were elected in the mid-1970s saw a tidal wave coming in the form of two historic revolutions: globalization and information. What we needed was a national policy to manage the shift of our economic base from traditional manufacturing industry to the new information technologies. That was, or should have been, the task of progressive liberals. Instead, liberals have taken refuge in a New Deal cathedral that the highly experimental Franklin Roosevelt would have been the first to escape.
 
Liberalism on Life Support: A Response Evolution, Not Revolution Walter Russell Mead’s article begins where every serious analysis must: squarely focused on globalization and technological innovation, the twin drivers of momentous changes in America’s economy, society and politics. But he goes too far in wanting to scrap the entire blue model. Today’s social arrangements need evolution rather than revolution.
 
Liberalism on Life Support: A Response What Is to Be Done? Mead is quite correct about the problems America faces, but the real question is what to do about them, not an endless discussion of how liberals and conservatives got here. As generic, literary categories, they have no answers for these problems, but specific, individual liberals and conservatives have proposed plausible solutions.
 
Middle East What Would War with Iran Look Like? Can we make an honest assessment of the risks of military conflict with Iran? How would we even begin? These are difficult questions, even for those who aren't partisans for one side or the other. Wars are notorious for yielding the unwanted and unexpected, and a war with Iran is even harder than usual to bound analytically.
What We're Reading

President Obama is fond of quoting Abraham Lincoln, and this year’s State of the Union address was no exception. Then as ever, he deploys Lincoln’s words to make the precise opposite point than originally intended.

After years of reaping only modest returns from the “cultural cesspool” strategy of attacking Hollywood, the GOP may have discovered in internet freedom the perfect political wedge.

SOPA or no, we can all agree that IP theft on the internet is a problem. Or can we?

The libertarian-friendly argument to “get the government out of the marriage business” serves well as a white flag in the culture war, but would be impossible to implement. Why libertarians should support existing marriage law.

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Ahead of the Curve
Editors' Choices from Previous Issues
January/February 2010 Endgame for Korea Kim Jong-il is dead. Does the succession of his son Kim Jong-un present a moment for tougher sanctions, hard containment, more robust engagement, or continued patience and caution? North Korea watchers from China, Japan and the U.S. State Department game out short- and long-term solutions to the DPRK conundrum.
 
May/June 2010 China Sets Sail The Obama Administration's recent announcement that 2,500 Marines will deploy to Australia provoked a hostile response from Beijing, which seeks unfettered leadership in the region. The spat underscores how China's remarkable maritime transformation has increased its control over the East and South China seas. Here, a look at the historical background and future implications of China's surging sea power.
Featured Reviews
Books, Film, Music & Other Cultural Artifacts
Books Declinism's Fifth Wave Waves of declinist sentiment have continually rippled through the American consciousness. Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum's That Used to Be Us shows us why today’s declinists may have hit the mark closer than ever before, but, like all good prophets, they also show us a path out of perdition.
Books Essaying Epstein Some say the essay belongs at the "kid's table" of literary genres. Undaunted, master essayist Joseph Epstein has deftly deployed the form to explore humanity—from its virtues (ambition, friendship) to its vices (envy, snobbery, and gossip). Whatever his subject, Epstein's good-natured humor marks a distinctive mode of cultural self-reflection.
Books Sky King Martin Van Creveld thinks that airpower is in irreversible decline, even though many remain unshaken in their faith in its capacity to win wars on the cheap. The Age of Airpower is a lively history of warfare, but ultimately misguided. Even as Pentagon budgets fall prey to the new mood of austerity prevailing in Washington, airpower still has an important role to play.
Music Elvis Lives! When talented performers become cultural icons, their music often becomes subsumed in the cult of personality. We tend, for example, to think of Elvis as a revered symbol or the butt of jokes about outlandish jumpsuits and blue-haired old ladies. It's high time someone help us get past Elvis-as-kitsch and answer the real question about him: Was he any good?
Retroview Francis Parkman's Indian Problem Francis Parkman’s vivid books on France and Britain’s travails in North America have surprising relevance to two overarching conflicts in political discourse today: government regulation of the economy, and responses to terrorism.