Want to dominate the room the next time the subject of Syria comes up?  Invest twenty minutes reading this TAI essay by Michael Doran (NYU) and Salman Shaikh (Brookings) that says it all as lucidly and clearly as anything I’ve seen.   You’ll amaze your friends and impress whatever gender strikes your fancy.

Detroit’s population  shrank 25% in the last decade, and 11.6% of those who remain are unemployed. Things have gone radically wrong, and big changes are needed to get the city back on its feet.Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards. Mayor Dave Bing initially outlined an ambitious plan to spur economic growth and rein […]

The news that Ms. Yingluck, as the Thai press calls its Prime Minister-elect, has formed a coalition government with the blessing of the country’s powerful military is a welcome sign of stability in a conflicted country. She will be Thailand’s first female prime minister, and her new government is poised to be sworn in on […]

The old “great game” in Asia was the contest between Russia and Britain as Russia moved south and west and British power moved north from India. Round two came during the Cold War as the Soviets pushed toward Iran and Afghanistan and the US pushed back.The new great game is between China and India; at […]

Watching US and EU officials flub basic governance is deeply disturbing; look at Japan and you will see something worse.  Japan’s economic stagnation is now twenty years old, and Japan is no closer to fixing its broken political system or regenerating its economic dynamism than it was when its real estate bubble burst in 1991.Countries […]

The financial troubles facing the country are leading many Republicans as well as Democrats to look at the defense budget and think about cuts.  Some cuts will likely take place as US forces gradually reduce their roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most proposals, including these from Oklahoma’s GOP Senator Tom Coburn, go farther.There are lots […]

Somebody in the UK government seems to be talking to the FT.Yesterday’s news that the UK government joined France in offering the Great Loon a chance to stay in Libya after giving up power struck many observers — including this one — as a sign of incoherence and strategic despair.This morning an FT editorial makes […]

Journalists love stories about American decline — not necessarily because they are anti-American, but because they are journalists.   “American Global Position Largely Unchanged” is not a headline that sells papers.This FT column on US-China relations is a good example of ‘manufactured decline’.  The writer correctly notes that Secretary Clinton sought to bind China into […]

One of the things they teach you in survivor school is that the wilderness is often full of food that city dwellers either don’t recognize or are culturally conditioned to ignore.  Seeing a box turtle plodding through a forest glade, a fallen log teeming with termite grubs or a field of dandelions, the average city […]

America’s infrastructure could use some work, but this is one more subject politicians would rather fight about than fix.It’s hard to get a handle on the real needs; lobby groups love to pull together ‘studies’ that ‘show’ that failing to spend $200 billion today will cost $300 gazillion tomorrow.The American Society of Civil Engineers for […]