Who is killing the public unions?Some people, like the tens of thousands of protesters in Madison and the tens of millions of Americans who agree with them, believe that the villains are scheming corporate interests, Fox News, Tea Party ‘fanatics’ and opportunistically populist politicians like Scott Walker.Many of their opponents agree that the right is […]

It has been an eerie experience rereading Thucydides while watching governments totter across the Arab world.  In some ways, nothing has changed in 2500 years; revolution was an important part of Thucydides’ world and changes in government in Greek city states would cause those cities to shift from a pro-Athens to a pro-Sparta orientation.The revolutionary […]

Is America in a race to the bottom, or are we going through what the Austrian born economist Joseph Schumpeter would call a process of “creative destruction”?As readers over thirty will remember, Ronald Reagan used to tell the story of two boys: a pessimist and an optimist.  A psychologist put the pessimistic boy in a […]

[Published in the IHT under the headline “The Tea Party and US Foreign Policy”]The rise of the Tea Party movement has been the most controversial and dramatic development in U.S. politics in many years. Supporters have hailed it as a return to core American values; opponents have seen it as a racist, reactionary and ultimately […]

The world has been watching the upheavals and protests shaking the Middle East these days, but it’s just possible that the disturbances in Madison, Wisconsin mark what will ultimately prove to be a bigger turning point in world history.In the heart of Blue State America, we are seeing a challenge to some of the fundamental […]

If a specter haunts the chancellories of America, it isn’t communism and it isn’t Karl Marx.  It’s Thucydides, the chronicler of the 30 year Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens that led to the comprehensive defeat of the world’s first great democratic power.  The assumptions most Americans bring to the study of foreign policy […]

Pharaoh Hosni is out; the Mubarak dynasty is done.  This had to happen and, whatever comes next, the downfall of an undemocratic leader well past his sell-by date is a good thing in and of itself. The nation of Egypt is not a personal possession to be handed down like an heirloom from generation to […]

Reading Sun Tzu’s classic The Art of War for the Bard grand strategy seminar this winter was an unsettling experience.  Of course, that is the point.  The Art of War is one of those books that doesn’t want to sit there in your lap; it wants to reach up and slap you in the face.My […]

Today we are starting a new feature at Via Meadia: our StratBlog.  At Bard College I’m teaching a modified version of the Yale Grand Strategy curriculum developed by John Gaddis, Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy to a group of undergraduates this semester and the students have been generous enough to agree to share this experience […]

The Egyptian government has survived the first crisis of the revolution and both the government and the protesters are moving to a new trial of strength.  Surviving the first blast of popular fury — and of international criticism — is an important milestone for the government.  The longer it can hold out, the more likely […]