China’s response to the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia is now enshrined in Communist party documents as official policy, the FT reports: Hu Jintao, China’s outgoing president, has called for China to become a “maritime power” in language that will fuel concerns among its neighbours and in the US over how it deals with a […]

As we’ve said in the past, The U.S. and Iran are already involved in a very real, if covert, war. But Iran is also waging secret wars with other countries, most notably with Israel. We’ve covered many of these clandestine battles individually as they have come to light, but it’s worth taking a step back to […]

It sure looks like the US has some more leading from behind in Africa ahead of it. Reuters reports that plans are solidifying for what Theodore Roosevelt might have called a “splendid little war” in Mali: “International forces will not do the ground fighting, that role will belong to the Malian army,” a military officer […]

For the first time in its long history as an American territory, Puerto Rico has voted to join the union. Naturally, it’s not a done deal. The measure was non-binding, and although both presidential candidates stated that they would be in favor of statehood for the island should residents support it, statehood would still have […]

Barack Obama’s sweeping triumph in the presidential elections, including in critical battleground states, prompted a sigh of relief in numerous quarters and most capitals of Europe, where Obama, despite his emphatic orientation away from Europe, is seen as representing more closely the ethos and Weltanschauung of the old continent.In his victory speech, which described the […]

The question posed by my title doesn’t quite hit the mark. Just as one cannot really speak of a single “America”, there is no one “Russia” anymore but rather several Russias. But while each different Russia has its own interests, attitudes and moods, there is something that unites them all with respect to America: The […]

Because of an unlikely alignment of the Chinese and American political calendars, both countries are going through leadership changes in the space of a few weeks. But the two transitions look wildly different. Consider the tight restrictions on life in Beijing these past few weeks: Kitchen knives and pencil sharpeners reportedly have been pulled from store shelves. […]

Via Meadia has long believed that, while President Obama doesn’t want to go to war with Iran over its nuclear program, he would take military action as a last resort.A new report from Iran’s intelligence ministry, widely reprinted in the Iranian press, suggests that Iranians are starting to take this possibility seriously. The Washington Post has the […]

We briefly interrupt this multi-part series on “What’s Wrong and How to Fix It” to comment on—you guessed it—the elections.What can I possibly say that hundreds of other people have not already said, or are about to say? It’s a challenge, I admit. There’s obviously no point in telling you what happened, only the possibility […]

Blue governance scored a victory on Tuesday in California, where voters came out in support of a large tax hike, but in Michigan, unions suffered a big defeat. Proposal Two, which would have written the right for collective bargaining by public-sector unions into the state constitution, was roundly defeated by 58 percent of voters. This […]