In response to my most recent post, one of my loyal readers (my only loyal reader, for all I know) asked me to expound on the U.S. policy implications of what is going on in Egypt. I was going to do so in that earlier post, but I try to keep these things relatively short, […]

As another frenzy of religious violence engulfs northern Nigeria, the United States is making its first substantial policy move regarding the situation. As Reuters reports, the State Department has now officially designated three of Boko Haram’s leaders as “foreign terrorists,” although Boko Haram itself has not yet been designated as a terrorist group.This designation may […]

The euro is significantly closer to failure and Europe is closer to a meltdown after the leaders of the four biggest eurozone leaders met in Rome and made no progress whatever. The “Fab Four” (Spain’s Mariano Rajoy, France’s Francois Hollande, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Italy’s Mario Monti) reaffirmed a pre-existing agreement to make some mostly […]

For years, Japan has been the poster child for Keynesianism—and not in a good way. Its “lost decade” of economic stagnation is well known (at this point, it’s closer to two decades than one), and this is only the beginning of its problems. Japan has been running a large budget deficit for more than twenty […]

The presidential election and the military’s “creeping coup” have dominated the headlines in Egypt, but this week’s events in the Sinai remind us that there are plenty of reasons to pay attention to the country besides its elections. A band of militants crossed into Israel from Egypt and staged a ambush that claimed the life […]

Although the Obama Administration has had some surprising foreign policy successes, Obama’s Syria policy has been a case study in incoherence and mismangament. After remaining relatively quiet in the early stages of the crisis, Obama escalated his rhetoric to ridiculous levels, calling for regime change in Syria and demanding that that Assad step down, yet […]

Today’s FT carries some news that is bound to raise a few eyebrows in America: Brazil and China have agreed to a currency swap deal that constitutes a “vote of confidence” in China’s efforts to promote the renminbi as a reserve currency.There is a tendency among some at home—and many abroad—to see China’s push for […]

Two years ago, Julian Assange was the most infamous man in the world. Discussions of Assange and Wikileaks attempted to plumb the mysteries of this renegade crusader for truth and honesty above all else. Hero to some, villain to others, Assange, most agreed, was a powerful idealist. But now, two years later, the Assange saga […]

Another day, another soft power contest in the Pacific. A new East Asia Forum report acquaints us with the scattered islands of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and their strategically crucial 2.5 million square kilometers of ocean: It is an area near critical sea lines of communication and is located directly in the so-called […]

The New York Times is reporting that more than half of all black New Yorkers are now unemployed, and that they remain unemployed for a year on average after losing their jobs. Meanwhile, the number of “discouraged workers”—people who give up looking for work after a long period of unemployment—has risen to 40,000 among blacks, […]