BLOG… Post #297: To Sanction Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Add Them to the State Department’s List 20 May 202120 May 2021 (Note to Readers: This post is co-authored with Dr. Larry Kirsch, an economist and former managing partner of IMR Health Economics. It follows on #296,”Getting Back to Basics in Policy…
BLOG… Post #240: Our Racist President 31 Jul 201930 Jul 2019 "Donald Trump lost the election because he veered so far off course from what it means to be a decent person, to be a leader, and to be an American.…
American Politics and the World… Post #148: Bannon’s Coup 31 Jan 201727 Feb 2017 Stephen K. Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist, has been elevated to the Principals Committee of the National Security Council, the top tier of national-security policymakers.* It is the first…
American Politics and the World… Post #142: Unfit to Command 9 Jan 201727 Feb 2017 During the presidential campaign a significant number of former senior foreign policy and national security officials from both parties spoke in no uncertain terms about Donald Trump’s qualifications to…
American Politics and the World… Post #140: The Diplomacy of Donald J. Trump 27 Dec 201627 Feb 2017 Oblivious to Tradition and Good Sense Those of us who appreciate the unconventional have to have second thoughts after watching Donald J. Trump in action. All the more so when…
BLOG… Post #138: Food Politics: The GMO Conspiracy 3 Dec 201627 Feb 2017 One of the longest-standing tricks of the corporate trade is to produce an item that is dangerous, breakable, or soon to be obsolete and then produce another item that will…
American Politics and the World… Post #137: The National Interest and the Trump Interest 21 Nov 201627 Feb 2017 As the Trump administration takes shape, one fact seems unassailable: We have an unprecedented situation in which, step by step, a president’s business interests—past, present, and future—are inseparable from the…
BLOG… Post #136: The Trump Team: Loyal and Dangerous 15 Nov 201627 Feb 2017 Personnel appointments provide a useful glimpse into what policy will be. Senior-level appointees are the policy shapers, and from what we have seen thus far, we are right to have…
American Politics and the World… Post #135: Our Worst Nightmare Has Come to Pass 9 Nov 201627 Feb 2017 The American people voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by nearly 800,000 votes.* But Trump was right: the system is rigged, meaning that thanks to our outdated and illogical…
BLOG… Post #129: Carrots or Sticks? Addressing North Korea’s Fifth Nuclear Test 20 Sep 201627 Feb 2017 As many experts predicted, North Korea (DPRK) followed another ballistic missile test with its fifth nuclear-weapon test on September 9. The event continues a pattern of testing increasingly sophisticated weapons…
BLOG… Post #127: Mission Impossible in the Middle East 1 Sep 201627 Feb 2017 We all know from personal experience how difficult it is to burn the candle at both ends when we’re trying to satisfy two people who are at odds with one…
American Politics and the World… Post #126: How Trump Deals 16 Aug 201627 Feb 2017 The revelation from a New York Times investigation that Donald Trump’s chief campaign adviser, Paul Manafort, was on the take with the former pro-Russian Ukraine president should come as no…
BLOG… Post #125: Our Deteriorating Environment: Is Anybody Listening? 5 Aug 201627 Feb 2017 Since beginning my blog in January 2014, I have written several pieces on the urgency of dealing with climate change and other large-scale environmental challenges—challenges that I have argued constitute…
BLOG… Post #122: China’s Bad Day in Court 13 Jul 201627 Feb 2017 As had been widely expected, the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ruled on July 12 in favor of the Philippines’…
BLOG… Post #121: Unintended Consequences and the Warfare State 7 Jul 201627 Feb 2017 “The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences.” So wrote Prime Minister Tony Blair to President George W. Bush in 2002, as Bush prepared to invade Iraq (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/06/full-text-annotated-tony-blairs-2002-iraq-memo-to-george-bush). …
BLOG… Post #120: Is Brexit the End of the World? 27 Jun 201627 Feb 2017 To judge from a New York Times front-page article that appeared two days after the British vote to withdraw from the EU, the entire post-World War II global financial and…
BLOG… Post #119 – Too Close for Comfort: The Dangerous US-China Maritime Dispute 11 Jun 201627 Feb 2017 The Background Two recent close encounters between US spy planes and Chinese jets spell trouble for relations between Washington and Beijing. The first occurred over the South China Sea…
American Politics and the World… Post #118: Cowgirl Diplomacy? Foreign Policy Under Hillary Clinton 24 May 201627 Feb 2017 America’s mainstream media, ever attracted to the splashy rather than the serious, has a new topic to occupy the time until Election Day: President Trump. What will he do first? …
BLOG… Post #117: Evaluating Obama’s Foreign Policy Record 15 May 201627 Feb 2017 So you’re not excited by Donald Trump’s announcement of his first foreign-policy acts as president: building the Mexico Wall, the No-Muslims Wall, the End-of-NATO Wall, and the China Trade Wall. …
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 