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Post #528: Chairman Xi Goes to Washington

The New Reality China’s President Xi Jinping’s sixth visit to the US has come and gone. Expectations were low for…

20Sep 202620 Sep 2026

Post #527: The Crimes of the Trump Regime

(Note to the Reader: This is the fifth iteration of a blog originally posted after the first two weeks of…

Post #29 – Obstacle Course: Engaging Iran

19 Jun 201427 Feb 2017

If the ongoing negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program fail to result in a comprehensive agreement by the July 20 deadline—an interim deal has been in place since January—it…

Post #27 – The Great Sucking Sound in Iraq

13 Jun 201427 Feb 2017

Late last year ominous reports from Iraq indicated that government forces were gradually losing the initiative in the northern and western parts of the country against an al-Qaeda affiliate know…

Post #26-What Works? Good Neighbors Find Common Ground

9 Jun 201427 Feb 2017

It’s a powerful story of grassroots organizing. “Jane Kleeb vs. Keystone” details the tenacious efforts of one person in Nebraska to reach across the usual environmentalist-conservative divide in order to…

Post #25 – A Haircut in Yemen, and a Military That’s Everywhere

4 Jun 201427 Feb 2017

One might think that a liberal president who has tried to cultivate the image of someone devoted to diplomacy, engaging enemies, and respect for all cultures would have a strong…

Post #24 – Obama’s Foreign Policy: Still “Indispensable”

30 May 201427 Feb 2017

“The United States is, and remains, the one indispensable nation.” From that starting point, the President launched a defense of his foreign policy at West Point on May 28. US…

Post #23 – Trouble at Sea: China Confronts Its Neighbors Over Sovereignty and Resources

26 May 201427 Feb 2017

Trouble is again brewing in the South China Sea (SCS), where six nations compete for control over tiny atolls—the Paracel and Spratly Islands—that probably sit atop important gas and oil…

Post #22-Take the Money and Run: The Privileged World of the Multinational Corporation (Part 2)

12 May 201427 Feb 2017

I ended the last post by suggesting why governments do not constrain their global corporations from behaving disloyally—specifically, by avoiding fair taxation and exporting jobs. No explanation of government reluctance…

Post #20 – Another Climate-Change Warning, and the Fracking “Solution”

8 May 201427 Feb 2017

With the release of the National Climate Assessment, we now have, by my count, four major scientific studies of climate change within the past year. All of them are in…

Post #19 – China on the Mind: Obama’s Asia Trip

5 May 201427 Feb 2017

In post #17 I analyzed the Japan portion of President Obama's Asia trip. Following is a fuller assessment of the entire trip. Obama arrived in an Asia torn by grief. …

Post #18 – David Brooks’ Cold War Nostalgia

1 May 201427 Feb 2017

In his April 29 op-ed column for the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/opinion/when-wolves-attack.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), David Brooks wrote the kind of foreign-policy piece that used to appear regularly during the early Cold War…