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 #267: In China, Your DNA Belongs to the State 7 Jul 202019 Jul 2020 The roundup and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people of a specific ethnic or religious group has all too many precedents in modern history. The fact that the group…
BLOG Post #249: Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the Insecurity of China’s Leadership 5 Dec 20195 Dec 2019 Hong Kong is in chaos, with no sign that the protesters will yield on their demands. Mass incarceration and indoctrination of Uyghurs and other Chinese Muslims has become so widely…
APB APB: New Zealand Shows the Way 21 Mar 2019 Bravo to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand for demonstrating what leadership in a democracy is all about when national security is at stake. Her announcement of an outright…
BLOG Post #226: On China, the US Public Stands Apart 5 Feb 20194 Feb 2019 Why isn’t the American public as agitated about China as are the Trump administration, the mainstream media, and even many China specialists? In a recent article (www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/31/china-gap/), Daniel Drezner, a…
BLOG Post #146: How to Make Enemies 26 Jan 201727 Feb 2017 About two weeks ago I wrote a blog, “Unfit to Command,” which argues that Donald Trump lacks the temperament, intelligence, and leadership qualities to be in charge of US…
American Politics and the World… Post #145: Trump’s America—and Ours 21 Jan 201727 Feb 2017 Abraham Lincoln once said: “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.” Donald J. Trump’s…
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 #131: The Final Days of Donald Trump 9 Oct 201627 Feb 2017 Heading Into the Second Debate Until a few weeks ago, historians of the US presidency were fixed on Donald Trump’s meteoric and unpredictable rise. Now they will have to focus…
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 #109: Donald Trump—From One Tyrant to Another 3 Mar 201627 Feb 2017 One thing I discovered long ago about tyrants: they love other tyrants. They’re a mutual admiration/suffering society. When one succeeds by extinguishing dissent, the others applaud; and when one falls,…
BLOG… Post #108: Dark Spots, Light Spots, and Apple’s Protest 23 Feb 201627 Feb 2017 How’s this for bad choices? A recent study by a Harvard group contended with the position of US intelligence agencies that tracking possible terrorists was becoming more difficult because…
BLOG… Post #102 – Endless War, Undeclared and Undebated 27 Dec 201527 Feb 2017 The death of six US soldiers in Afghanistan on December 21 at the hands of a Taliban suicide bomber brings to twenty-one the number of US combat deaths there in…
BLOG… Post #86: With Friends Like These 6 Aug 201527 Feb 2017 The Pentagon Papers record a last-minute conversation between President Dwight Eisenhower and President-elect John F. Kennedy on Inauguration Day. The subject was the war in Indochina, which already was going…
BLOG… Post #62 – Human Rights: The Rising Record of Abuses 12 Jan 201527 Feb 2017 The terrorist attacks in Paris and the ongoing abductions of Boko Haram in Nigeria bring to mind this fact of life: systematic, large-scale abuses of human rights are on the…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 