Foreign Affairs
By now perhaps you’ve heard this intriguing news: Geologists have known for decades that Afghanistan has vast mineral wealth, but a U.S. Department of Defense briefing this week put a startling price tag on the country’s reserves of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and other prized minerals: at least $908 billion. If impoverished Afghanistan is seen…
This mindset is well beyond my capacity for sympathy, and almost incomprehensible: Trains stood still and children played instead of going to school as workers around France went on strike to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age to 62. Neighboring countries suffered along with Paris commuters as walkouts by drivers delayed…
This short article about job prospects for young adults in Greece catches many of the various nuances, but it still seems as if there’s a disconnect of cause and effect. Consider: From their settled perches, the elders criticize and cluck. The young, they say, have either no initiative, a dearth of opportunities, or some combination…
David Goldman applies what he calls “Autustinian realism” to America’s foreign affairs and comes up with a variety of interesting conclusions: What we might call “Augustinian realism” is this premise, borne out in the world around us. To the extent that other nations share the American love for the sanctity of the individual, they are…
This account of military actions and strategy in Afghanistan makes for interesting reading. Here, writer Bing West notes an adjustment of strategy intended to prevent deleterious interference by America’s political class: Marja’s objective area comprised about twelve by twelve miles of canals, irrigation ditches, and flat fields, with several thousand farm compounds. The assault began…
Advocates for bigger government love to cite the small, still relatively homogeneous nations of Europe as an example of the bounty that awaits the United States if it just relies more on government to make decisions. Europeans, they say, are happier, more secure, less stressed out, etc. On Anchor Rising, we have argued, can argue,…
Yesterday afternoon, a coworker and I were discussing a plaster molding that was sagging off a large house’s dining room ceiling. He expressed surprise that the installers would rely entirely on adhesive to keep the heavy decoration attached, and although I shared his distrust of goop, in building, I pointed out that it had held…
… when your biggest creditor has no principles. From UPI. China, already outraged over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Tuesday warned of damage to bilateral ties if U.S. leaders met with the Dalai Lama. President Barack Obama plans to meet with the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan spiritual leader visits the United States but no…
How long, do you suppose, until history encounters its first global totalitarian regime? U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said a bank tax and other tough new measures would be introduced by the individual countries but in a coordinated way to prevent bankers from moving from one place to another to escape regulation. “Lenin might have been…
The photograph of the two-year-old Haitian being handed into his mother’s arms has got to be among the most amazing captures of human expression that I’ve ever seen. The ordeal from which the boy has just been rescued is still discernible in his face, but his focus on his mother mixes with, well, almost surprise,…