As the world honors Abraham Lincoln on the 200th anniversary of his birth, it’s worth recalling one of the less well-remembered moments of his career: his letter on January 19, 1863 to “the Workingmen of Manchester,” responding to their earlier address and resolutions in support of the North. This was …
In the world of international affairs, popular phrases usually signify not thought, but its absence. Calls for ‘a new Marshall Plan,’ for example, are invariably made by people who know absolutely nothing about the original one. The appearance of these phrases is the surest proof that the speaker is content …
This past Saturday, Vice President Joe Biden gave a troubling speech at the 45th Munich Security Conference. Heritage Director for Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom calls the speech “one of the weakest projections of U.S. leadership on foreign soil in recent memory. The message was confused, apologetic, over-conciliatory, and remarkably …
MOSCOW – The past week’s developments gave lots of food for conjecture and speculations among Kremlinologists both within Russia and beyond. The regime – President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – sent out an array of signals that could be interpreted as both the attempts at somewhat liberalizing …
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a front-page story on soaring unemployment among China’s rural migrants. While official Chinese employment statistics are spotty, the gigantic figures being thrown around are no surprise. The Journal and other outlets emphasize the Communist Party’s overwhelming fear of political instability caused by job loss. This …
Does the financial crisis reveal a failure of American deregulation compared to better conceived European regulatory schemes? This thesis is shared by many, especially here in Europe where some see the current financial crisis as the proof of the superiority of the European “social market economy” over “cow-boy capitalism”. This …