The US is about to spend a colossal amount of money, some $1.7 trillion, on Infrastructure and Jobs; Chips and Science; and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Taken together, this is the largest spending approved by Congress probably since FDR’s New Deal on what can be called US infrastructure broadly defined. In theory, these three […]
Needed: A Chief Operating Officer For America
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Article II, US Constitution Who runs the US Government? Article I of the Constitution established the legislature whose many responsibilities range from passing all laws; declaring war; appropriating monies; conducting oversight; and confirming executive appointees. But Congress is not operational. […]
American Society, Not Democracy, is under Threat
Media attention remains riveted on which party will finally control the House of Representatives and analysis of Donald Trump’s announcement in light of the 2024 presidential sweepstakes. But the most critical conclusion from the November 8th elections has gone unnoticed. Despite throaty warnings that democracy was endangered, it was not. Far worse, it is American […]
Guy Fawkes Day, 11/11/11 and American Politics
While yesterday’s elections will understandably consume today’s media, this column takes a different and historical tack. Two November holidays are eerily relevant to current American politics and the war in Ukraine. Both deserve attention. Guy Fawkes Day and its slogan “Remember, remember the Fifth of November: Gunpowder, Treason and Plot” are not celebrated here. In […]
What’s New about Biden’s National Defence Strategy
Last week the Biden administration released its unclassified National Defense Strategy (NDS). The document was well written and proposed several new concepts and definitions that differed from the past Obama and Trump NDS’s. The aims of these two prior NDS’s were variants of “contain, compete, deter and if war arises defeat” China, Russia, North Korea, […]
Is Ukraine More Dangerous Than the Cuban Missile Crisis?
Sixty years ago this month, the US and Soviet Union faced off in, arguably, the most dangerous superpower nuclear confrontation of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved in thirteen days. Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove Russian missiles from Cuba. Ukraine is pounding Russian troops and recapturing formerly occupied territory. Vladimir […]
Proxy Wars and 21st Century Merchants Of Death
The conflict in Ukraine is, by any definition, a “proxy war.” But it is being fought entirely differently by the US, the West and Russia. The US and the West are waging a traditional proxy war that FDR used to aid Great Britain persevere against Nazi Germany prior to Pearl Harbor and the CIA in […]
Not One but Many Ticking Time Bombs
The most dangerous global crisis today is in Ukraine. And the war is escalating. Ukraine knocked out part of the $4 billion Kerch Bridge connecting Russia’s only direct route across the Sea of Azov with Crimea. This was a strategic, tactical and psychological victory paralleling the stunning Ukrainian army advances in retaking territory formerly seized […]
Speaker Trump?
If Dickens’ first sentence in Tale of Two Cities was re-written for 2022, it might read, “It was the most dangerous of times, it was also the most bizarre.” Here is a small sampling of why. Vladimir Putin has threatened to use “all available means” to defend Russia against assaults by the West. A well-known […]
The Putin enigma and the Zelensky trap
Last week, Vladimir Putin’s pre-recorded address to his nation threatened the West with the veiled reference to using “all available means” to defend Russia. Clearly, that warning was meant to include nuclear, as well as energy, denial to Europe among Russian threats. Over the weekend, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan went on talk shows; repeatedly […]