Harlan Ullman

The World Economic Forum held annually every January in Davos, Switzerland is considered the global gathering of political, business and other elites. The Financial Times reported that this year, a preliminary survey of Davos elites in September showed a “predominately negative outlook for the world …. that is expected to worsen over the next decade….” […]

Gstaad, Switzerland: In this Swiss wintry wonderland, the first major snows are still expected. Not quite Davos in attracting the political elite once a year for its renowned World Economic Forum, still, plenty of the rich and not always famous, have residences or holidays here. Over dinners, lunches and extended conversations during the past week, […]

Speculation about what happens in 2024 should be a nice parlor game that on December 31st will reveal either brilliant luck or stupendous stupidity. The outlook however is grim. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza will remain unfinished business regardless of whether the fighting has stopped or not. The post-war situations in both are laden […]

How about this thought experiment for 2024? Suspend for a moment the inherent limitations in transposing the past into the present. After all, how much has the world changed over even the past six, let alone sixty years? One superpower collapsed; another has risen. Consider US politics. One likely presidential candidate, age 78, has been […]

With Christmas and New Years only a few days away, this should be time for a bit of cheer and good will towards all. But the dire conditions of the state of this union and its politics in a winter of discontent will require a great deal of good cheer to raise national spirits. Or, […]

Perhaps, the most hotly-contested political question as of now in America is whether Donald Trump will become a dictator if elected president next November. With the approach of Christmas, instead of sugar plums dancing in the heads not only of the left but Republicans such as Liz Cheney as well, visions of Sieg heil, jackboots […]

As the Christmas season rapidly approaches, it is Ebenezer Scrooge and not Santa Claus, who may dominate the holiday! Consider what a mess we collectively are in-at home and abroad. President Joe Biden declares the greatest ideological struggle today is between autocracies and democracies with the former in the ascent over the latter. Is he […]

To a cynic, American administrations are regularly criticized for having no strategy or having the wrong one. Sun Tzu had it right. The best strategy is to win without fighting. But how is that to be accomplished? The second best on the great Chinese strategist’s list was to win by attacking the enemy’s strategy. That, […]

After 1945, one of the principal reasons why America lost every war it started was because of profoundly flawed strategic thinking. The tragedy is that this flaw still persists. In Vietnam, the specter of a monolithic, Godless communist threat produced the Domino Theory. If Vietnam were to fall to the alleged Sino-Soviet colossus, so too […]

With wars raging in Ukraine and Israel, escalation and disaster loom, probably more so than at any time during the last decade. The Biden administration, so far, has been competent and sensible in responding to the war in the Middle East. However, Hezbollah and Iran continue to provoke Israel; attack US forces in Syria and […]