Consider: On May 31st a flotilla of ships organized by the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief tried to run the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip. As expected, the Israelis used military force to stop the flotilla from ever reaching the shore. Nine Turks died before the day was over. […]
In the post “Addendum to Dreaming Grand Strategy” I offered a tentative definition of the term “Grand Strategy”. It reads: “A grand strategy is any comprehensive strategy statesmen develop or utilize to fulfill their state’s chosen national purpose.” In crafting this definition I imagined myself quite original. Quite accidentally I happened across, “Saving the World […]
There are very few things I believe every citizen of the United States should read, hear, or see. This is one of them. The Republic stands on the strength of an informed citizenry capable of exercising oversight over their government. The government should always be an instrument in the hands of the people. As the […]
This week’s “intriguing passage” comes by way of Ashwin Parameswaran’s blog on macroeconomics, Macroeconomic Resilience. In his post “Evolvability, Robustness, and Resilience in Complex Adaptive Systems” Parameswaran finds reason to quote economist Joseph Berliner’s book, The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry. Said Berliner: “Adam Smith taught us to think of competition as an “invisible hand” […]
Much of what is written below is pulled from my comments on Zenpundit’s critique of my earlier post “Dreaming Grand Strategy.” If you have already read them, you will find little new here. In the post “Dreaming Grand Strategy” I set out to explain why America is suffering a crisis in grand strategy. Doing so […]
Earlier this weekend The New York Times reported that Pakistan has allowed some 11,000 Chinese troops into Gilgit-Baltistan, a strategically significant part of the contested Kashmir region. Steve Hynd (of NewsHoggers) beat me to posting on the news. As his thoughts on the situation mirror my own, I direct my readers to his post: China […]
WARNING – ANOTHER SUPER LONG POST (Sorry I keep throwing these things on you guys). An interesting discussion has been enfolding over at Zenpundit’s place. The topic of the day is grand strategy and its relation to moral and national purpose. My previous foray into the topic, “Dreaming Grand Strategy”, drew the attention of Mark […]
Via Arts and Letters Daily comes this fascinating presentation by psychologist Jonathan Haidt on ‘moral psychology’. More interesting than Hait’s thesis is the qualifiers he adds to it, noting two important studies that gave him cause for intellectual humility. Says he: The New Science of Morality Jonathan Haidt. Edge. July 2010. But before I come […]
THE REPUBLIC An Uncomfortable Intimacy Joseph Fouche. Committee of Public Safety. 4 August 2010. This is an important piece that addresses many of the themes found on this site. In good time I hope to write a response to it. Though the author does not claim as much, it lays bare one of the fundamental […]
Boz (of Blogging by Boz) is perhaps my favorite Latin American hand publishing on the internet. This week he turned my attention to the violence that is wracking Venezuela. Writes Boz: Censurado 2 “Boz”. Bloggings by Boz. 20 August 2010. El Nacional reports that a government report from the National Institute for Statistics shows 19,133 […]