Calculating the National Interest: Ukraine and ISIS
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 10th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Calculating the National Interest: Ukraine and ISIS
Robert Robb, RealClearPolitics
America’s post-Cold War foreign policy has suffered from imprecision in defining national interests and failure to calibrate our involvements in international conflicts accordingly. The current debates over what to do regarding Ukraine and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria offer good illustrations. When the Ukraine crisis erupted, I speculated that partition probably would give the western section of the country the maximum opportunity to pursue its desire to affiliate and integrate with Europe. Events seem to have validated that instinct. And, indeed, partition still appears the best…
August Jobs Data Point Way Toward GOP Victory
Dick Morris, RealClearPolitics
Amid the media focus on the basic data in the August jobs report — that the economy “added” 143,000 jobs — is the figure that will underscore the Republican efforts to take the Senate. During the month of August, the economy added about 659,000 jobs that went to foreign-born Americans (naturalized citizens, green card holders, and illegal immigrants combined). At the same time, it lost about 643,000 jobs that had been held by native-born Americans. Indeed, since Obama took office, the number of foreign-born Americans who have jobs has risen by 2.9 million, while the number of domestically…
Hold On, Mr. President
John Stossel, RealClearPolitics
“Do you have a strategy now, Mr. President?” asked the cover of the Daily News next to a photo of the second American journalist to be beheaded by the terrorist group ISIS. The impulse to “do something” to counter such evil is strong. But why do we assume that government doing something is always an improvement over government doing nothing?In domestic policy, encouraging government to act leads to nonsense like the “stimulus spending” that created boondoggles such as Cash for Clunkers. Our foreign policy record isn’t much better, despite big successes such as stopping Hitler. Consider the…
