With the recent submission of findings by the bi-partisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform recommending a 15 percent cut in U.S. defense procurement and a 10 percent reduction in research and development, the future of American military dominance appears to be in question. Even prior to the report’s release, the Pentagon launched a […]
The day after I post something about the upcoming independence referendum in Sudan, election problems boil over in two other countries on the continent. The Guinean military has proclaimed a state of emergency following a disputed election earlier this month, and reports are emerging of a military coup in Madagascar this morning. On November 7, […]
In your spare time, why not solve America’s greatest national security dilemma? Courtesy of The New York Times, you can play around with ways to solve the deficit problem. Save America from the death spiral that brought down so many empires of the past! But, as I noted last week, keep in mind Paul Krugman’s […]
With the mid term elections over, Afghanistan is once more in the news headlines. Over the weekend Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai gave an interview to the Washington Post criticizing the NATO war strategy. Karzai stated: “we’d like the Afghan countryside…not to be so overwhelmed with the military presence…you can have the U.S. presence in the […]
Symantec, a top cyber security firm based in Cupertino, Calif., has released a report that shows convincingly (in my opinion) that the stuxnet worm was designed specifically to disrupt uranium enrichment operations at Iran’s Natanz plant. An earlier analysis by a leading German cyber security expert, which I described in detail in an earlier post […]
South Sudan is set to vote itself into independence. But can it get there? A number of problems confront the government of South Sudan in preparation for a January referendum on independence.Voter registration is underway, but a delay in the vote could push Africa’s largest nation back to civil war. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary […]
The Financial Times had another blockbuster special report on energy out a couple of weeks back. Some highlights: US policy: A nation in thrall to the power of oil in which we learn that federal policy has been generally a failure for decades – no news there, I’m afraid. “The only really successful federal policy […]
The prevailing view coming out of the G-20 Summit last week is that US monetary policy is as much to blame for the precarious state of the global economy as is China’s exchange rate policy. A deluge of dollars is causing a speculative bubble in emerging markets. This analysis is wrong. U.S. monetary policy should be kept just where it […]
INSEAD recently hosted a conference in Paris on the future of the healthcare industry. They had a number of interesting speakers, including Harpal Singh of Fortis Healthcare. Fortis is a leading provider of hospitals in India, and currently the fastest growing. Their investor presentation provides a look into the future of the business of healthcare […]
Across parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the following scene is replayed over and over: A girl, often between 4 and 12 years old, is held down by three or four women while all or part of her external and internal genitalia is cut off. The practice known as, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) […]
G-20 world leaders meeting in Seoul, South Korea, concluded the summit late Friday by issuing a joint communiqué, with no specifics, agreeing only in general terms to curb “persistently large imbalances” in saving and spending. But deep divisions, especially over the US-China currency dispute, left G-20 officials negotiating all night to draft a watered-down statement for the leaders to endorse, keeping alive a dispute that raises fears of a global trade & currency war, and fears of rising protectionism among nations.
Later this week, representatives of NATO member states are scheduled to meet in Lisbon, Portugal, where they will adopt a new strategic concept – the first since 1999. On October 8th, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spelled out the direction of the new framework document. As overarching security concerns have shifted significantly for the […]
We’re looking for a great intern who will devote 10 hours a week to our volunteer-run site. Main duties are writing posts and promoting Women and Foreign Policy on the Web. This is a perfect fit for an undergraduate or graduate student with an interest in international affairs who wants to gain experience in journalism […]
Last June President Obama stood on the world stage and said he would have the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement sign on this trip to Asia. Last week, he against stood on the world stage on said trip to Asia and was forced to admit failure on this issue. The global trade world was hopeful […]
The discovery of a drug tunnel, no matter how long it may be or how lavishly outfitted–even the seizure of millions in coke or marijuana–means nothing, unless it leads authorities, in hot pursuit on both sides of the border, up the criminal hierarchies, to the drug lords, and their corrupt accomplices in the police, military, banks, business, and government. To everybody waiting, in Mexico and the US, for their ‘taste.’