Renzi, Italy’s Man of the Moment, Has a Lot to Prove
Sometime this week or next, if all goes to plan, 39–year–old Matteo Renzi will become the youngest prime minister in Italian history. He will form the nation’s 62nd government since 1945 and the fourth since its descent into crisis in…
How the White House Is Blowing Off Europe
The Obama administration needs to declare a “pivot to Europe” policy, and quickly. Not that the famous pivot to Asia has amounted to much: It drifts somewhere in the Pacific like a dead fish. But relations between the U.S. and…
Europe’s ‘Ogre of Deflation’ Is Rapping at the Door
All eyes on the European Central Bank this week. Its Governing Council meets Thursday in Frankfurt, and ECB President Mario “Whatever It Takes” Draghi will have to announce an historic interest rate cut if he is to earn his middle…
State of Foreign Policy: Not a Sharp Picture
The blogs and newspapers tell us President Obama will be firing on all cylinders when he delivers his State of the Union speech Tuesday. He plans to push the reset button, reassert command and drive an agenda, and declare a…
Why Iran Is Now Obama’s Best Middle East Bet
“What are we supposed to do now?” pundits and policymakers ask these days. The full question being, “What now that the Middle East spins like a dervish and the Obama administration has lost its grip on every major issue in…
Why the Global Economy Could Go Off the Rails in 2014
You do not have to go far to hear that financial hard times are over in 2014. But no one looking around the global economy could possibly miss the work still undone. Some see potholes deep enough to send the…
Why Baucus Is the Wrong Man as China’s Ambassador
There are several reasons President Obama just named Max Baucus, the long-serving senator from Montana, as his next ambassador to China. There are also several reasons to judge Baucus the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time…
China Grows Impatient with the Barbarian of North Korea
North Korea’s leader has a baby face and a weird haircut and exhibits the whims of an unsupervised kid at Disneyland. He’s thrown tantrums before, threatening to fire nuclear missiles at the United States, executing a female musical group, and…
As Democracy Grows So Does Global Corruption
It is hard to miss the democratic longings of so many of the world’s citizens as their voices rise these days. In number and diversity, these are surely among the distinct sounds of 2013. It is, however, impossible to miss…
Is China Trading a Fly Zone for a Growing Economy?
There is a simple way to look at the complicated crisis that arises as China pressesnew claims to jurisdiction over air space above the Pacific. Beijing’s recent announcement that it will assert rights over a newly declared “air defense identification…
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