As I understand it, all the cool kids at the White House (whose number, according to Ben Rhodes, is limited to President Obama and, well, Ben Rhodes) like to call the blinkered, myopic terminally self-righteous American foreign policy establishment “the Blob.” That said, if you’re up for some seriously blinkered self-righteous myopia, you ought to…
Search Results for: military spending
Ukraine Cease-Fire Announced; John McCain Cries
Sure it’s tentative—after the negotiations concluded, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had a “glimmer of hope” that everything would work out as intended—but the announcement of both a cease-fire and a plan for making that cease-fire permanent must still be a heart-breaker for John McCain and his legions. The Great American War Machine was all dressed up for…
Darkle this!
I join with Andrew Sullivan in ridiculing William Kristol’s o’erwrought take on the tragedy of Chuck Hagel’s appointment as secretary of defense. Quoth* Bill The plain is darkling. The world grows more dangerous. Yet we heedlessly slash our military preparedness. Iran hastens toward a nuclear weapon, which would pose an existential threat to Israel and…
Kagan, Drezner, and the Umbrella that Doesn’t Exist
Foreign Policy devotes an entire issue to a review of Robert Kagan’s 10-year-old essay “Power and Weakness,” which famously—or once famously—declared that “Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.” I can’t say that you won’t learn something by reading the issue, but I also can’t say that the exercise will be worth your…
The New York Times: We can toos regurgitate Pentagon talking points without Judy Miller on board!
Yes, they can! Did you know that the Pentagon has an “unmatched record in developing technologies with broad public benefits — like the Internet, jet engines and satellite navigation — and then encouraging private companies to reap the rewards.” Well, I didn’t either, but Timesman Binyamin Appelbaum pronounces it so, albeit without a shred of…
Thoughts on the current discontents
What’s happening in the Middle East? Damfino. Robert Darnton thinks it’s 1789. Ann Applebaum thinks it’s 1848. If Ann’s right, things ought to be pretty tight all around the Mediterranean around the year 2150 or so. Take that, Caesar Augustus!1 But what about the home front? Well, I had hoped to comment on Obama’s State…
Oppenheimer? Meh!
Two thirds of the way through Oppenheimer, I asked myself “Why did Christopher Nolan make this picture?” Because, except for a few cheesy nits, which I will most assuredly pick later, what we have gotten, about two hours in, is essentially a pseudo documentary, a laboriously accurate, $100 million reconstruction of the events leading up…
The Coalition of the Swilling
Here are two questions that few today can answer, to wit: “During the Vietnam War, what could you buy in a Filipino PX that you couldn’t buy in an American PX?” “Johnnie Walker Black Label and Chivas Regal.” “What else could you buy in a Filipino PX?” “Nothing.” After Lyndon Johnson sent American ground troops…
OMG! I’m turning into Larry Summers! But not all the time!
The truth can be ugly, can’t it? Here are, courtesy of frequent good guy yet employed by the American Enterprise Institute James Pethokoukis, a number of cogent (I think) charts to illustrate a recent cogent (I think) talk by Larry at the Peterson Institute for International Economics titled “What Should the 2023 Washington Consensus Be?”,…
Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”: Actually, it’s pretty dumb
Two thirds of the way through Oppenheimer, I asked myself “Why did Christopher Nolan make this picture?” Because, except for a few cheesy nits, which I will most assuredly pick later, what we have gotten, about two hours in, is essentially a pseudo documentary, a laboriously accurate, $100 million reconstruction of the events leading up…