Saturday, September 30, 2017

The Anglo Tendency in American Politics

Conservatism Across the Atlantic, Centre Wright, published by Bright Blue, Autumn 2017 issue on "Conservatism Refresh," September 30, 2017, article only available in PDF. "In the era of Trump, it would be easy to conclude that the greatest challenge facing conservatism in the United States is its tendency to fratricide. That is a challenge not unknown in Britain. But in the US, the more serious challenges come from shifts in the underlying political and ideological structure of the nation. These challenges, too, have their parallels in the United Kingdom."

Sunday, September 24, 2017

The UN: A Club for Nations

Why United Nations Membership Means Little, Newsday, September 24, 2017. "The UN today is a club for nations. Every widely recognized nation is in it, and if you’re not a nation, you’re excluded. As such, the UN has no serious membership standards: If you’re a nation, you’re in. But that was not how it was meant to be. When the UN was founded in 1945, it was a society for the nations that had won the Second World War. The losers — Germany, Italy and Japan — were excluded. As such, the UN was supposed to embody the values America had fought to defend."

Thursday, September 21, 2017

China, Russia, and the Abuse of Interpol

The U.S. Must Challenge Autocratic Regimes at the Beijing Interpol Meeting, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4766, September 21, 2017. "The autocracies of the world have learned that Interpol, the international organization of police and law enforcement organizations, can be a valuable instrument of oppression. The United States, and the rest of the world’s democracies, have failed to respond effectively to this challenge. The 86th annual meeting of the Interpol General Assembly will take place from September 26 to 29 in Beijing. Interpol has in recent years been heavily criticized for failing to ensure that—as its constitution requires—it focuses exclusively on ordinary crime, and does not become an instrument of political oppression in the hands of autocratic regimes. The U.S. has so far failed to devise an effective strategy to resist, and roll back, the politicization of Interpol. The Trump Administration should take the opportunity of the General Assembly meeting to develop and implement such a strategy. If it does not, Interpol, which is heavily used by U.S. law enforcement, will continue to lose credibility in ways that will damage both it and the interests of the U.S."

Friday, September 15, 2017

No Reports, No Success

A Failing Reporting Card for the Arms Trade Treaty, Daily Signal, September 15, 2017. "Why does reporting matter? Because treaty advocates—to the extent they’re interested in anything more than hating on the U.S., Britain, and Israel—have insisted adamantly that the treaty will succeed or fail to the extent that it promotes transparency. By their own measure, therefore, the treaty is a failure."

Thursday, September 14, 2017

The US Bill for the Arms Trade Treaty (So Far)

Who Pays for the Arms Trade Treaty? You Do, Daily Signal, September 14, 2017, "The simple fact is that only a bare majority of the nations that are party to the Arms Trade Treaty are willing to do anything more than utter sweet nothings in support of it."

Sunday, September 10, 2017

A Few Hard Facts About NoK

Is It Back to Basics with North Korea?, Newsday, August 26, 2017. "A viable U.S. policy toward North Korea starts with recognizing basic facts. North Korea is a nuclear state. It has worked hard for five decades to become a nuclear state. Wooing Pyongyang with sweet words will not lead it to denuclearize."