A Review of a Blair Review

On Kirchick on Blair, New Ledger, February 2, 2011. "Jamie Kirchick has a thoughtful review up for Policy Review of Tony Blair’s memoirs. It’s difficult to quarrel with Jamie’s conclusion, which is that the more Labour becomes a creature of the trade unions, the less likely it is to win an election. And I certainly endorse Jamie’s stout defense of Blair’s policies in Iraq and, more broadly, Blair’s support for close Anglo-American relations. But to my mind, the overall picture is less clear, and less favorable to Blair, than Jamie has it."

The Implications of Honorary Sovereignty

The Need for New International Institutions, The New Ledger, June 23, 2010. "A major challenge for conservatives, and indeed for everyone who believes in fundamental human rights, is to move away from de facto universal membership and towards a world with new international institutions. There is simply no way to derecognize abusive states – or to work effectively on a basis of genuine respect for sovereignty – unless we create new institutions to do it, ones that have standards for membership. That does not imply that all the existing institutions should disappear. But it does imply that, over time, they should lose their centrality."

On Trade Offs and Liberalism

The Politics of False Promise: New Labour and Barack Obama, New Ledger, May 19, 2010. "The lesson of New Labour’s fall has been lost in the United States. It should not be, for New Labour’s fate will also be Barack Obama’s. Unlike Tony Blair, Obama won high office at a time of foreign and domestic crisis. But he has doubled down by applying New Labour’s political and governing strategies nonetheless."

On Weak British Election Analysis in Foreign Affairs

What the British Elections Were All About, New Ledger, May 12, 2010. "It’s not fair to say that Mark Blyth and Jonathan Hopkin’s piece in Foreign Affairs on “Labour Pains: Why the British General Election is a Referendum on Its Past,” is the worst piece of commentary I’ve read on the subject."

Does Free Trade Promote Democracy? Yes But.

Free Trade, But Not Only Free Trade, New Ledger, May 6, 2010. "Let me begin by agreeing, in part, with Greg Scoblete’s response on Real Clear World to my piece on humanitarian intervention and sovereignty in TNL last week. I’m happy to add freer trade to my list of ways that, depending on the circumstances, we may be able promote democratic change in foreign tyrannies or autocracies. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, a free and open economy is not just good at generating economic growth: it’s also a broader social and political good."

Reply to Larison

Charles Lindbergh, Call Your Office, New Ledger, April 30, 2010. "Earlier this week, I published a piece [1] in TNL on “Sovereignty and Humanitarian Interventions.” In it, I argued that Prof. Mark Mazower’s “new realism” – as I put it – “comes down to a quest for stability and unenforced ‘legal norms’ at the expense of human rights. It is a call for détente with the world’s dictators, . . . .if U.S. policy is not based on a preference for democracy over dictatorship, the pursuit of stability will lead the U.S. to cold shoulder its friends and sidle up to its enemies." Daniel Larison has taken considerable exception to my thesis in a piece in the American Conservative."

Back to First Principles on Sovereignty

Sovereignty and Humanitarian Interventions, New Ledger, April 28, 2010. "Mark Mazower is a distinguished historian of Europe, and a professor of history at Columbia University. He has a piece in the latest World Affairs that sheds useful light on the rise and fall of the concept of humanitarian interventions. But it also reveals some common misconceptions about the relationship between sovereignty and international institutions, and presents a thoroughly contradictory vision of the road forward."

If At First You Don't Succeed, Vote, Vote Again

Vote Until You Get It Right: Ireland and the E.U., Redux, New Ledger, October 1, 2009. "The European Union Constitution, now gussied up as the Lisbon Treaty, is a remarkable document. Napoleon famously remarked that constitutions should be short and obscure. On that count, the Constitution scores one out of two: it is not short, but it is definitely obscure. What Napoleon curiously failed to appreciate was that length, if carried on for long enough, has an obscurity all its own. At 246 pages in its original form, and a svelte 248 pages as the Lisbon Treaty, the Constitution achieves a comprehensive triumph over comprehensibility."

The Health of the System

Britain's Sacred Cow: The NHS and Daniel Hannan, New Ledger, August 21, 2009. "Daniel Hannan is in trouble. The young Tory European MP, who became a YouTube sensation earlier this year for his denunciation of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the “devalued prime minister of a devalued government,” has made what can in politics be a serious error: he has challenged orthodoxy in a way that is both substantive and interesting. Boring substantive challenges can be seen off, and soaring rhetoric that says nothing is the stuff of politics, but having a point and knowing how to make it will always raise bellows from the defenders of the gored sacred cow."

My Favorite Book

Booklist: David Potter’s Impending Crisis, New Ledger, July 16, 2009. "I keep, mentally, a short list of revelatory works. These are not simply great books. They are books that, because they contain or refute a world view, reveal (or, at least, revealed to me) a new way of thinking about large subjects. The list does not contain any of the obvious works: anyone who is not influenced by Thucydides, Gibbon, Burke, or Smith is simply not very smart, and classics like these are included on any list of worthwhile reads by right. My list fluctuates slightly towards its tail, depending on the times and my concerns. Lower down in the list are B.G. Burkett’s Stolen Valor, which will demolish everything you think you know about Vietnam; Correlli Barnett’s Collapse of British Power, a remarkably angry work of cultural history and imperial strategy; Christopher Andrew’s Sword and the Shield, the story of the KGB and of the greatest intelligence coup of the Cold War; and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, a conservative epic of grand strategy. At the top of the list sits, securely, David M. Potter’s The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861."

Why I'm Cynical About Big Government

G8: Summits, Cynicism, and the Activist State, New Ledger, July 10, 2009. "The Group of Eight summit that closes on Friday is being hosted by Italy in L’Aquila. The summit was to have been held in La Maddalena, on Sardinia, but the venue was shifted after an earthquake hit L’Aquila in April as a “show of solidarity” with the victims. The move sums up the politics of gesture that these all too frequent summits embody. This one comes only two months after the G-20 meeting in London, and two months before the next G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, which will be the third such assembly in a year. One summit is an adventure; two are routine. After that, it’s publicity by hyperactivity, and activity as a substitute for achievement."

On Britain's Elections (Before)

What To Watch As Britain Goes To The Polls, New Ledger, May 30, 2009.

American Exceptionalism - Yes, It's True

American Exceptionalism and Its Enemies, The New Ledger, May 25, 2009.

Assessing Obama's Foreign Policy Doctrines After 100 Days

100 Days: Three Doctrines in Search of a President, New Ledger, April 29, 2009.

Harold Koh and the Enforcement of Human Rights Treaties, Part 2

Harold Koh and the End of Human Rights, Redux, New Ledger, April 26, 2009.

Harold Koh and the Enforcement of Human Rights Treaties

Harold Koh and the End of Human Rights, New Ledger, April 23, 2009.

On Harold Koh's Transnationalism

A World Drowning in Laws: Harold Koh's Transnationalism, New Ledger, April 17, 2009.

A Gathering of Illusions at the G-20

Summit of Illusions: Obama Heads to G-20, New Ledger, April 1, 2009.