On The Need To Control Territory

"ISIS' True Weakness," Newsday, October 21, 2016, "The start of an Iraqi and Kurdish offensive to liberate Mosul is a milestone in the defeat the so-called Islamic State. But winning the fight will be hard, and winning the peace far harder. Brutal though ISIS undoubtedly is, Mosul’s residents understandably don’t trust their would-be liberators."

Foreign Policy In The Age of Multiculturalism

"This Is No Way to Run Foreign Policy," Newsday, October 11, 2016, "Last week, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released its annual survey of American public opinion and foreign policy, titled “America in the Age of Uncertainty.” Predictably, the council focused its polling on the issues that appear to be shaping the 2016 presidential campaign. But its most revealing findings run deeper."

Cheerful Conservatives in Birmingham

"The Conservatives Are Actually Happy in the United Kingdom," Weekly Standard, October 6, 2016, " in London by train from Gatwick Airport, you pass Battersea Power Station on your right. Derelict for more than 30 years, it is an iconic, vast, roofless, brick structure, with tall white smokestack towers. In the years since it last produced a watt of power, it has hosted raves, Dr. Who episodes, and James Bond movies. What it has not done is anything of enduring use. But this time, as I trundled past, there were modular apartments going up around the power station, and cranes working on the inside. The next day, the reason for the activity was announced: The power station, renovated and reconstructed at no small expense, is to be Apple's new U.K. headquarters, and a new center of retail and life besides. We were told that, after Brexit, no one would want to invest in Britain. Evidently someone forgot to tell Apple."

Tilting At Windmills

"Brexit Was A Reality Check Which Tories Must Now Implement," Yorkshire Post, October 1, 2016, "Three of Britain’s political parties have more or less given up on politics as we understand the term. They are crusaders who would rather tilt at windmills than enter the field of combat. They prefer to lose in purity than to compromise and win."

Proof of Churchill's Contention That No One Learns From History

"Britain’s Report on the Libya Fiasco," Forbes, October 1, 2016, "Almost unnoticed in the United States – and neglected even in Britain – the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has produced a superb report on Britain’s role in the disastrous NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. It makes for depressing, if valuable, reading."

On UK Defenses, Go See My 2008 Paper

"Are Britain’s Defenses As Weak As They Say?,” Forbes, September 30, 2016, "Last week, the Financial Times published a stinging summary of the state of Britain’s defenses, based on a 10-page memo written last spring by General Sir Richard Barrons. Formerly the head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, Sir Richard reported that the “[c]apability that is foundational to all major armed forces has been withered by design.”"

A Doozy of a Whopper

"Brexit Is A Backlash About Democracy," Yorkshire Post, September 27, 2016, "IF there’s one thing people like to do, it’s tell stories. We all need to make sense of this busy world, and we do that by making events fit into a neat narrative. But the story Americans are hearing about Brexit is, as we’d say, a doozy."

What Do We Want? Brexit. When Do We Want It? Now.

"The U.S. Would Like to See A Rapid and Clean Brexit, But the U.K. Shouldn’t Be Rushed Into Hasty Negotiations," BrexitCentral, September 26, 2016, "On process, and indeed overall, the central US interest is that Brexit should be completed as rapidly and cleanly as is reasonably possible."

All We Have to Fear

"Fear Isn’t All We Have to Fear," Newsday, September 24, 2016, "After last weekend’s Islamist-inspired terror attacks in New York City, New Jersey, and Minnesota, President Barack Obama declared: “As Americans, we will not give into fear." That statement places him in one wing of the liberal tradition. Unfortunately, he doesn’t share all of the tradition."

The Drifting U.S. Policy Toward Europe

"America’s Outdated Europe Policy: In 2017, the Next President Must Adapt to New Reality," The Conservative, a publication of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, volume 1, issue 1, September 16, 2016, "Since the end of World War II, U.S. policy toward Europe has drifted, without deliberate thought, far from its initial premises—while Europe itself has changed beyond recognition. It is time that the U.S. recognized this fact. The incoming President should direct the National Security Council (NSC) to oversee a comprehensive study of U.S. policy toward Europe, a study to be based on the enduring American interests in Europe, the lessons of the post-1945 era, and on the new facts of Europe that have emerged since 1989."

The U.S. Interest in Brexit is For It to Happen Quickly

"U.S. Interests in the United Kingdom and Europe After Brexit," Heritage Foundation Commentary, September 14, 2016, "The Committee should emphasize that the fundamental interest of the U.S. is for the U.K.’s departure to happen as quickly and cleanly as possible. After the U.K. exits, it will regain the freedom to negotiate its own trade agreements, and the U.S. should then move rapidly to formally conclude a free trade agreement with it."

A Tax on Teaching

"When Joining A Union Is Not The Answer," Newsday, September 10, 2016, "Late last month, the National Labor Relations Board voted to allow graduate students with teaching or research jobs to unionize. If you believe that professors today focus too much on research and not enough on teaching, this decision was another step in the wrong direction."

Right Goal, Wrong Way

"Is TTIP Dead? If It Is, Does It Matter?," Forbes, August 30, 2016, "Since 2013, the U.S. and the EU have been negotiating a trade deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Over the weekend, Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, which is part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, made waves by stating, during a question and answer session with citizens, that “In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it.”"

Who Pays for Haiti's Cholera Epidemic?

"When the UN Has to Pay, You Pay," Newsday, August 28, 2016, "When an international organization screws up, who’s responsible? The answer, too often, is no one. And if it’s the United Nations that’s at fault, and it does pay up, guess what? It’s your money they fork over."

How to Make Brexit A Reality

"The Next Steps on the Road to Brexit," Daily Signal, August 23, 2016, "Britain’s vote to leave the European Union on June 23 was a milestone in the history of the United Kingdom, and of the defense of British freedom and sovereignty. But it was also just the start of securing Britain’s independence. It is one thing to vote to stand on your own two feet, it is another thing to do it."

US Goals at 2016 ATT CSP

"The Goals the U.S. Should Pursue at the 2016 Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty," Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4603, August 19, 2016, "From August 22 to 26, the second Conference of States Parties (CSP2) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be held in Geneva. The United States is a signatory of the ATT, in force since December 2014—but as the Obama Administration has not transmitted this treaty to the Senate for its advice and consent, the U.S. is not party to the ATT, which purportedly seeks to regulate the international trade in many conventional weapons. As an observer nation, the U.S. will have an important voice, though no vote, in Geneva."

Debunking the ‘Facts’ About Baseball’s Ty Cobb

Debunking the ‘Facts’ About Baseball’s Ty Cobb, Newsday, August 14, 2016, "When you hear the name of Ty Cobb, what comes to your mind? Perhaps it’s his .366 career batting average, the highest in the history of baseball. More likely, if you know his name, it’s as a vicious racist, a bigot who sharpened his spikes."

The Olympics And International Order, Part 3

The Olympics And International Order, Part 3, Forbes, August 2, 2016, "For the past two days, I’ve been commenting on the relationship between the Olympic Games and international order. On Sunday, I summarized the founding ideology of the modern Games, which were, in a word, supposed to promote a particular conception of civilization. On Monday, I explored how the idea of the civilized nation fit into this framework. But of course, the idea of the nation-state implies the concept of patriotism — or nationalism. The Olympics have never quite known what to do with nationalism. On the one hand, the modern Games were supposed to reinforce national loyalties in an era when they seemed threatened by mass movements such as socialism. On the other hand, nationalism was supposed to be a tolerant force, and to be embodied in a civilized nation that accepted and embodied Western institutions and ideas about world order."

The Olympics And International Order, Part 2

The Olympics And International Order, Part 2, Forbes, August 1, 2016, "The modern Olympics, those that began in 1896, were founded, as I discussed yesterday, on four pillars: they were for men only, they were for amateurs only, they were for civilized nations only, and they were democratic, in the sense that they were equally open to all classes. The pillar of democratic sport survives; the pillars of female exclusion and amateurism, obviously, have not. Today. I’ll turn to the final pillar: nationalism, and the idea of the civilized nations."

The Olympics And International Order, Part 1

The Olympics And International Order, Part 1, Forbes, July 31, 2016, "Friday’s opening of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, will mark a highlight in the sporting calendar. But the Olympics – or, more properly, the International Olympic Committee that controls them – are also just another international organization. The Olympics tell us a lot about how society and the international system have changed, for good and ill, since the modern Games began in 1896 in Athens, Greece."

IOC Should Have Kicked Russian Athletes Out of the Olympic Games in Rio

IOC Should Have Kicked Russian Athletes Out of the Olympic Games in Rio, Newsday, July 31, 2016, "When the Olympic Games open in Brazil on Friday, Russian athletes will be there. Not all of them, but many. It would be better for the games, and the other athletes, if the International Olympic Committee had banned Russia."

A Year Later: Why the Iran Nuclear Deal Has Failed

A Year Later: Why the Iran Nuclear Deal Has Failed, Newsday, July 18, 2016, "This week marks the anniversary of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. That deal was never about stopping Iran’s nuclear program. It was about resetting the United States’ relations with Iran and the wider Middle East. By that standard, the deal has been a failure."

Why Did Britain Exit? Because It Finally Got the Chance To

Why Did Britain Exit? Because It Finally Got the Chance To, Weekly Standard Online, July 12, 2016, "The reason immigration mattered in 2016 wasn't that Britain was in the midst of a sudden panic. It was that immigration had been a front-burner issue for 15 years. Immigration, in short, was a background condition. And it was a background condition not because of vague theories about globalization, or vaporous claims about the failure of Britons to "imagine themselves part of a cosmopolitan, thriving democratic polity," but because of specific actions taken by the New Labour government, and broader EU policies, that were very unpopular."

What Mad Cow Disease Tells Us About Brexit

What Mad Cow Disease Tells Us About Brexit, Weekly Standard Online, July 11, 2016, "If we want to understand why the EU was not very popular in Britain in 2016, the answer is simple: After 1995, the EU was never very popular in Britain. If we want, in turn, to understand the EU's long-run unpopularity in the U.K., we need to look at that longue durée, because the U.K. is reliably one of Europe's most Euroskeptic nations. But the fact is that, as far as British opinion since 1995 goes, there was nothing unusual about the conditions under which the 2016 referendum took place."

Losers, Winners, Free Trade, And America

Losers, Winners, Free Trade, And America, Forbes, July 1, 2016, "The 2016 campaign has forced me to face up to an uncomfortable truth–the United States isn’t nearly as friendly to free trade as I’d believed. The remaining candidates either waffle on it or condemn it. I don’t know who will win in 2016, but I do know who looks like losing: all of us."