Santa Claus versus The Protectionists

'Twas No Trade Before Christmas, Newsday, December 17, 2017. "Now, BARRY! now, DONALD! now, SHERROD and BANNON!/On BERNIE! on TRUMKA! on WARREN and CLINTON!"

A Tale of Three Purges

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Is Consolidating His Power, Newsday, December 3, 2017. "Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has launched a crackdown on corruption. This is the world’s third great anti-corruption drive in the past 15 years. The last two, in Russia and China, presaged war and aggression. The same things will happen in the Middle East."

I Want You to Not Want Me

Putin Clever At Sowing Fear, Confusion, Newsday, November 20, 2017. "There is no mystery about what Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeks to achieve through its propaganda. It doesn’t want to make you love Russia. It wants to make you distrust America. And thanks to the panic about Russia’s influence in the 2016 election, it’s enjoying brilliant success."

One More Time . . .

A Mistake to Conflate Trump, Brexit, Newsday, November 6, 2017. "Americans have never fully grasped why Brexit — Britain’s exit from the European Union — matters to them. That’s made it easy for the EU’s friends to lump Brexit together with President Donald Trump as symbols of all that’s wrong with the West today. The truth is that Brexit shows what’s right with it."

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Iran Deal Was Not About Iran, Newsday, October 22, 2017. "President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new strategy for confronting Iran offers a modicum of hope that the United States will stop kicking the can down the road in the Persian Gulf. But to do that, we have to recognize the point of the Iran nuclear deal wasn’t to restrain Iran. It was to restrain the United States."

Down to Davy Jones' Locker

Deep-Six the Jones Act, Newsday, October 12, 2017. "In response to Hurricane Maria, the Trump administration waived the restrictions the Jones Act imposes on shipping to Puerto Rico. The Sept. 28 decision was the right move, though a belated one. The act is a costly failure, and the administration’s short-term waiver was of a piece with its broader protectionism."

The Conservative Dilemma in Britain

Are Britain’s Conservatives Dead?, Daily Signal, October 4, 2017. "A year ago—even six months ago—Britain’s Conservative Party was riding high. It had won an unexpected victory in the 2015 election. Then, in June 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union—a result that delighted most voters on the right, and quite a few on the left too. And at the start of the summer, the Conservatives looked set for a smashing, historic victory in the elections of June 2017. Well, that didn’t happen. The Conservatives won a narrow victory, but the margin was so close, and the collapse against expectations so catastrophic, that the victory felt—feels—like a loss."

A Brutal Conference

Conservative Gloom in Manchester, Weekly Standard Online, October 6, 2017. "The nicest thing you can say about this year’s conference of Britain’s Conservative party in Manchester is that at least it’s not Birmingham’s turn. Manchester may draw more lefty protesters — the 2015 conference in Britain’s second city made me feel like Aragon at Helm’s Deep, surrounded by unwashed orcs — but at least it retains some of its brickwork grandeur. Birmingham, by contrast, was heavily bombed during the war — I mean modernism’s war on humanity, not the Second World War — and no city has made the deadly results of fascination with reinforced concrete more brutally obvious."

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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

Give A Dog A Computer

, Newsday, August 26, 2017. "Congress is unpopular. It’s also widely perceived as ineffective. Regrettably, I share that perception. But the problem rests not in who serves in Congress, or their staff, or in the resources at their disposal. It rests in Congress’ retreat from its role as a deliberative and legislative chamber."

In Praise of Sumida, Not Allison

There’s Good History, and Not-So-Good History, Newsday, August 11, 2017. "It turns out that predicting the future by leaning on a famous phrase isn’t enough to make a history good. Indeed, it may be enough to make it bad. I’d recommend you read Sumida and avoid Allison. But read what you like. Just remember: if it makes history seem simple, it’s probably not good."

Not Next Ten, But Next Two

A Cliché About Military Spending, Newsday, July 31, 2017. "It’s often observed that the United States spends as much on defense as the next 10 or so nations combined. As Congress begins to consider the annual National Defense Authorization Act, it should recognize that this commonplace is simplistic, inaccurate, and serves only to undercut our own defenses."

The Worse, the Better

The U.S. Goal at the Conference of States Parties of the Arms Trade Treaty: Keep the Treaty on Its Downward Spiral, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4744, July 27, 2017. "While the U.S. should attend the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Conference of States Parties as an observer state, it should do so in the clear recognition that the ATT is not in the interests of the United States. Although the U.S. will not have a vote, it should intervene in the debate to: (1) speak honestly about the ATT’s failures; (2) make it clear that it will make no voluntary financial contributions to support the ATT; and (3) warn the states parties against launching a propaganda campaign in support of the treaty or amending the treaty to expand its requirements. Finally, the U.S. should unsign the ATT as rapidly as possible."

On Helping the Bad Against the Worse

The U.K. Defeats A Legal Challenge to Its Arms Sales – Or Does It>?, Forbes, July 24, 2017. "Last week in London, the High Court rejected a challenge brought by the Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT). The court ruled that the British government had broken no law by selling arms to Saudi Arabia that are being used in a war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. NGOs that backed the challenge, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, are downhearted. But on a closer look, Britain's victory over the legal challenge to its arms sales doesn’t give anyone much comfort."

Locust Years

The Cost of Kicking the Can Down the Road in Russia, Iran and North Korea, Newsday, July 17, 2017. "You know the major foreign threats to the United States — Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism. We’ve been talking about them for years. Today, we’re in a bad place on all of them. It’s an object lesson in the dangers of kicking the can down the road."

Turkish Abuse of Interpol

Is Turkey Trying to Harass U.S. Service Members Through Interpol?, Forbes, July 13, 2017. "Last week, a Turkish newspaper alleged that Interpol had “removed Turkey from its database” after the Turkish government sought to report 60,000 people to Interpol on the grounds that they were members of the so-called Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO), which the Turkish government alleges was behind the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. Supposedly, Interpol said that the Turkey request raised an “issue of trust” and suspended its access in July 2016. A day later, Interpol denied this report."

Like A Duck Hit on the Head

One Tory's Story, Weekly Standard, June 26, 2017. "After one of his many unfortunate generals sustained a particularly abject defeat, Abraham Lincoln remarked that the man was "confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head." Such is the state of the Conservative party after the U.K. general election of June 8, an election the party felt sure it would win overwhelmingly but in which it somehow contrived to lose seats. Though technically a victory, in that the Tories remain the largest and governing party, it was in every other sense—and especially as judged against expectations—a profound and confusing defeat."

Same Names, New Games

New Political Parties in Old Clothes, Newsday, June 18, 2017. "On the surface, the elections for the National Assembly in France have nothing in common with Britain’s most recent election, held on June 8. In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s new party may take three-quarters of the Assembly. In Britain, established parties dominated the voting. But underneath, Britain and France have a lot in common with each other, and indeed with the United States."

Germany's the Problem

Want A Good Ally? Then Be A Good Ally, Newsday, June 4, 2017. "Trump isn’t entirely in the right in this clash. But he’s more right than wrong. His idea that trade surpluses are always good and trade deficits are always bad is wrong. In the end, trade is an exchange of goods among individuals. If our government attempts to make it harder for us to buy what we want from abroad, it’s trying to tell individual Americans what we should do with our own money. That’s wrong."

On Competitive Strategy

This is the Key to a Successful Trump Foreign Policy, with Colin Dueck, Daily Signal, May 31, 2017. "For the purposes of strategic planning, what organizing principle might be useful to inform such initiatives, consistent with existing statements of presidential intent? Here is one such principle: Conceive and implement strategies of pressure against U.S. competitors overseas."