This post also appears at The American Strategist. This year’s Failed States Index from Foreign Policy magazine is interesting not only for the questions the Index raises about failing states, but also for the questions it poses about the very act of measuring state stability (you can read about FP’s methodology here).
As Leo Hindery points out on New American Contract’s latest US Economy Talking Points, the Financial Times may be missing the point about a recently released report on TARP’s impact on bank lending. The headline of today’s Financial Times cover story “Banks use Tarp funds to boost lending,” could not be more misleading.
Joseph Nye, Harvard University International Relations professor and coiner of the term “soft power,” has an interesting article on RealClearWorld asking “Will the U.S.-Japan Alliance Survive?” Nye addresses various challenges to the U.S.-Japan alliance and makes a compelling case for its enduring importance.
Finally, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and Hungary have agreed to begin building the Nabucco project, a 2,050 mile natural gas pipeline that aims to diversify Europe’s gas supplies away from Russia.
Christina Larson, a new fellow at the New America Foundation, has written two great pieces this week (here and here) on the bloody clash between the Chinese government and the Uighur population in Xinjiang province.
Patrick Doherty directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative. My latest article, called “Cuba, Nothwithstanding” is now available online and in the stores, thanks to the good people at the Washington Monthly. Here’s the teaser: President Obama doesn’t necessarily need Congress’s support to lift the trade embargo on Cuba.
Marc Ambinder over at the Atlantic interprets Hillary Clinton’s speech yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations as an indication that President Obama has placed her firmly in charge of American foreign policy – and that Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell, and Dennis Ross are subordinate to her.
The Obama administration doesn’t put any particular emphasis on rebuilding America’s manufacturing. Manufacturing doesn’t even make the cut for the list of jobs they see growing over the next seven years.
Last week Hamas militants arrested two members of the hard-line Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group while the men were in the act of setting up mortars to fire into southern Israel. This may not seem like big news, but it comes amid various developments in the interminable slog known that is the “peace process.