Many political parties faring as poorly as the Indian National Congress in a bellwether state election would ditch key leaders, if they did not go of their own accord. Not so Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's most famous political dynasty, who remains in charge after his attempts to connect with voters in the country's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh ended in failure. - Reuters
Example: India
Many political parties faring as poorly as the Indian National Congress in a bellwether state election would ditch key leaders, if they did not go of their own accord. Not so Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's most famous political dynasty, who remains in charge after his attempts to connect with voters in the country's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh ended in failure. - Reuters
0 Comments
Interview: We continue here Brookings’s ongoing interview series with Islamist leaders and activists…. Up next is Sayida Ounissi of Tunisia’s Ennahda party. She is a member of the Tunisian Parliament, where she serves as a member of the Finance Committee. She was the youngest female appointed the head of an electoral list in Tunisia. Raised and educated largely in France, Ounissi holds a master’s degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. – Brookings Institution
Amazon Excerpt: Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny. Trumpeted as orthodoxy, the resulting "findings" on everything from rape to domestic abuse to economic bias to the supposed crisis in girls' self-esteem perpetuate a view of women as victims of the "patriarchy". Moreover, these arguments and the supposed facts on which they are based have had enormous influence beyond the academy, where they have shaken the foundations of our educational, scientific, and legal institutions and have fostered resentment and alienation in our private lives. Despite its current dominance, Sommers maintains, such a breed of feminism is at odds with the real aspirations and values of most American women and undermines the cause of true equality. Who Stole Feminism? is a call to arms that will enrage or inspire, but cannot be ignored.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led his party to a landslide victory in India’s largest state on Saturday, consolidating his power and putting him in a strong position to win re-election in 2019. – New York Times Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will double up as India's defense minister, replacing the former Ministry of Defence chief Manohar Parrikar, who has been appointed chief minister of his home state of Goa after the March 11 state election. – Defense News
Editorial: [O]nly by undertaking far-reaching deregulation can the [Indian] government meet its goal of expanding manufacturing to 25% of the economy in 2020 from the current 16%. And without that industrial boom, India can’t create jobs for a labor force that adds a million new workers every month. Without bolder action he can’t deliver the opportunities he promised. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Sadanand Dhume writes: So far the prime minister has proceeded cautiously on economic reforms. His win in Uttar Pradesh gives him the capacity to act more boldly on controversial but sensible policies such as privatizing loss-making state owned firms, easing restrictive labor laws and slashing food and fuel subsidies. However, if Mr. Modi’s tepid approach to reforms has not hurt him electorally, he has little incentive to suddenly do things any differently. If nothing much changes, you can thank the people of Uttar Pradesh. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Daniel Twining writes: In short, India’s economy is strong; its democracy is thriving, if still somewhat chaotic; it is ramping up foreign engagement while other countries retreat into narrow nationalisms; and it increasingly champions key pillars of the liberal world order. This is happening at the same time as economic anxieties in Europe and the United States are mounting, producing an insurgent populism that challenges democratic institutions, risks hollowing out multilateral cooperation, and undercuts support for the rules-based global order. It would be ironic if the West steps back from global economic and political leadership at a time when India is ready to step forward as a partner in underwriting international security and prosperity. – Foreign Policy’s Elephants in the Room
Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back by Janice P. Nimura. PART 1 of 2.
“This is feminism for Japanese women in its infancy, and Janice P. Nimura enhances the reality of the entire experience with this superb historical nonfiction account.” (Historical Novel Society) “At a reform-minded moment, Japan dispatched five young girls to be educated in America. Patiently, vividly, Janice P. Nimura reconstructs their Alice in Wonderland adventure. A beautifully crafted narrative, subtle, polished, and poised.” (Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cleopatra) “A riveting story of three remarkable girls, caught in the maelstrom of one of the strangest culture clashes in modern history, Daughters of the Samurai is history writing at its finest and required reading for anyone interested in Japan.” (Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being) “Nimura brings the girls and their late nineteenth-century exploits to life in a narrative that feels like an international variation on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, so very appealing and delightful.” Janice P. Nimura is a book critic, independent scholar, and the American daughter-in-law of a Japanese family. She lives in New York City. https://www.amazon.com/Daughters-Samurai-Journey-East-West-ebook/dp/B00NUB4H4G/ref=la_B00O74HGDE_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489276605&sr=1-1
In 1994, Rwandan native Ilibagiza was 22 years old and home from college to spend Easter with her devout Catholic family, when the death of Rwanda's Hutu president sparked a three-month slaughter of nearly one million ethnic Tutsis in the country. She survived by hiding in a Hutu pastor's tiny bathroom with seven other starving women for 91 cramped, terrifying days. This searing firsthand account of Ilibagiza's experience cuts two ways: her description of the evil that was perpetrated, including the brutal murders of her family members, is soul-numbingly devastating, yet the story of her unquenchable faith and connection to God throughout the ordeal uplifts and inspires. Her account of the miracles that protected her is simple and vivid. Her Catholic faith shines through, but the book will speak on a deep level to any person of faith. Ilibagiza's remarkable path to forgiving the perpetrators and releasing her anger is a beacon to others who have suffered injustice. She brings the battlefield between good and evil out of the genocide around her and into her own heart, mind and soul. This book is a precious addition to the literature that tries to make sense of humankind's seemingly bottomless depravity and counterbalancing hope in an all-powerful, loving God. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Immaculée Ilibagiza is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that took the lives of nearly one million Tutsis. Men, women and children, including her entire family except for one of her brothers, were massacred at the hands of Hutu marauders. Immaculée found shelter at a pastor's home, where she and seven other women hid from the deadly rebel mob in a 3-by-4-foot bathroom for 91 days. During those 91 days of unimaginable suffering, Immaculée found her faith, taught herself English, and most incredibly, committed herself to a life of peace, hope and forgiveness, even for those who had murdered her family. After the Genocide finally ended, Immaculée found work at the United Nations, emigrating from Rwanda to the United States in 1998. She has gone on the receive five honorary doctoral degrees, write seven books about her faith and her life journey, and is the recipient of the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace. Immaculée's first book, Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (Hay House) was released in March of 2006. Left to Tell quickly became a New York Times Best Seller. To date, it has been translated into seventeen languages and has sold nearly two million copies. Immaculée's story has also been made into a documentary entitled The Diary of Immaculée. Left to Tell has received a Christopher Award "affirming the highest values of human spirit," and was chosen as Outreach Magazine's selection for "Best Outreach Testimony/Biography Resource of 2007." Left to Tell has been adopted into the curriculum of dozens of high schools and universities, including Villanova University, which selected it for their "One Book Program," making Left to Tell mandatory reading for its 6,000 students. Immaculée has written six additional books in recent years - Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide, Our Lady of Kibeho, If Only We Had Listened, Visit from Heaven, and The Boy Who Met Jesus, and The Rosary: The Prayer that Saved my Life. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, The CBS Early Show, CNN, EWTN, CBS Evening News, The Aljazeera Network and in The New York Times, USA Today, Newsday, and many other domestic and international media outlets. She was recently featured in Michael Collopy's Architects of Peace project, which has honored legendary people like Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Today, Immaculée is regarded as one of world's leading speakers on faith, hope and forgiveness. She has shared this universal message with world leaders, school children, multinational corporations, churches, and at events and conferences around the world, including a recent presentation to over 200,000 people in Sao Paulo, Brazil. https://www.amazon.com/Left-Tell-Discovering-Rwandan-Holocaust/dp/1401944329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489349426&sr=1-1
Xi is the New Mao. @gordongchang @mcgregorrichard
The 'core leader' status, that had been earlier been approved by the ruling Communist Party, puts 63-year-old Xi at par with party founder Mao Zedong, his successor and reformist leader Deng Xiaoping and elevates him to a higher status above others in the Communist Party of China's (CPC) collective leadership system. China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang pledged further conformity to the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the 'core', state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. National lawmakers should unite more closely "around the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core," to develop the system of the people's congress and realise the dream of national rejuvenation, Zhang, the chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said while delivering a work report of the NPC Standing Committee. The endorsement of Xi as the core "reflects the will of all members of the Party, all members of the armed forces and all the people of China," Zhang told the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies gathered at the Great Hall of the People. http://www.news18.com/news/world/chinas-parliament-approves-xi-jinpings-core-leader-status-1357714.html http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2075785/chinese-tv-drama-censored-after-showing-scene-listing-xi-jinping
Get Out the Vote India-Style. Modi to Israel. @dhume @gordongchang
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged on Wednesday to write off bank loans to farmers and took a swipe at economists, such as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who criticized his government’s November decision to suddenly void about 85% of India’s currency notes by value. “Hard work is more powerful than Harvard,” he declared at an election rally. The opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, whose Congress Party is struggling to stay afloat after a string of humiliating defeats, continues to peddle a tired message of class envy and suspicion of business. He regularly accuses Mr. Modi of neglecting poor farmers in favor of fat-cat capitalists. Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, appears inordinately proud of meeting a campaign pledge to give away laptops in a state where most people don’t enjoy uninterrupted electricity. India is hardly the only democracy where politicians traffic in simple ideas that voters can easily grasp. But arguably no other major economy exhibits as wide a distance between electoral and policy discourse. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-get-elected-in-india-1488476763?tesla=y United States and Gulf State Interests in the Post-Arab Spring Maghreb From Julia McQuaid, Alexander Thurston, Pamela Faber, David Knoll, and Jacob Stoil, CNA Analysis and Solutions: “The 2010-2011 Arab Spring caused upheaval in North Africa’s Maghreb region, which comprises Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. This upheaval elevated the Maghreb’s importance globally, including for the United States and the Gulf Arab states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar in particular. The Gulf Arab countries’ increased engagement in the Maghreb is the result of shifts within the internal politics of the Arab world. In the Maghreb, U.S. and Gulf state interests overlap to the extent that all players want stability, but each state has its own definition of what stability means. The U.S. and the Gulf states all support the Moroccan and Algerian regimes, but intra-Gulf rivalries are helping destabilize Libya, where different Gulfbacked proxy forces are exacerbating that country’s civil war. Moving forward, the United States and the Gulf states may find areas where their interests converge (e.g., stabilizing Tunisian politics, fighting terrorism, and promoting development) but also areas where they diverge, especially in Libya.” The Coming Islamic Culture War
From Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Foreign Affairs: "Western observers are often blind to social currents within the Muslim world. During the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, outside analysts confidently predicted that the uprisings would marginalize the jihadist movement in favor of more moderate and democratic reformers. In fact, the opposite happened—an unprecedented jihadist mobilization that has inspired legions of fighters from around the world and fragmented or threatened more than half a dozen countries. In large part, this was because the collapse of the old regimes, which had suppressed Islamism domestically, created new spaces for jihadists. These spaces included both literal ungoverned territory and discursive spaces, where radicals were newly able to engage in dawa, or proselytism." Editorial: [T]he best way to counteract China’s mercantilism would seem to be by precisely the sort of U.S.-led multilateral cooperation that the Trump administration has rejected, in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Trump agenda blames past policymakers for “turn[ing] a blind eye to unfair trade practices” in the pursuit of “putative geopolitical advantage.” Geopolitics, though, is just another word for shaping the world to serve all U.S. interests, with a minimum of conflict. And the real blindness consists in unilaterally asserting “sovereignty” and “protection” without regard to the legitimate interests of other nations, or their capacity for retaliation. – Washington Post
Peter Navarro writes: Today, after decades of trade deficits and a mass migration of factories offshore, there is only one American company that can repair Navy submarine propellers—and not a single company that can make flat-panel displays for military aircraft or night-vision goggles. Meanwhile, America’s steel industry is on the ropes, its aluminum industry is flat on its back, and its shipbuilding industry is gathering barnacles…That’s why, for both economic and national-security reasons, it is important to bring America’s trade back into balance—through free, fair and reciprocal trade. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Derek Scissors writes: The bottom line is the President can still go either way, toward better policy or worse. The statement contained reasonable objectives and justified complaints, but also claims tilted to make trade look like it’s harming Americans more than it is. To decide between pro-trade and protectionist, we need to see the President’s priorities in actions. – AEI Ideas Dan Kopf writes: The traditional analysis of free trade deals concludes that they have small beneficial effects on the aggregate economic welfare of large developed countries. The average consumer tends to be better off, while some workers in the industries facing new competition are worse off. However, these calculations tend not to reflect whether trade deals solidify diplomatic relations or reduce the chances of future conflict. And, really, that’s the whole point. – Defense One As Russia looks back on the fateful events of a century ago, when a pair of revolutions overthrew a tsar and installed Bolsheviks, liberal politician and Yabloko party candidate for the 2018 presidential election Grigory Yavlinsky sees both warnings and opportunity in the turmoil of 1917. – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The 7 Most Mighty World Powers of All-Time
From James Jay Carafano, The National Interest: "I focused on the top competitors of their time: the powers most successful in mastering the world system of their age. That limits the list to those that competed on the world stage. It rules out some great regional powers—like the Egyptians, the Song Dynasty, Mayans, Incas and the Iroquois nation—that never really pressed their power beyond their own neighborhood."
First Draft of the New Anglosphere. Michael Vlahos @jhuworldcrisis
"Kinship drives culture, and cultural rules shape society. National community in modern times is shaped by imagined kinship and the need for collective belonging and identity. Modern nations construct kinship through the belief that all citizens are related, and thus committed, to one another, and the state itself becomes the central meditative and celebratory agent for the affirmation of national kinship, especially in war. This core dynamic of modern society—the process of building imagined kinship—is projected outward through a nation's relations with other societies, whether they are peaceful or hostile. The nation most dependent on invented kinship as the basis of its politics is the United States, and this characteristic confers both advantages and limitations for the conduct of foreign policy. The advantage of invented kinship is that Americans can theoretically pick and choose both whom in the world we call kin and the importance that their kinship has for our national identity. The limitation of invented kinship is that America's ties of kinship to other societies have a life of their own, waning or deepening over historical time.1 At present, the United States faces a global smorgasbord of kinship needs and clinging legacies, a feast of opportunities and obligations it can neither completely swallow nor walk away from. Imagined kinship is the foundation of national community. It is the cultural process that permits people in a national society to believe collectively that they belong to each other—that they are part of the same kinship construct—even though most of them are likely to be strangers to each other. Imagined community also makes the state the trusted manager of this process, powerfully affirming our connection and commitment to each other in, for example, a time of war. Thus, the collective kinship construct is essential to the very idea of a modern nation-state...." https://globalecco.org/vlahos-america __________________ However, since the Anglosphere well serves the interests of both countries, the governments will likely find compromise on trade, security, and defense. Outside the European Union, and without an alternative in the Anglo-Saxon world, the United Kingdom would count little in the global arena. At the same time, the Anglosphere could alter the geopolitical balance in Trump’s favor, attracting countries such as India, Israel, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other former British colonies. With China and Russia increasingly assertive in the global arena and with the European Union deeply embroiled in internal crises, maintaining close ties with a united and prosperous region such as the Anglosphere would be appealing both in economic and security terms. Besides the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, within the whole Anglosphere there is momentum behind reinforcing bilateral relationships. In his recent trip to Washington, even Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, whose political style is very different from Trump’s, declared, “No neighbors in the entire world are as fundamentally linked as we are.” Both Canberra and Wellington are working hard to forge a strong relationship with a post-Brexit London. And despite a less-than-amicable first call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the White House emphasized “the enduring strength and closeness of the U.S.-Australia relationship." https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2017-02-21/future-english-speaking-peoples?cid=nlc-twofa-20170223&sp_mid=53490172&sp_rid=dGlwcGFpbmUyMDE1QGdtYWlsLmNvbQS2& amp;spMailingID=53490172&spUserID=MjEwNDg3NjE1OTQyS0&spJobID= 1103856293&spReportId=MTEwMzg1NjI5MwS2 Lessons Not Learned: Viet Cong Infrastructure and the War in South Vietnam
From Robert J. Thompson, Strategy Bridge: "The Taliban resurgence jeopardizes the United States’s ability to conduct a pacification campaign in support of a foreign government. Indeed, the 2016 uptick in Taliban movement in Afghanistan mirrored that of North Vietnamese Viet Cong Infrastructure of the 1970s. Defeating the enemy’s ability to organize and operate is fundamental to pacification. During the War on Terror and the Vietnam War, complex enemy organizations posed a serious challenge to the United States. Highlighting difficulties in pacification for both the Republic of Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War serves as a lesson underscoring the limits of American power to defeat clandestine networks." |
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
CategoriesArchives
February 2024
EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ACE VENTURA
PAUL RAHE: REALISM IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SPARTA
CONSCIENCE & TEMPORAL AUTHORITY
SHAKESPEARE
POSITIVE LAW vs. CONSCIENCE
|