Recently I offered an "argument" about what conservative males find attractive about Sarah Palin -- her attractiveness -- and I provided some "evidence" by reference to the parallels between pretty female candidates and women sideline reporters with two XXs...
Douthat comments on Max Boot's call for the US to, if necessary, turn Georgia into the next Afghanistan (circa 1984).Now these arguments have a certain surface plausibility, but I would find them...
Political leaders have long relied on historical analogies to frame, explain, and justify important policy choices. The current administration is no exception when discussing its policy toward...
Reading Sunday's NYT, I was somewhat surprised to read about the intensity of debate within senior Administration circles about how to address Iran's nuclear program.The debate has pitted Ms. Rice...
There were two sets of very interesting comments on my recent post on hegemony. Bill Petti questions whether US hegemony only has another few decades left in its lifespan. At the most basic level, Bill is right. I definitely overstated the case. At the same time, Bill presents far too optimistic a picture of the prospects for medium-term American primacy.Bill argues that hegemonic decline is driven by one of four processes: "imperial overstretch, economic decline, and either purposeful retrenchment (i.e. Britain) or internal collapse (i.e. the Soviet Union)."Let's start with the first...