While members of Congress, former cabinet members, long-time aides and assorted VIPs were celebrating Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday at the Reagan Presidential Library in sun-baked Simi Valley, California, I was nearly 6,000 miles away in snow-bound Tallinn, Estonia, a small Baltic country bordering on the former Soviet Union. As a Reagan biographer, I was invited […]
Diplomats from the international Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – announced this week that they plan a new effort to push negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The PA walked away from talks with Israel in late 2010, demanding that Israel freeze all Jewish construction east […]
Ever since the dawn of arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, the issue of antimissile defense systems has featured prominently. In the SALT I Treaty the Russians were allowed to deploy a system around Moscow, the Americans were prohibited from the blowing in the system. The logic behind the limitation […]
by Prof. Steve Hochstadt A new internet cartoon is capturing public interest by explaining the sources of our worldwide financial distress. Using a clever South Park format, “The American Dream” reveals the hidden enemies of naive Americans, and others around the world, who yearn for financial independence – the US Federal Reserve and all national […]
Autocracies are under assault throughout the Middle East, but in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez remains sanguine and expects to steer his country into socialism. Venezuelan students have launched a hunger strike against his rule and have appealed to the Organization of American States and its head Jose Miguel Insulza to look into human rights abuses by […]
The international community should create a modern equivalent of the Geneva Convention to govern cyberwarfare, according to a joint report by United States and Russian experts. The report was presented by the EastWest Institute at the Munich Security Conference. The EastWest proposal includes suggestions to designate “protected zones” online, and to reword some rules of […]
Minister Eli Yishai toured on Sunday the newest and most advanced firefighting aircraft, the Beriev Be-200. The tour comes following a decision by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to improve Israel’s air capabilities during situations of raging wildfires. The capabilities of the Beriev Be-200, a Russian aircraft, were demonstrated during the Carmel wildfire last December, when […]
During the current disorders in the Middle East the emphasis has been on political repression, corruption and a desire for freedom. However, escalating food prices have been a contributing factor to the disturbances and have fueled popular discontent. Now food price levels threaten to exceed the record 2007/08 levels that also triggered violence and demonstrations. […]
As a rising international power, Brazil under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva outlined a comprehensive national defense plan aimed at controlling and defending national territory, extending its maritime reach, and developing cutting-edge defense technology. The plan calls for reorganization of the army, air and space capabilities to cover Brazil’s extensive territory (including the Amazon), […]
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that public transportation would undergo a security overhaul in his country following a suicide bombing Monday at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. He criticized airport officials as having been “absolutely passive” about security, and called for “comprehensive security” instead. “Unfortunately, it should be intrusive,” he said. “Each of us […]
