The U.S. government is paralyzed, and we now face the possibility that the United States will default on its debt. Congress is unable to resolve the issue, and President Obama is as obstinate as the legislators who oppose him. To some extent, our political system is functioning as intended...
Editor's Note: This is the final installment in George Friedman's recent series written during his journey from the Baltics, through Central and Eastern Europe and then east to Turkey and Azerbaijan. I traveled between Poland and Azerbaijan during a rare period when the forces that shape Europe appear to...
The Communist Party in Russia has reportedly dealt the ruling United Russia party a serious blow in one of the regions of the Russian Federation by winning recent local elections in two districts and strengthening its presence in several others. The showing by the Communists is regarded by experts...
The bankrupt instincts of an Obama administration determined to find moral equivalence between America’s enemies and friends have been thoroughly illuminated. Within a 48-hour period — beginning on the commemoration of the worst domestic attack in our nation’s history — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...
As reported in the Egyptian press last week, American senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, asserted that Egypt’s recent parliamentary elections were conducted honestly and without fraud (masrawy.com, 5/25/12). Masrawy further recorded that Senator Kerry advised the Egyptian people to accept the results...
"Empire" is a dirty word. Considering the behavior of many empires, that is not unreasonable. But empire is also simply a description of a condition, many times unplanned and rarely intended. It is a condition that arises from a massive imbalance of power. Indeed, the empires created on purpose,...
The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives. The national political dynamic has resulted in an extended immobilization...
The end of the year always prompts questions about what the most important issue of the next year may be. It's a simplistic question, since every year sees many things happen and for each of us a different one might be important. But it is still worth considering what...
Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign is the broadest and deepest effort to purge, reorganize and rectify the Communist Party leadership since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the rise of Deng Xiaoping two years later. It has already probed more than 182,000 officials across numerous regions...