It is another year, and that means time for another set of predictions. So, without further adieu, here are my predictions for the coming year: Politics President Obama’s popularity will remain mired below 50% throughout most of the year. The Democrats will lose more the 40 seats, putting the GOP in control of the House. [...]
Tags: 2010, Culture, Economics, International Relations, Politics, Predictions, society, technology
Next Big Future reports on a joint Chinese-South African project to advance pebble bed reactor technology. Pebble bed reactors are an advanced type of nuclear reactor design that promises to be significantly safer than conventional designs, for more details see here. One of the reasons I’ve said that the future may well belong to the [...]
Tags: China, Economics, energy, future, International Relations, nuclear
Foreign Policy has two perspectives on Fareed Zakaria’s latest piece in Newsweek. Both are interesting critiques of both Zakaria and the Obama foreign policy. First, Christian Brose finds Zakaria’s thinking too reflective of the “Washington establishment”: We’ve been hearing a lot about the Obama administration’s plans to talk to adversaries — Iran, Russia, Syria, the [...]
Tags: bush, diplomacy, Fareed Zakaria, International Relations, Obama, security
Ed Morrissey makes an interesting argument that the declaration of Kosovar independence signals a major shift in the international order. He argues: The breakup of Serbia calls into question whether the concept of Westphalian sovereignty remains extant. Shall Burgundy go back to the Burgundians, if they so desire? Will Wales and Cornwall exit from Great [...]
Tags: International Relations, Kosovo, political theory, Treaty of Westphalia, UN
Rarely do I say this but Paul Krugman could not be more right: To all the presidential campaigns trying to claim that the atrocity in Pakistan somehow proves that they have the right candidate — please stop. This isn’t about you; in fact, as far as I can tell, it isn’t about America. It’s about [...]
Tags: 2008, International Relations, pakistan, Politics
Ed Morrisey has a good synopsis of the declassified National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. (The document itself is available here.) It’s conclusions are quite interesting: We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons. Glenn Reynolds puts it best: “Well, [...]
Tags: intelligence, International Relations, Iran, NIE, nuclear weapons, war on terrorism
Fareed Zakaria has an interesting piece on how French President Nicolas Sarkozy is in a position to make significant reforms in France. The fact that he’s won his first round against the French railway union suggests that Sarkozy isn’t afraid to fight his battles against the entrenched French union system. As Zakaria explains: The street [...]