The U.S. ‘COMPETES’ with China — At What Cost?
The COMPETES Act, which ramps up spending to raise the stakes with China, puts Washington’s warped priorities on display.
Building a Post-Extractivist Future for Latin America
The region faces a choice between top-down “Green growth” and bottom-up efforts to transform economies.
What Putin Wants
The Russian leader is focused on his legacy, which means that economic sanctions don’t concern him.
Suicide Truckers
The “Freedom Convoy” in Canada wants to spread its anti-government, antisocial, and ultimately self-defeating messages far and wide.
U.S. Thinks Road to Bahrain’s Heart Is Through Its Appetite for Weaponry
Still, the situation on the ground has not changed much in the past week, with continuing mass arrests of demonstrators.
How to Forget on Memorial Day
It’s the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two — those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of origin; means of death (“small arms fire,” “improvised explosive device,” “the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform,” or sometimes something vaguer like “while conducting combat operations,” “supporting Operation Enduring Freedom,” or simply no explanation at all); and the unit the dead soldier belonged to. They are seldom 100 words, even with the usual opening line: “The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Sometimes they include more than one death.
Okinawa’s Nature Groaning
May 15 marks 40 years since Okinawa “reverted” from US military administration to Japan, but the celebrations in 2012 will be muted. While few Okinawans regret the fact of reversion, there is widespread resentment over the fact that the national government continues to insist the prefecture serve US military ends first and foremost. Newspaper opinion surveys taken on the eve of the commemoration found that 69 percent of Okinawans believed they were the subject of inequitable and discriminatory treatment because of the heavy concentration of US military bases, and nearly 90 percent took the position that the Futenma Marine Base should either be unconditionally closed and the land simply revert to Ginowan township or else be moved away, whether elsewhere in Japan or beyond it. That figure exceeds even the opposition of the time of the Hatoyama government (84 percent) less than two years ago. A similar 90 percent oppose the deployment within Okinawa of the accident-plagued MV22-Osprey VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft that the Pentagon, backed by the government of Japan, promises to deploy in Okinawa from July.1
Fearful Iran Hawks Flat Harder
As at least two days of talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program got underway in Baghdad on Wednesday, neo-conservatives and other hawks escalated their campaign against any compromise agreement, particularly one that would permit Tehran to continue enriching uranium on its territory.
Europe’s Dilemma: Immigration and the Arab Spring
Much of the West voiced great support for the Arab Spring. However, the European Union in particular soon curbed its enthusiastic reaction when residents of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began streaming into Europe after turmoil from the Arab Spring left many MENA civilians unable to remain in the region. Immigration from the Middle East and North Africa to the European Union surged over the past year, causing the leaders of many EU countries to speak out against the growing influx of Arab immigrants seeking refuge within their borders.
The Award for Most Inventive Use of a Nuclear Weapon Goes To…
Nuclear weapons: not just a force multiplier, but a force sweetener.
Honduras Coup Delivering a Bloody Return on Washington’s Military Investment
The United States has significantly scaled up its military presence in Honduras in recent months.
Mexicans Romanticizing Drug Kingpins Reflects Lack of Confidence in the Rule of Law
The loyalty citizens profess to this violent syndicate or that has nothing to do with actual support, and everything to do with survival in an uncertain social terrain where law enforcement is often a perpetrator.
Fukushima Team Under Constant Pressure to Protect Interests of Nuclear Power
There remains no legislative structure in place to deal with the long-term effects of a nuclear disaster of the scale of Fukushima.
China’s Missing Middle Class
Two parallel narratives surround globalization and the trade imbalance between China and the United States. One side moans that competition with China has squeezed traditional U.S. manufacturing jobs and caused the middle class to disappear. The other side declares that a new Chinese middle class is riding the wave of China’s inexorable economic boom. A particularly hyperbolic headline in Forbes, for example, proclaimed the rise of China’s middle class to be “The Biggest Story of Our Time.”