Failing to Endorse

It is hardly reason for despair that the Camp David "summit" called mainly so Boy Clinton could burnish his legacy seems to have ended in ostensible failure. It is doubtful that the failure will erase the modern superstition that wise and enlightened...

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Gustave de Molinari on States and Defense

Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912) was born in Belgium but spent much of his life in France as a member of the French laissez faire liberal school of economists. This school, which dominated economics in France during the 19th century, built upon the work of...

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The Last Camp David

The almost manic fascination by most of the mainstream media about the current negotiations at Camp David – I weakened and watched a lot of network and cable news Monday night – might well turn out to be the stuff of nostalgia. I will be amazed if anything...

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The Twilight of Sovereignty in Azerbaijan

It’s January 2001, and George "Dubya" Bush has just been sworn in as president. The neocons are in charge of foreign policy, and one of the top items on their agenda is in the war-torn, ex-Soviet region of the Caucasus, where the Russians are resurgent....

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Debunking the Greatest Generation

What got me started was a book review in the conservative magazine National Review of yet another of those books by sons of World War II-era fathers glorifying their participation in the "good war." This one was by the son of one of those who raised the...

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New World Order: The Bosnian Model

Congress flirted earlier this year with taking a more assertive role in determining U.S. policy in Kosovo and the other countries in the Balkans, but ultimately chose to stick with the pattern that has characterized most of the last several decades: Congress grumps...

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On State-Strengthening Wars: Part II

GETTING BACK TO THE SUBJECT… To recur, in a concrete way, to the relationship between war and heightened statism, let us now look at things from the standpoint of Martin Van Creveld's The Rise and Decline of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,...

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