[Published in the IHT under the headline “The Tea Party and US Foreign Policy”]The rise of the Tea Party movement has been the most controversial and dramatic development in U.S. politics in many years. Supporters have hailed it as a return to core American values; opponents have seen it as a racist, reactionary and ultimately […]

The world has been watching the upheavals and protests shaking the Middle East these days, but it’s just possible that the disturbances in Madison, Wisconsin mark what will ultimately prove to be a bigger turning point in world history.In the heart of Blue State America, we are seeing a challenge to some of the fundamental […]

If a specter haunts the chancellories of America, it isn’t communism and it isn’t Karl Marx.  It’s Thucydides, the chronicler of the 30 year Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens that led to the comprehensive defeat of the world’s first great democratic power.  The assumptions most Americans bring to the study of foreign policy […]

Pharaoh Hosni is out; the Mubarak dynasty is done.  This had to happen and, whatever comes next, the downfall of an undemocratic leader well past his sell-by date is a good thing in and of itself. The nation of Egypt is not a personal possession to be handed down like an heirloom from generation to […]

Reading Sun Tzu’s classic The Art of War for the Bard grand strategy seminar this winter was an unsettling experience.  Of course, that is the point.  The Art of War is one of those books that doesn’t want to sit there in your lap; it wants to reach up and slap you in the face.My […]

Today we are starting a new feature at Via Meadia: our StratBlog.  At Bard College I’m teaching a modified version of the Yale Grand Strategy curriculum developed by John Gaddis, Charles Hill and Paul Kennedy to a group of undergraduates this semester and the students have been generous enough to agree to share this experience […]

The Egyptian government has survived the first crisis of the revolution and both the government and the protesters are moving to a new trial of strength.  Surviving the first blast of popular fury — and of international criticism — is an important milestone for the government.  The longer it can hold out, the more likely […]

The Obama administration is now living through one of the oldest and most difficult recurring problems in American foreign policy: what do you do when revolution breaks out in an allied country?The only clue history offers is not an encouraging one: there is often no satisfactory resolution of the dilemmas revolutions present.In 1789 Americans watched […]

Here at my rural retreat in the rolling Dutchess County hunt country in scenic upstate New York, I’m facing a dilemma.  I need to get back to New York City for a meeting tomorrow, but the series of monstrous winter snowstorms has made parking scarce in the purlieus of the stately Mead manor in glamorous […]

As the blue social model gradually falls apart and American society casts restlessly about for something to replace it, charter schools may be on the cutting edge of the social transformation about to take place.This isn’t because they are a magic bullet solution to our education problems.  The research surrounding the effectiveness of charter schools […]