President Barack Obama got excellent advice from his vice president, Joe Biden, regarding dealing with the Pentagon and the military establishment.  Above all, Biden warned, you shouldn’t get “boxed-in” by the military.  We’re only several weeks into the Biden administration, and the military is already lobbying for increased funding for questionable reasons.  The civilian defense establishment and its collegial think tanks as well as the mainstream media can be counted to support increased spending. More

“This [Brexit] is an amazing moment for this country.” –Boris Johnson (New Year’s Day, 2021) “Only a quarter of Brits believe Brexit has ‘gone well’ so far” – YouGov poll The UK’s official departure from the EU took place on January 1, 2021. The Brexit roll-out, not unexpectedly, has been awash with problems. The government More

Cutting off water and electricity to lakhs of human beings, exposing them to serious health hazards by doing so, having police and paramilitary barricade them into cut-off zones while imposing dangerously insanitary conditions on them, making it almost impossible for journalists to reach the protesting farmers, punishing a group that has already seen perhaps 200 of its own die, many from hypothermia, in the past two months. Anywhere in the world this would be seen as barbaric and an assault on human rights and dignity. More

“Get your retaliation in first,” is a cynical old saying in Northern Irish politics that means you hit your opponent whenever you can without waiting for a provocation. It neatly captures the violent traditions of the province and explains why the political temperature there is always close to boiling over. More