As President Donald Trump starts his reelection campaign in earnest, a major segment of his 2020 platform remains ambiguous. In the field of foreign and security policy, the next five or six months present Trump with the last opportunity to become his former self: to reverse some of his many surrenders to the neoconservative agenda,...
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Blood and Iron Pyrite
During the late 19th century, when the star of American industrial power was on the rise, protectionist Pennsylvania Congressman William Kelley declared, “A people who cannot supply their own demand for iron and steel, but purchase it from foreigners beyond seas, are not independent . . . they are politically dependent.” The 21st century has...
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The President’s Painted Corner
A prudent power will always seek to keep open as many options as possible in its foreign-policy making. An increasingly rigid system of alliances, coupled with mobilization blueprints and railway timetables, reduced the European powers’ scope for maneuver in the summer of 1914 and contributed to the ensuing catastrophe. The United States, by contrast, entered...
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On Liberty and the Grand Idea
For a long time I thought I knew how to evade the discourse of the Grand Idea. It began when I was in the Yugoslav People’s Army. The war was barely over, but victory brought no greater liberty to those who had suffered the Nazi occupation, and the brainwashing in the barracks grew more and...
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To End Wars—Trump vs. Sanders
Barack Obama sought as his legacy to bring an end to the two longest wars in U.S. history. On Oct. 15, he, again, admitted failure. The 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan will remain another year. And, on Inauguration Day 2017, 5,500 U.S. troops will still be there. Why cannot we leave? Because, if we do,...
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A Towering Genius, Greatly Missed
On April 1, 1815, Otto Eduard Leo pold von Bismarck was born on the family estate at Schönhausen near Berlin, in what used to be Prussia. He came into this world at the end of a quarter-century of pan-European crisis, which started with the French Revolution and ended with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Bismarck’s bicentennial...
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The Untimely Death of Vice President Hobart
Little does history remember the death of Vice President Garret Augustus Hobart at the tender age of 55, barely a month before the beginning of the present century. Yet we have cause to lament that, in the words of the Psalmist, this humble personage was not granted a span of 70, or even 80, years....
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Murray Rothbard, R.I.P.
If a man could be judged only by the friends he has kept and the enemies he has made, Murray Rothbard was one of the best men produced by the American right. Some of Murray’s friendships go back, without interruption, to the 1950’s, and his collection of personal enemies constitutes a rogues’ gallery of conservative...
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It’s Time to Focus on the Enemy Within, Not Without
The reincarnation of Hitler in some national leader and the heroism of Churchill, both stand-by props of neoconservatives, rear their head again in a recent commentary by Daniel Gelernter. Expecting neocons to abandon their continual reference of these props would be comparable to asking the Democratic Party to stop talking about “systemic racism” or Mike Pompeo to...
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Selective Amnesia
Selective pernicious amnesia is the endemic disease of Establishment politics. Its symptoms are evident whenever the Soviet Union does something awful—like delivering six sophisticated Su-24D bombers to Libya, as it did in March 1988, or excusing the sinking of an advanced Soviet attack submarine in the Norwegian Sea last April, a submarine that, the Soviet...
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Waco in Moscow
The standoff between President Yeltsin and the Russian Parliament ended in flames and gunfire that can be compared to the sad scenes of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Even the scare tactic of round-the-clock rap music was emulated by Russian spetsnats troops. Having crushed his opponents, Mr. Yeltsin returned Russia to its familiar...
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George Kennan: A Great and Good Man
The results of rejecting Kennan’s counsel have been disastrous, and the ongoing failure to draw upon his wisdom is a tragedy.
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The Bankrupt PIGS of Europe
They are called the PIGS—Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. What they have in common is that all are facing deficits and debts that could bring on national defaults and break up the European Union. What brought the PIGS to the edge of the abyss? All are neo-socialist states that provide welfare for poor people, generous unemployment,...
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The World Goes Its Way
A French writer argues that “humanity” has become the accepted “version of the universal” in contemporary Western thought, functioning as the “action” of modern democratic polity. While Pierre Manent’s thesis is a convincing one, political and social occurrences in the past decade seem to indicate that the West’s humanitarian “version” is becoming discredited at an...
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A New Balance of Power
Seven years is a well-rounded time span, for better (“Behold, there come seven years of great plenty”) or for worse (“And there shall arise after them seven years of famine”). As we enter the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency, it is time to look at his septennial foreign-policy scorecard without malice, which his...
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Muddling the Missile Crisis
The Abyss, a pop history treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, revives unhistorical myths in an effort to chalk the whole thing up to American hysteria, and to portray the bumbling JFK as having masterfully handled the crisis.
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The Republican War—Over War Policy
Rand Paul had his best debate moment Tuesday when he challenged Marco Rubio on his plans to increase defense spending by $1 trillion. “You cannot be a conservative if you’re going to keep promoting new programs you’re not going to pay for,” said Paul. Marco’s retort triggered the loudest cheers of the night: “There are...
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A Fig From Smyrna
Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec, S.J., was an eyewitness to the 20th century’s most important event: the defeat of Marxism-Leninism in Eastern Europe by the Church established by Jesus Christ. At age 27, Korec was secretly consecra-ted as a bishop in Slovakia, a largely Catholic nation of five million. He led the underground Church after the...
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One World, One Leader, One god
The unity of Christendom and the restoration of the American republic are themes that have intertwined their way through the numbers of this magazine, like the twin strands of the DNA double helix. The message does not always meet with approval. Recently, a man of wealth and influence told us that he was no longer...
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The Stable Genius Providentially Triumphs
Trump’s overwhelming victory appears to confirm his genius, the wisdom of the American people, and God’s Providence for our country.
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Soviet Spies and Agents of Influence
Probably the greatest triumph in public opinion manipulation in modern history was the West’s elevation of the Soviet Union into a symbol of righteousness and a country beyond criticism. This triumph was all the more notable because from day one of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin’s system, to quote Robert Conquest, “had as one of its...
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Chronicles’ Politics by the Numbers Dept. ™
I’m starting something new here: Chronicles’ by the Numbers Dept. ™ 1. Branches of government An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey found only 36 percent of Americans correctly can identify the “three branches of government” in the United States. And 35 percent could not name a single branch. But I’m sure Chronicles readers know the...
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The End of Liberalism Nears
In his latest book, Francis Fukuyama sees liberalism under threat from extremists on both the populist right and the identitarian left.
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Is Trump’s Agenda Being Eclipsed?
“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” said Winston Churchill to cheers at the Lord Mayor’s luncheon in London in November 1942. True to his word, the great man did not begin the liquidation. When his countrymen threw him out in July 1945,...
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A Reminder of Hope
As our country plunges into yet another foolish war in the Moslem world and teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, it is easy to be focused on the negative. But today’s news also brought a small reminder of hope. The synod of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, meeting in Lvov, just elected 40-year old Sviatoslav Shevchuk,...
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Geostrategic Challenges in 2020
As we approach the last year of this century’s second decade, the United States is still the most powerful state in the world, safe from direct threats by foreign state actors. Two oceans separate America from actual or potential hot spots on other continents, while its neighbors to the north and south are harmless and...
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The Empire: Not So Great in ’08
Iraq will continue to top the list of American foreign-policy concerns in 2008. While tactical successes in Baghdad and the Anbar Province were achieved in 2007 through the U.S. forces’ marriage of convenience with various Sunni Arab tribal leaders and former Saddam loyalists who detest Al Qaeda even more than they dislike the Americans, translating...
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Notes From the Front, Part I
In the twilight, the machine gunner holds aloft the dissembled barrel of his weapon, his hands oily and stained, and grins at me. White-toothed, red-haired, he wears his beret like a bonnet. Cocky, not too large, he laughs, then swears a heavy, loaded Serbian curse, unsparing of the Croats. The machine gunner is a Kraina...
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The New World Order GOP
A federal program, Ronald Reagan used to say, is the closest thing to eternal life here on earth. Even the Gipper conceded he failed to get control of the federal behemoth. At least he tried. But what can be said for the conservative movement today, as one witnesses the Wall Street Journal battle to save...
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China’s Challenge (II)
“Hasn’t US belligerence toward Russia – particularly on the Ukrainian situation – given rise to closer Sino-Russian cooperation to counter the US?,” Harry Colin asked in response to my latest article. My answer is a heavily qualified “yes.” Russia and China have upgraded their strategic partnership over the past year and a half, but they...
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NATO’s Dark Age
You have seen them on the evening news, the long weary lines of Christian refugees: Serbs streaming from the Krajina, Bosnia, Kosovo; Russians from Chechnya, Dagestan, and Kazakhstan. These are not the victims of some short and bitter war that strews exiles across the map of Europe for several years until they can make their...
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Overlooking Mass Killers—If They’re on the Totalitarian Left
Imgard Furchner, a 96-year-old resident of a special care facility in Germany, is being investigated as a war criminal. She will appear in court in a wheelchair, which is now her customary way of moving about, the Swiss magazine DieWeltwoche reports. She did try to escape from her accusers in a taxi but was apprehended...
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Can the GOP’s Shotgun Marriage Be Saved?
Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, 2016, Republicans awoke to learn they had won the lottery. Donald Trump had won the presidency by carrying Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. All three states had gone Democratic in the last six presidential elections. The GOP had won both houses of Congress. Party control of governorships and state legislatures rivaled the...
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Here, on the Other Side of the Ring of Fire
Americans read the increasingly panic-stricken reports of deepening catastrophe at Fukushima 1, speed to the pharmacy to buy iodine and ask,
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Will ISIS Rise Again? Trump’s Winning Strategy?
In his weekly roundup of world events for Serbia’s Happy TV network, Dr. Trifkovic discusses the future of the Islamic State. He also looks at a viable strategy for President Donald Trump to emerge victorious from the impeachment battle. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2EPtvxQ_c&app=desktop (Translated from Serbian, slightly abbreviated.) Q: What has changed with the killing of al-Baghdadi?...
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Smokers in the Arsenal
Several years after he was forced into retirement, Otto von Bismarck was asked what could start the next major war. “Europe today is a powder keg,” he replied, “and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal . . . I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you...
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The Abominable ‘America Last’ Porkulus
This country is not governed by a “Republican Party” and a “Democratic Party.” It is governed by an establishment “uniparty” that betrays our citizens at every turn. Exhibit A: The joint annual ritual of fiscal vulgarity known as the omnibus spending bill. While Americans are distracted with the holidays, Beltway crapweasels stuff their legislative...
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Are Trump and Putin Right?
Monday, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosted a spirited discussion with Donald Trump on whether he was right in asserting that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated as the towers came down on 9/11. About Muslim celebrations in Berlin, however, there appears to be no doubt. In my chapter “Eurabia,” in “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion...
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Prisoner Swap Exposes Biden’s Weakness and Puts Americans at Risk
For as long as weak administrations govern in the White House, we should expect more Americans to be taken, with ever higher prices for their freedom imposed.
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Bosnia, Hillary’s Playground
At a time when the U.S. power and authority are increasingly challenged around the world, the incoming team sees the Balkans as the last geopolitically significant area where they can assert their “credibility” by postulating a maximalist set of objectives as the only outcome acceptable to the United States, and duly insisting on their fulfillment....
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Diplomacy Good and Bad
These two volumes shed considerable light on the fateful events of 1945-46, events determinative of much that followed in American foreign relations. The first argues that, had Franklin Roosevelt lived, even if for only another year, postwar history would have been altogether different. The second, by an experienced “realist” foreign-service officer, views the postwar developments...
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In Praise of the Clan
A new Dark Age is already upon us, and perhaps we might learn a few lessons from the last one. It was a time when the arts of civilization were dimly recalled in fairy tales, when Krum the Bulgar khan gilded a Roman emperor’s skull and used it as a drinking goblet, when the careful...
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The Decline and Fall of the American Economy
The United States has three large economic problems. The overarching one is that the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency is wearing out from continuous and large trade deficits and from government budget deficits that have to be financed by foreigners because the U.S. savings rate is approximately zero. Judging by the dollar’s loss...
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Is Donald Trump an Uneducated Lout?
Columnist Wes Pruden, writing in the Washington Times, calls the presumptive GOP nominee an “uneducated lout.” But give him credit for balance: he also gives Hillary a hard time though he spares her any ad hominem insults. He finds the choice we face in the presidential election this November terrifying, and thinks we should, too. He...
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Religion Is Always There
The varied and complex relations between religion and power can be understood only by means of extensive comparisons, between nations and across time. Who better to demonstrate this than Prof. David Martin, the doyen of the comparative sociology of religion? Martin’s first achievement is to refute “the general theory of secularisation,” which has enjoyed so...
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Return of the ’70s
“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9 This is true even in politics. Maybe especially in politics, where the recycling of bad and good decisions reflects the recycling,...
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Books in Brief: April 2024
Short reviews of The Myth of Left and Right by Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis, and Myth America by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer.
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Can Japan Rise Again?
We can thank Providence that the earthquake was not 150 miles closer to Tokyo, else Japan's dead might number in the millions. Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls it the worst crisis since World War II. Yet, horrendous as it is, it does not, thus far, compare with that. For the ...
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Caucasian Trap
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s order to attack South Ossetia’s capital, Tskhinvali, was a breathtakingly audacious challenge to Russia, to which she was bound to respond forcefully. That response was promptly exploited by the American mainstream media machine and the foreign-policy community in Washington to paint Russia as a rogue power that is not only dangerous...
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The Revenge of History
History has a way of taking its revenge on those who would violate it. It does not forget. Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich are some of the few Soviet-born intellectuals who have studied how much current Soviet policies and propaganda abuse Russian history. Their book is an eloquent effort to set straight the historical record...