Suchergebnisse

In 1961, Richard Rovere, a correspondent for the New Yorker, wrote an essay in the American Scholar called 'Notes on the Establishment In America.' In it he described, with extensive footnotes, a northeastern mandarin class, composed of everyone from John McCloy to John Kenneth Galbraith, that was manipulating the levers of power at the highest levels of government and industry. Rovere's spoof occasioned a good deal of comment sway, but perhaps no riposte was more telling than William F. Buckley Jr.'s. Meanwhile, Brent Scowcroft offers five lessons of his career. The first lesson is a reminder of the importance of character. The second lesson is about what actually constitutes realism. The third, and related, lesson is to avoid triumphalism in foreign policy and emphasize diplomacy. The fourth lesson of Scowcroft's career centers on the paramount goal of maintaining stability in the post-Cold War era. The fifth lesson that Scowcroft provides centers on his actions after he made his reservations about the impending war plain. Adapted from the source document.

Knapp den Fängen der Russen entkommen - und denen der Amerikaner : so interpretiert man in Deutschland wohl das Ende des Kalten Krieges. Erinnert Putins Gebaren nun die Deutschen an die Vorteile der Westbindung? Fest steht jedenfalls : beide Partner müssen sich wieder mehr anstrengen, denn Zwist und Misstrauen können sie sich gar nicht leisten. (IP)

In an interview, Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman and CEO of American International Group, talked about the strength of the US; and the Chinese leadership. Greenberg thinks the US has the strength potential to do whatever it wants as a country. One of its strengths has been the diversity of its population. The immigrants that came to the country were Eastern Europeans. And they had a different work ethic. They'd never go on welfare; they'd rather slit their throats than do that. Meanwhile, Greenberg is a member of the advisory board to the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, recently spent an hour meeting with the members. He came across as very focused, determined, confident. The Third Plenum showed that he has further consolidated his power. It is a precondition for getting meaningful reform through the bureaucracy. Adapted from the source document.

The lesson of history, is that there is no lesson. It is not a stricture, however, that has ever enjoyed much acknowledgment, let alone acceptance. Quite the contrary. In the past few months, a fresh spasm of analogizing the past to the present has taken place as politicians and journalists, at home and abroad, draw upon a rich treasure chest of events -- World War I, whose one hundredth anniversary arrives this August, the Munich agreement in 1938 or the Cold War -- to explain foreign affairs. At times, the battles over the meaning of the past almost seem to eclipse in intensity the original events themselves. In the US, which did not enter World War I until 1917 and, unlike Great Britain, doesn't have an uneasy conscience about the conflict, most historical allusions have centered on World War II. If a historical analogy can help to explain current events, then the most salient one is probably not a war, but the Treaty of Versailles. Adapted from the source document.

A review essay covering a book by Jacob Heilbrunn, Henry Kissinger, World Order (2014).

In May 1968, Richard Hofstadter published an essay about the Vietnam War in the New York Times Magazine. It was called 'Uncle Sam Has Cried 'Uncle!' Before.' What Hofstadter did not anticipate, however, is that perhaps the most fervent response to defeat in Vietnam would come from a militant faction within the liberal movement, the one that came to be known as neoconservatism. It was a neologism coined as a term of derision by Michael Harrington, but it would ultimately be embraced by its adherents. The desire to restore a perceived American dominance helped lead to the birth of the neocons. Today, the neocons and liberal hawks are once more on the march. Writing in Politico Michael Hirsh observed that former vice president Dick Cheney's advice is actively solicited by many Republicans in Congress, perhaps more than it has been in years. Perhaps no one has inadvertently done more to revive the fortunes of the neocons and liberal hawks than Pres Obama. Adapted from the source document.