In the 400+ years since the birth of modern statistics, data has been collected on everything from life expectancy and planetary motion to little league batting averages and micro-loans in rural Bangladesh. As technology catches up with the world’s desire to better predict the future and understand the past, applications have expanded to include dynamic models of the global economy and more recently the probability of a terrorist attack. The danger with relying on this methodology, of course, is that the same statistical biases that contributed to the recent financial chaos may cause more harm in the real world than they ever did on Wall Street…

This type of geopolitical conspiracy would be easy to dismiss from any other source, but speculation of an imminent de-dollarization by some of the world’s largest oil consumers is even more chilling when it’s penned by one of Britain’s most celebrated international journalists…

If there’s any doubt remaining among global power-brokers that short-term foreign policy objectives are fundamentally flawed, recent events in the Levant have provided ample evidence. Such tribal conflict has played out in the Garden of Eden since northern Neanderthals and southern proto-human colonies first crossed paths during the last major Ice Age. Since that time, control over the region has changed hands a number of times, from Semetic tribes to Egyptian pharaohs to Roman Catholics to Muslim traders to Christian crusaders to Muslim Turks, and so forth. For every fence that was built and every line that was drawn, rivals always built a bigger ladder or dug a deeper tunnel. And so the feud was passed from generation to generation, …

The Economist has a knack for understanding leading indicators, be they economic, financial or political. This time, Russia falls under the looking glass, and the rise of the siloviki present yet another cause for Western concern. With allied hands tied in the Middle East chasing volatile natural resources and battling a crisis of confidence here at home, Putin & Co. apparently don’t need an invitation to continue consolidating their grip on one of the world’s largest and most important geopolitical economies…

“Now that an immediate peril is not plainly visible, there is a natural tendency to relax and to return to business as usual…. But I feel that we are seriously failing in our attitude toward the international problems whose solution will largely determine our future.”
George C. Marshall
Washington’s Birthday Remarks at Princeton University
February 22, 1947

Spending taxpayers money on a massive military offensive has its own unique economic consequences, but borrowing money from abroad to finance sustained hostilities half-way around the world places the American executive in a vulnerable position vis-a-vis the international community. This moderated conversation, featuring Robert Hormats — currently Vice Chairman at Goldman Sachs International and a former Assistant Secretary of State, member of the National Security Council, and US Trade Ambassador — touches on the myriad economic and political challenges that emerge when war is funded by outsiders while policy projects from within…

Words of worldly wisdom from the Commander in Chief at the Coast Guard Academy this past May. 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq are discussed in what feels more like a rally for some of the President’s biggest fiscal beneficiaries than a speech to send off America’s freshest military talent to the front lines of the war on terror…

“Nationalism is like cheap alcohol.
First, it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, and then it kills you.”
- Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State, U.S. State Department
With a history of social chaos that spans most of human existence, it isn’t surprising that personal freedom is a fairly recent phenomena. This so-called “inalienable right” was only introduced in Holland, France, America and the fragile Ottoman Empire over the last few centuries, after years of philosophical introspection and ultimately bloody rebellion. Unlike the fall of the Roman and Greek empires — where authority was more regulatory than ascendant — these “populist” revolutions signaled not merely a new set of rules but also a radical shift in personal identity. Living …

“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people. Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”
- Trent Lott, Republican Senator from Mississippi, up for re-election on November 7, 2006

A Nationalist Manifesto
There are too many elephants in the room. During our teens it was understandable, but this country is almost 140 years old. It’s time to stop ignoring the obvious. The 21st century might be filled with promise, but not if we don’t change course.

Rumours surfaced this morning about another military coup in Thailand, while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra attends the UN General Assembly in New York. All eyes were set to watch Bush and his Iranian arch-nemesis wage battle in the halls of international opinion, but all that may change as this new Asian drama unfolds…

With ink still drying on the UN Security Council’s draft resolution, Nusrullah has finally agreed to a cessation of hostilities, but insists that the fight will continue as long as Israeli troops are still on the ground. This, at a time when Israel itself has just voted to triple the size of its current military operation and continues to airlift troops into Southern Lebanon. Only time will tell if this latest in a long series of diplomatic efforts will succeed where the others have so catastrophically failed…

Often referred to as a ‘private CIA,’ Stratfor just released an update on their coverage of the escalating violence in Iraq, the threat of another Sunni-Shi’a Civil War, and the challenge of unbridled Iranian imperialsm. Definitely worth a read if you haven’t been following the not-so-mainstream news…

Below is a transcript of the Charlie Rose interview with Rami Khoury, Editor-at-Large of The Daily Star, a leading English-language newspaper in Beirut. In the Middle East it’s been difficult to find a convincing argument against continued Israeli engagment in a non-Arab tongue, but this exchange, filmed on July 19th, cuts as close to the heart of the conflict as I’ve seen from a Palestinian commentator.

An article on Slate.com from another American journalist with no desire to leave the greatest city in the Middle East. I’m with Faerlie…maybe it’s time to start buying up Lebanese real estate

Thoughts from the frontlines of the war in Lebanon. What I know I’ve included, and what I don’t I’ll leave up to you. Internet has been tough to find but I’ll try to keep things updated as often as I can. For more background on the conflict, check out our ongoing coverage of the Middle East…
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 | 12:01PM
Twelve plus hours after we landed in Beirut, the only civilian airport in the country was bombed by the Israeli Air Force. Apparently Hezbollah commandos crossed the Green Line last night and kidnapped two young Israeli soldiers, just weeks after a soldier was held for ransom by Hamas guerillas in Gaza City. Israel retaliated swiftly by taking half of the …

Few scholars have had such a profound impact on their field of study as Bernard Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. In this recent Q&A, he addresses the untold roots of Arab rage, the complex challenges of expanding Western empires, the rise of the Islamic mullahcracy and the mystery of the Danish cartoons. Now into his 90s, the outspoken orientalist continues to search for the ultimate compromise, contrasting “a nation divided into religions” with “a religion divided into nations”. The transcript is a little bit lengthy but well worth the read…

Described as the first direct communication from an Iranian leader to an American president since 1979, Ahmadinajad’s recent letter to President Bush touched on a broad array of socio-political matters that strike at the very heart of the current standoff between Tehran and Washington. Below is an exerpt of that letter — originally translated from Farsi…
Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena — which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the …

A trans-Pacific dialogue on the current state of Palestine, in reverse chronological order…
On 4/19/06 11:20 AM, editor@rationalpost.com wrote:
In my mind, it’s a poverty problem (and a blame problem). As much as it pains me to say it, neither Arabs and Jews, nor Russians and Chechens, nor Greeks and Macedonians, nor Iraqis and Kurds, nor Hutus and Tutsis (etc.) will ever resolve their conflicting land and resource claims without war (or extremely enlightened diplomacy). That much I’m sure about. The only relevant questions are who (soldiers, senators or civilians?), how (guns, bombs or arbitration?), where (fields, streets or courthouses?), and how long (minutes, months or millennia?). It’s an unfortunate but natural consequence of …

generation one: firepower
with the advent of gunpowder, modern military strategy made its impressive entrance into the arena of armed conflict resolution. can you imagine being a fighter in that very first army without guns, staring across the battlefield with your broadsword in hand at a wall of fully loaded muskets? in all likelihood, you wouldn’t even have time to spoil your polished chainmail britches before taking that first metal bullet in the face. as you can imagine, there weren’t many of these early lop-sided slaughters, but the resulting shift in combat tactics was actually quite enormous.
during that first generation of war, all that really mattered was: 1) access to gunpowder, and 2) access to manpower. the guy with the most …