I've never understood why Dems are so weak on Iran. What kind of leverage must the Ayatollah have on them? Now Blinken admits they're only WEEKS away from breakout?! Not WTH is going on, but WTF?!
I lived my early adulthood in the Reagan years and miss his understanding of American principles. I live here in Simi Valley, home of the Reagan Library and former Reagan country. I even had the privilege to help build the Library. This week I went back and watched Reagans 1976 speech at the Republican convention. Oh to have someone like that today!
Wow. Danielle is channeling Churchill or Reagan? BOTH. Excellent analysis and great policy points. Trump may be the man but the real strength in American policy whether foreign or domestic is a clear understanding and ability to articulate those values that made America great. Stability in the world is achieved when America stands by those principles of freedom, individual liberty and Free-enterprise that is the sourse of our strength and influence around the world. Danielle's analysis is almost perfect in its language. Thanks.
Very well said. I think TDS voters, finally getting past months if not years of denial about Biden, are working through their five stages of grief. Many, perhaps most, won’t make it, but your post helps those who can be helped.
You cover lots of ground here … but my biggest issue concerns your take on the ChiComs. America should absolutely tariff the dog crap out of China. Clinton’s 1990s era screw-up of giving China favored trading status and then allowing it into the WTO is a blunder for the ages.
By the way … I was shocked to read that there is an annual torture-fest and killing of dogs in China, as the pain inflicted upon man’s best friends is rumored to make the meat tastier to exacting Chinese diners. File this along with China’s penchant for shark fin soup, Wuhan bat soup, and the horns of endangered rhinoceros as an aphrodisiac.
Back on track now … in the 1990s Slick Willie was getting all sorts of Chinese kickbacks way back then. Remember the Johnny Chung and John Hwang scandals? What about Clinton giving the ChiComs the Loral satellite technology?
I can still vividly remember watching the Tiananman student protests in 1989 shortly after I completed my six years in the Navy. I’ll never forget that brave young student who stood up to the tanks. Then the despicable ChiComs proceeded with their massacre of the student protesters, and all Poppy Bush (POTUS41) could do is stay silent because … what?!? He once served as ambassador to China and still had friends in high places over there?
I remember my disappointment with Poppy Bush, and his globaloney talk of a “new world order” resigned me to vote for Ross Perot in 1992 … something to this day I do not regret. At least Perot campaigned on protecting America’s sovereignty, keeping American jobs here in America and not outsourcing them to corrupt Mexico, and balancing the federal budget and eliminating the then ($3 trillion?) national debt. The 1990’s $3 trlllion debt vs. today’s $33 trillion debt … life seemed so much more sublime back then.
I’ve said this before, perhaps in this forum … China, under the jackboot of the CCP, is unworthy to have any favorable trade status with the U.S. There was once some political spin back in the 1990s that opening free trade with China would liberalize the country and make it more tolerant and democratic. This free trade with China has only enriched the dictators while fueling their military expansion. In the meantime, if anything there has been a reverse effect as America seems to resemble China more and more; more surveillance, more speech codes, more intolerance for opposing views, more hatred of our capitalist system, etc.
While the open trade has benefitted the CCP and has moved the government away from Maoism, it has become a de-facto fascist country in which its totalitarian government has embraced a corporatist type of mercantilism in which billion dollar Chinese corporations do the bidding of the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army, all synchronized and in goose-stepping lockstep reminiscent of Il Duce. The CCP controls the media, academia, virtually all facets of civil life, even to the point where all comrade citizens are given social credit scores based on their loyalty to the Party. All of this is downright Orwellian and a stain on humanity.
I want America to engage in free trade with as many countries as possible. But the countries we freely trade with must be countries that share many of our same American values that emphasize human rights and dignity, representative constitutional democracy, and rule of law.
Sadly … America has lost most of its moral high ground as our nation more and more resembles a banana republic. Biden and his ilk have openly promoted hate speech against their political opposition (slandering MAGA as quasi-fascist) while also utilizing lawfare to go after DJT and his supporters.
I understand that you have a more globalist vision from your work at AEI … but why is there still such a fetish for the Chinese Communists? Where does AEI stand on the ChiComs violating their agreed treaty with the British and subjugating Hong Kong to their totalitarian jackboot some 25 years early? If the ChiComs are so willing to violate their agreement with the British, why the hell should we ever trust them to keep their word for anything?
China’s belligerence towards Taiwan demands more than just political bromides and platitudes. America should be doing a 21st century version of the Berlin Airlift to keep these communists (in name only now, because they are actually operationally fascist) in check. Let’s pull a Reagan Cold War move and let’s work with Taiwan to put U.S. based nuclear cruise missiles on the island, kinda like what Ronaldus Magnus did in Western Europe in the 80s. WTH … while we’re at it let’s work with the Japanese to do the same thing too, so we can box in China as well as scare the crap out of that porky little NorK rocket boy on the upper half of the Korean Peninsula.
But nations that bear America ill will do not deserve the honor of free and open trade with America, and I include Mexico in this category of bad actors too. Let’s have more free trade with our Allies, with Israel, with Taiwan, with The Philippines, and with countries that are making great strides in political and economic reform bending towards more freedom, like Argentina.
Let the totalitarians wallow and stew in the fetid political sewage that their Big Brother policies make; let’s curse the totalitarians to hell.
I suggest you take a look at the work of my colleague Frederick Kagan. Here he is in a Q&A at the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-history.html. I also commend the Institute for the Study of War website for details about winning/losing and the state of the war. Most of all, remember that Ukraine "winning" through the prism of our interests is far less important than Russia losing. Russia is our enemy.
Thanks for pointing out
that Trump says a lot of things,
but listens to those around him,
and frequently does something else
in the end. Boasting, etc., are common
negotiating tactics, that go unnoticed
at the time. I'm reminded that Reagan
built up medium range weapons, expecting
to destroy them before either side used them.
I'd rather have someone from "Queens", i.e.
the real world, than someone whose never
been out of the Senate, only spending
someone else's money and blood...
Thanks for your writings!
I've never understood why Dems are so weak on Iran. What kind of leverage must the Ayatollah have on them? Now Blinken admits they're only WEEKS away from breakout?! Not WTH is going on, but WTF?!
I lived my early adulthood in the Reagan years and miss his understanding of American principles. I live here in Simi Valley, home of the Reagan Library and former Reagan country. I even had the privilege to help build the Library. This week I went back and watched Reagans 1976 speech at the Republican convention. Oh to have someone like that today!
Wow. Danielle is channeling Churchill or Reagan? BOTH. Excellent analysis and great policy points. Trump may be the man but the real strength in American policy whether foreign or domestic is a clear understanding and ability to articulate those values that made America great. Stability in the world is achieved when America stands by those principles of freedom, individual liberty and Free-enterprise that is the sourse of our strength and influence around the world. Danielle's analysis is almost perfect in its language. Thanks.
Very well said. I think TDS voters, finally getting past months if not years of denial about Biden, are working through their five stages of grief. Many, perhaps most, won’t make it, but your post helps those who can be helped.
You cover lots of ground here … but my biggest issue concerns your take on the ChiComs. America should absolutely tariff the dog crap out of China. Clinton’s 1990s era screw-up of giving China favored trading status and then allowing it into the WTO is a blunder for the ages.
By the way … I was shocked to read that there is an annual torture-fest and killing of dogs in China, as the pain inflicted upon man’s best friends is rumored to make the meat tastier to exacting Chinese diners. File this along with China’s penchant for shark fin soup, Wuhan bat soup, and the horns of endangered rhinoceros as an aphrodisiac.
Back on track now … in the 1990s Slick Willie was getting all sorts of Chinese kickbacks way back then. Remember the Johnny Chung and John Hwang scandals? What about Clinton giving the ChiComs the Loral satellite technology?
I can still vividly remember watching the Tiananman student protests in 1989 shortly after I completed my six years in the Navy. I’ll never forget that brave young student who stood up to the tanks. Then the despicable ChiComs proceeded with their massacre of the student protesters, and all Poppy Bush (POTUS41) could do is stay silent because … what?!? He once served as ambassador to China and still had friends in high places over there?
I remember my disappointment with Poppy Bush, and his globaloney talk of a “new world order” resigned me to vote for Ross Perot in 1992 … something to this day I do not regret. At least Perot campaigned on protecting America’s sovereignty, keeping American jobs here in America and not outsourcing them to corrupt Mexico, and balancing the federal budget and eliminating the then ($3 trillion?) national debt. The 1990’s $3 trlllion debt vs. today’s $33 trillion debt … life seemed so much more sublime back then.
I’ve said this before, perhaps in this forum … China, under the jackboot of the CCP, is unworthy to have any favorable trade status with the U.S. There was once some political spin back in the 1990s that opening free trade with China would liberalize the country and make it more tolerant and democratic. This free trade with China has only enriched the dictators while fueling their military expansion. In the meantime, if anything there has been a reverse effect as America seems to resemble China more and more; more surveillance, more speech codes, more intolerance for opposing views, more hatred of our capitalist system, etc.
While the open trade has benefitted the CCP and has moved the government away from Maoism, it has become a de-facto fascist country in which its totalitarian government has embraced a corporatist type of mercantilism in which billion dollar Chinese corporations do the bidding of the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army, all synchronized and in goose-stepping lockstep reminiscent of Il Duce. The CCP controls the media, academia, virtually all facets of civil life, even to the point where all comrade citizens are given social credit scores based on their loyalty to the Party. All of this is downright Orwellian and a stain on humanity.
I want America to engage in free trade with as many countries as possible. But the countries we freely trade with must be countries that share many of our same American values that emphasize human rights and dignity, representative constitutional democracy, and rule of law.
Sadly … America has lost most of its moral high ground as our nation more and more resembles a banana republic. Biden and his ilk have openly promoted hate speech against their political opposition (slandering MAGA as quasi-fascist) while also utilizing lawfare to go after DJT and his supporters.
I understand that you have a more globalist vision from your work at AEI … but why is there still such a fetish for the Chinese Communists? Where does AEI stand on the ChiComs violating their agreed treaty with the British and subjugating Hong Kong to their totalitarian jackboot some 25 years early? If the ChiComs are so willing to violate their agreement with the British, why the hell should we ever trust them to keep their word for anything?
China’s belligerence towards Taiwan demands more than just political bromides and platitudes. America should be doing a 21st century version of the Berlin Airlift to keep these communists (in name only now, because they are actually operationally fascist) in check. Let’s pull a Reagan Cold War move and let’s work with Taiwan to put U.S. based nuclear cruise missiles on the island, kinda like what Ronaldus Magnus did in Western Europe in the 80s. WTH … while we’re at it let’s work with the Japanese to do the same thing too, so we can box in China as well as scare the crap out of that porky little NorK rocket boy on the upper half of the Korean Peninsula.
But nations that bear America ill will do not deserve the honor of free and open trade with America, and I include Mexico in this category of bad actors too. Let’s have more free trade with our Allies, with Israel, with Taiwan, with The Philippines, and with countries that are making great strides in political and economic reform bending towards more freedom, like Argentina.
Let the totalitarians wallow and stew in the fetid political sewage that their Big Brother policies make; let’s curse the totalitarians to hell.
How does Ukraine “win” the war?
I suggest you take a look at the work of my colleague Frederick Kagan. Here he is in a Q&A at the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-history.html. I also commend the Institute for the Study of War website for details about winning/losing and the state of the war. Most of all, remember that Ukraine "winning" through the prism of our interests is far less important than Russia losing. Russia is our enemy.
It doesn’t.