Petty Micro-Nationalisms

Hopefully, the wisdom of responsible nationalism will prevail against contrived, peevish separatism in Catalonia, Scotland, and elsewhere.

American Interests and Human Rights
American Interests and Human Rights

For a century American foreign policy has often purportedly seesawed between cold focus on American interests through realpolitik or high-minded advocacy of democracy and human rights.

Angola Angolan Falwell Bush Savimbi
Angolan Dinner with George H.W. Bush & Jerry Falwell

Angola’s elections last week signaled the departure of Africa’s second longest serving leader, reminding me of an exhilarating 1986 dinner I attended.

Francisco Franco era Valley of the Fallen
Monuments, Memories, & Franco

Modern democratic Spain is both a rejection and product of Franco’s dictatorship. Should he be honored or despised?

Nagasaki
Nukes & Friendship

America’s atomic strike on Nagasaki occurred on August 9, 1945. The date should also be recalled as the start of one of history’s most amazing friendships.

Falklands War
Presidential Phone Chats & Reagan’s Falklands Error

Aggression was decisively and instructively defeated before a watching world during the Falklands War. But there’s a warning embedded in the success story.

Pat Buchanan Blames America First

Pat Buchanan derides internationalists as dreamers disregarding his supposedly sensible neo-isolationist realism but advocates a nearly Utopian perspective.

dunkirk-movie
Dunkirk & Millennials

The huge IMAX theater in Washington, DC where I watched Dunkirk was packed with young people. Out of hundreds in…

Irina Ratushinskaya
Freeing the Captives

May the United States and democratic allies like Britain “not falter,” forever sustaining “valiant hearts” to light the path for courageous prisoners of conscience like Irina Ratushinskaya.