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"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

August 2021

Afghanistan and Nation Building

As we watch the failure of one of our most sustained efforts at nation building, it is time to revisit when this policy can work and when it cannot. If we do not learn this, we will continue to blunder into hopeless situations.

President Woodrow Wilson established this national aspiration when, at the conclusion of World War I, he was hopeful that our entry could help "make the world safe for democracy." In the wake of that war, three empires did collapse, and a number of aspiring more...

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October 2018

The Liberal World Order.


Since the end of World War II, something never before seen was happening to the world: a spread of the "liberal world order." Liberal in this case means freedom, not left-wing. Although some might think that it was inevitable, the expected trajectory of the world, because we are older and wiser now, it was not at all inevitable. It would not have happened without the United States not only pushing this, but protecting it with military force and money. Most Americans understood this, and more...

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May 2016

What Use Are Good Manners?

Being "polite" is not just a matter of saying please and thank you. Courtesy has always been the lubricant that makes the wheels of society turn smoothly. There is a movement today to conflate honesty with rudeness, mocking the "politically correct." Political correctness is an exaggerated monitoring of words and thoughts that might offend others. The revolt by some against political correctness is that these constraints sometimes muzzle debate. However, the revolt against "political correctness more...

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November 2014

We Must Put the "Crises of the Moment" in Context.


Critics of President Obama have an easy job. They do not have to make the decisions that will impact long-term American wellbeing. That is his job, and like making sausage, it is not a pretty process. It involves heavy lifting and complex issues.

Two principles have governed American foreign policy for the past two centuries: first, make certain that no one power controls all of Europe or all of Asia. We would be standing alone if such a powerful enemy controlled all other more...

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