Principles Of Government

All material on this site is for educational purposes only.
This site is designed to generate ideas for a supplementary section on think tank websites.
An online subscription to the Wall Street Journal is required get full use of this site.
(A) Articles are foundational content and (B) Articles are urgently important but may be replaced as they become dated

(A) Middle East

Jewish History Is the Antidote to Antisemitism

By Eric Cohen - Sept. 23, 2025

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By Eric Cohen – Sept. 23, 2025 – Attacks on Jewish college students provoked a larger national debate about the radicalization of the humanities and anti-American animus that have corrupted so many universities. The confrontation between Israel and its enemies has forced the democratic nations of the world to reckon with—or self-righteously deny—the true costs of defending civilization against barbarism. …The Jews are a thermometer for the moral condition of the Western world and the health of our civic institutions. Read More

Biden Leaves His Successor a World of Disorder A

By The Editorial Board Updated Sept. 23, 2024

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By The Editorial Board – It is a far more dangerous world than Mr. Biden inherited, and far less congenial for U.S. interests, human freedom and democracy.

Mr. Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was his single most damaging decision, and it has led to cascading trouble.

More damaging is the message his withdrawal sent to adversaries about American will and retreat. The credibility of U.S. deterrence collapsed. Read More

Four Steps to Creating a National Defense Strategy Built on Strength A

By John G. Ferrari | Elaine McCusker | Todd Harrison - June 12, 2025

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By John G. Ferrari | Elaine McCusker | Todd Harrison – The new Pentagon leadership has set itself up to potentially oversee fundamental changes that could dramatically improve military warfighting capabilities for decades to come. In addition to realigning the defense budget, organizational structures, and acquisition policies to support warfighters, key decisions are still pending on how and where America will defend its security and prosperity. Read More

Henry Kissinger on Power and Morality AA

By Walter Russell Mead - Dec. 4, 2023

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By Walter Russell Meade – Kissinger understood something that too many Americans, on the left and right, find difficult to grasp: Power and morality aren’t opposites. Rather, power is the platform that makes moral action possible for a state. And morality isn’t a set of rules and laws that states are expected to obey. Rather, in international relations, morality involves creating an order that prevents the anarchy and slaughter of great-power warfare. Such an order gains legitimacy not by its perfect adherence to a religious or secular moral code, but by its ability to preserve values and conditions that allow civilizations, and the human beings who inhabit them, to flourish. Read More

Dostoevsky Knew: It Can Happen Here AA

By Gary Saul Morson - Oct. 18, 2023

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By Gary Saul Morson – Cruelty often thrives among the sophisticated. Dostoevsky recalls the French terror, when people were humiliated and murdered in the name of the highest principle…. during the Stalinist terrors millions were routinely tortured … and that during the collectivization of agriculture, millions more were deliberately starved to death, with young Bolshevik idealists brought in to enforce the famine…. In the West, intellectuals justified such behavior because it was done in the name of socialism …Dostoevsky adds that there is no need to resort to examples from the past because the same dynamic can occur in any place at any time that allows the dark side of human nature to show itself, clad in the language of whatever passes for progressive and enlightened. “Believe me, the most complete aberration of human hearts and minds is always possible.” Read More