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) Russia and Europe

The Enemies of Freedom Are Deadlier Than Ever A

By Gerard Baker - Oct. 23, 2023

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By Gerard Baker – But the power of our example would never have been enough without the example of our power. In the absence of sustained military commitments, strategic engagement and repeated sacrifice, there was nothing guaranteed about the victory of our ideas. We need to remember that truth as we survey the world today. Not since the worst days of the Cold War, perhaps not since the 1930s, have we faced such a combination of threats to our freedom and prosperity, to our very existence. A touching faith in the supposed universality of our ideals and the inevitable rightness of our cause won’t save us. A modern de facto alliance of tyrannies—we might call it an axis of evil opportunism—advances across the globe. China, Russia, Iran— 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

Isolationism Makes a Perilous Moment More So AA

By Paul A. Gigot - Nov. 12, 2023

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By Paul A. Gigot – The relevant questions are: How did we get here? And what to do about it? The answer to the first question is that we forgot the lesson of history. One of my military mentors was Andy Marshall, the legendary Pentagon strategist, who liked to say that peace is best understood as an interlude between wars. Robert Gates issued a similar warning as he retired as defense secretary in 2011 when he said that, when wars end, the U.S. always makes the mistake of drawing down defenses and leaving ourselves vulnerable. We ignored him. So what do we do about it? The obvious initial answer is to spend more on defense, and soon. But that is the easy part; we know the policy solution. The harder issue is finding the political will to do it, while persuading adversaries that we are credible enough to restore American deterrence. As we have learned in Ukraine and now in the Middle East, U.S. deterrence has faded. And the world’s rogues are on the march. 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

A World Without American Deterrence AA

By Walter Russell Mead - Oct. 19, 2023

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By Walter Russell Mead – Why are so many actors challenging American power in so many parts of the world? Because the U.S. is losing its power to deter….the erosion of deterrence usually begins gradually and ends suddenly. Emboldened by American failures to respond effectively (as when Mr. Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, when President Obama failed to enforce his “red line” in Syria, or when China built and militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea), our adversaries gradually lost their inhibitions and dared to challenge us more directly in more damaging ways. Read More