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In his analysis, McChrystal made two key assertions: The strategy then being implemented would not succeed, even with more troops. A new counterinsurgency-focused strategy just proposed would not succeed without more troops.

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Washington had originally intended to install a stable, pro-American government in Baghdad in order to fundamentally reshape the region. Instead, after the U.S. invasion destroyed the existing Iraqi-Iranian balance of power, Washington found itself on the defensive, struggling to prevent the opposite outcome — a pro-Iranian regime.

Most Afghans who live beyond the few urban enclaves in the country do not rely on these institutions in their day-to-day business. In other words, Afghanistan’s financial world has nowhere near as far to fall as the West’s, so even its utter collapse — not just a crisis of confidence in one bank — would not have the same geopolitical magnitude.

Well, if the jury is still out on Tea Party hypocrisy, then let me make a few suggestions to those of you in the Tea Party to help you avoid being called hypocrites:1. Many Tea Party members (including some commenters here) oppose the $700 billion TARP bailouts. The Obama administration said last week that the projected total costs will come in under $50 billion, and that it could possibly make money for the government when it is fully paid back. Give the Obama administration credit for reducing the costs, and praise him if the costs reach $0 or if it pays for itself.2. After decrying the "generational theft" of deficit spending, the Tea Party seems to have no problem supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts; even for the very wealthy. Tax cuts, were the single biggest factor adding to the deficit before the recession reduced revenues. You claim to worry about their children's futures, but they're putting their kids in debt to pay for the lifestyles of today's wealthy. Admit that at least some of the tax cuts have to go.3. If the deficit is the problem, then get serious about the defense budget. Last year defense spending costed more than social security entitlements, and more then medicare and medicaid, and far more than the stimulus or TARP. And on top of it, Americans get a very low return on their investment of tax dollars in military spending. Much of the benefit is realized directly by people in other countries who enjoy greater stability. Start supporting a downsizing of the military.4. Get off of your constitutional high horse. For a bunch of people who claim to support the Constitution, they sure were reluctant to support the First Amendment rights of Muslims who wanted to build a community center near the WTC site. Don't be so quick to anger when people are trying to exercise the freedoms that you claim to cherish so much. If you really love your freedoms, you should understand why people want to exercise theirs.5. Again, concerning the Constitution: stop picking candidates that know nothing about constitutional law. If you care so much about the Constitution, why are you listening to Sarah Palin, who could not have been more wrong when she claimed that the First Amendment protected her from criticism by the media? When running for vice president, she didn't know what the constitution said about the vice presidency. How about Christine O'Donnell, who couldn't name any recent Supreme Court cases last week? These are the people you chose to represent you and your respect for the US Constitution?6. If you want small government, then actively support same-sex marriage rights. Don't want the government telling you what to do? Then you shouldn't want the government telling you whom you can and can't marry. Small government does not regulate personal decisions about whom you spend your life with, and if you are serious about small government, then you should be out there protesting for gay marriage.7. If Congress is overstepping it's powers to regulate commerce with its healthcare mandate, then get out there and support the legalization of marijuana. Attorney General Holder recently stated that if California legalizes the sale of marijuana, then he will use federal power to prosecute marijuana users for possession of the drug. This should strike you as a gross abuse of federal power in violation of state rights. Come out against Holder's threat right now and get ready to protest if he follows through with it.8. Stop claiming that you have the Founding Fathers on your side, while assailing the educated elite. The Founders were the educated elite. They were all a part of the American Philosophical Society. Many of them were knowledgeable of physics and calculus--the cutting edge sciences of their day. Everyone knows that Benjamin Franklin was a scientist. So, stop the anti-science, anti-intellectual agenda. The Founders would never have stood for that.9. Admit it, you want another Bill Clinton. Sure, the Tea Party is nostalgic for Reagan, but he oversaw a large expansion of the deficit. Government borrowing started to decline under Bush Sr. but the deficit saw massive decline, leading to surpluses under Clinton. G. W. Bush turned those surpluses back into a gaping deficit. So, why do you vote Republican? Get over Reagan and admit that your party shouldn't have tried to impeach the most fiscally conservative president in thirty years.10. And yes, as Mr. Douthat has suggested, get serious about entitlements.

In terms of presidents, it’s like giving a lecture about James Bond focused entirely on George Lazenby.

Well, scholarship has a certain authority, and Beck would like to claim that authority. In the post-civil rights era, Beck's familiar us-versus-them stance can't be framed in terms of identity; most of his audience may be white and middle-class and older, but even older middle-class white people would be uncomfortable publicly making the argument that they deserve to be heard because they are older and middle-class and white. Instead, he (and many other media figures on both sides of the spectrum) utilize the stance that their audience deserves to be heard because they're objectively correct about certain things.

Beck is taking advantage of the American tradition of the “self-made man."

The conventional wisdom is that Bretton Woods crafted the modern international economic architecture, lashing the trading and currency systems to the gold standard to achieve global stability.

The origin of Bretton Woods lies in the Great Depression.

Economically, World War II was a godsend. The military effort generated demand for goods and labor. The goods part is pretty straightforward, but the labor issue is what really allowed the global economy to turn the corner.

According to the draft circulated on Thursday at the two-day EU heads of government summit, Greece would indeed be offered a financial aid package of around 22 billion euro, but only after Athens was no longer able to raise funds by selling its bonds in the international markets, and even then at above-market rates, entirely obviating the point of the bailout. That is akin to offering a homeowner, who is about to default on a mortgage, a refinancing offer that equals or increases his mortgage rates above the rate he already cannot pay.

The proposal may very well push Athens to pursue an International Monetary Fund package independent of the eurozone, which could be the intention of Berlin perhaps looking to wash its hands of the entire problem.

Germany essentially has a limited window of opportunity in the next 10 years to make or break its leadership of the European Union and therefore its claim to global relevancy. Germany’s birth rate is lower than all of the major European powers that surround it (France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden), while its population is significantly older than that of Poland.

My complaints about Obama are not that he is too bipartisan or too centrist. I am at bottom a weak-tea Dewey-Eisenhower-Rockefeller social democrat – that is, with a small “s” and a small “d.” My complaints are that he is not technocratic enough, that he is pursuing the chimera of “bipartisanship” too far, and that, as a result, many of his policies will not work well, or at all.

the economic underpinnings of paper money are not nearly as important as the political underpinnings

The trouble with the euro is that it attempts to overlay a monetary dynamic on a geography that does not necessarily lend itself to a single economic or political “space.”

The Iranians have achieved a similar position. By far the weakest of the negotiators, they have created a dynamic whereby they are not only sitting across the table from the six most powerful countries in the world but are also, like the North Koreans, frequently being coaxed there.

If the United States withdraws from the region, Iran becomes the most powerful conventional power in the Persian Gulf, regardless of whether it has nuclear weapons.

Moscow faces a deeper-rooted problem than what must currently be done about Chechnya or Dagestan — and that problem is Russia’s inherent indefensibility and insecurity.

The mountainous terrain has bred ethnic groups like Chechens, Ingush and Dagestanis that have a warrior-like and clan-based mentality and are especially opposed to taking orders from Moscow.

The primary focus of the NPC this year will be launching the 12th Five Year Plan, the country’s comprehensive goals for 2011-15.

By this time next year, China will be in the thick of the leadership swap, and by 2013, a novice leadership will be in charge.

across the country there is a sense of rising dissatisfaction with social conditions that have not kept pace with economic improvements, and dismay at the threat of inflation.

She could not accept that people had different aesthetic tastes than her own. Her tastes were not only "objectively" better, but those with contrary tastes were lesser people.

The guns that flow southward along with the cash, according to the narrative, are largely responsible for Mexico’s violence. As one looks at other countries lying to the south of Mexico along the smuggling routes from South America to the United States, they too seem to suffer from the same maladies.

While the desert regions along the border do provide a bit of a buffer between the two countries — and between the Mexican core and its northern territories — there is no geological obstacle separating the two countries. Even the Rio Grande is not so grand, as the constant flow of illicit goods over it testifies.

In any democratic election, opposition parties always criticize the policies of the incumbent. This tactic is especially true when the country is involved in a long and costly war.

This strategy is what we are seeing now in Mexico with the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) criticizing the way the administration of Felipe Calderon, who belongs to the National Action Party (PAN), has prosecuted its war against the Mexican cartels.

All of the New World entities struggled to carve a modern nation and state out of the American continents. Brazil is an excellent case of how that struggle can be a difficult one. The United States falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Two vast oceans insulated the United States from Asian and European powers, deserts separate the United States from Mexico to the south, while lakes and forests separate the population centers in Canada from those in the United States.

A more penetrating look at the very slow recovery of the world’s largest economy points to systemic failure by the financial and political elites.

Can you put the last three years in perspective?

It’s not that it’s not soluble, in many of these countries, but you see it in a destabilization going on beneath the surface. In fact, the riots in London are kind of symptomatic of this, of the fact that some elements of society have lost such respect for the elites that they’re prepared to take extreme action.