The Great Debate

A woman walking near the headquarters (L) of the Federal Security Service, in central Moscow, May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

In Moscow, they are “non-Soviet Russians.” In New Delhi, they are a “political Goliath” that may soon awake. In Beijing and São Paolo, they are lawyers and other professionals who complain about glacial government bureaucracies and endemic graft.

Prosperity is spreading in many emerging market nations, but political change is not.

Economic liberalization has sparked vast economic changes in the BRIC nations – China, India, Russia and Brazil. A middle class that was once made up of government servants is now dominated by private-sector employees.

At the same time, government institutions that once provided the basics of life – education, healthcare and employment – are crumbling. Frustrated members of the middle class are demanding change, but traditional power holders, from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to India’s large political parties, remain entrenched.

A man at a site recently hit by what activists said was a Scud missile in Aleppo’s Ard al-Hamra neighborhood, February 23, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman

Most of the international debate about Syria policy focuses on how to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power.

Options for NATO states and key Arab League partners include everything from enlisting Russia’s help in a diplomatic approach, with a conference now envisioned for early June, to arming the rebels to perhaps even supporting them with limited amounts of airpower. Removing Assad, however, would no more end the Syrian conflict than overthrowing Saddam Hussein in 2003 brought stability to Iraq. The United States must create a more integrated overall strategy.

French President Francois Hollande’s predicament is, oddly enough, akin to one Alice faced in Lewis Carroll’s 19th century classic.

A year after taking power, Hollande is buffeted by the lowest popularity of any modern Gallic leader, a record number of jobless, a recession and shriveled business investment – while still needing to cut his budget deficit to hit European targets.

The protagonist of Alice in Wonderland, meanwhile, confused by her strange encounters down a rabbit hole, meets the Queen of Hearts, who tells her: “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast as that.”

This essay is adapted from the author’s new book “Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America.”

Hard power. Soft power. Smart Power. Superpower. This is the language of foreign affairs, full of meaning but empty of measurement. Vagueness is, of course, purposeful in the hands of skilled diplomats and politicians, but it can signal shallowness, ignorance or worse. Lacking clear metrics for power, the U.S. national security establishment speculates about possible rivals while being led astray by trendy catchphrases.

The “emerging foreign power” is a rotating special guest in the narrative of the American century. That role was taken by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was filled by Japan for a decade and now stars China. Yet Beijing does not threaten to counterbalance U.S. power as gravely as America’s economy threatens to become unbalanced on its own.

We are witnessing the slow death of public opinion in this country.  It’s being displaced by party opinion.

These days, more and more Americans are inclined to judge issues from a partisan viewpoint.  In March, according to a Pew Research Center survey, twice as many Republicans (53 percent) as Democrats (27 percent) said the economy was poor.  Yet, from everything we know, Republicans are not suffering more economic deprivation than Democrats.

Elections today are less and less about persuasion and more and more about mobilization: You rally your supporters in order to beat back your opponents.  Republicans did that in 2004, when President George W. Bush got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote. Democrats did that in 2012, when President Barack Obama got re-elected with 51 percent of the vote.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with (clockwise, starting in top left.) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, British Prime Minister David Cameron, next Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. REUTERS/FILES

A string of leaders and senior emissaries, seeking to prevent further escalation of the Syria crisis, has headed to Moscow recently to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. First, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, then British Prime Minister David Cameron, next Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and now, most recently, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon These leaders see Russia as the key to resolving the Syria quandary.

But to get Russia to cooperate on any stabilization plan, the United States and its allies will have to take into account Russia’s significant interests in the Mediterranean region.

President Ronald Reagan (L), President George W. Bush (R, Top) and George H.W. Bush (R, Bottom) Reuters/Files

The hoopla over the new George W. Bush Library in Dallas, as well as some gauzy looks back penned by former aides, shows we are in the middle of “The Great Bush Revisionism.” The former president is being lauded and congratulated. But for what?

A new examination of Bushism may be helpful because the current scandals in Washington are the symptoms of too much power and too much arrogance.

Security worker opens the door of a government job center as people wait to enter in Marbella, Spain, December 2, 2011. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

In the nearly five years since the worst financial crash since the Great Depression, the remedy for the world’s economic doldrums has swung from full-on Keynesianism to unforgiving austerity and back.

The initial Keynesian response halted the collapse in economic activity. But it was soon met by borrowers’ remorse in the shape of paying down debt and raising taxes without delay. In the last year, full-throttle austerity has fallen out of favor with those charged with monitoring the world economy.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili (C) arrives at the Iranian Consulate before his meeting with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Istanbul May 15, 2013. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

On Wednesday, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, met one on one for their regularly scheduled diplomatic dance over Iran’s nuclear program – this time in Istanbul. A solution is about as likely to materialize from these discussions as a slow waltz between them.  Indeed, the two sides in Istanbul are reported to remain far apart.

The fundamental reason progress is unlikely now – and perhaps also after the Iranian presidential election on June 14 – is that the West has badly mishandled the nuclear issue since the early 1980s. Iran is also at fault.

Actress Angelina Jolie’s tattoos on her left arm show the latitude and longitude of the birthplaces of her children and her partner Brad Pitt, January 29, 2012. REUTERS/Mike Blake

We use that word so often: choice.

It has become the code word for abortion, alas, and thus a lightening rod for activists on both sides of that continuing battle. But this week Angelina Jolie redeemed the word and the idea behind it — that a woman has a right to choose what happens to her body, however tough that choice sometimes is.

The one she made — and announced in an stunning New York Times Op-Ed — to have a double prophylactic mastectomy was gutsy, and, as she herself wrote, “not easy” — though doctors told her that she was carrying a faulty gene that upped her chances of getting the disease that killed her mother to 87 percent.