Category: Foreign policy

Saving our free society

The vast majority of every new generation want to make society a better place. They support policies that they believe will contribute to making society fairer and “nicer.” As they age their altruism may tilt toward self-enrichment and self-protection at the expense of fairness (cronyism), but initially their motives are pure. The key issue is what policies they believe will help make society a better place. “The-search-of-purpose-nature-and-nurture-genes-and-culture”

We can be thankful that American voters in throwing out a dishonest, divisive, egomaniac didn’t endorse the socialist wing of the Democratic Party.  We seem to have moved back to the broad center.  “Dan Mitchell–a victory for Biden-a defeat for the left”  It is hard to know where to look for and find the truth today, and our society will suffer because of that.  But as we review and debate the policy proposals of a Biden administration, we must remember that we are all looking for the truth about what will make our society better (fairer, freer, and more virtuous).  We must listen to each other’s concerns and carefully evaluate each other’s proposals. But we have a duty to ourselves and our neighbors to study history for what has worked and what hasn’t and to do our best to understand why limited government and maximum reliance on our own decisions and the decisions of our neighbors is the best framework in which to help make society better.

The growing number of today’s youth who look favorably at socialism (whatever they understand that to be) is worrying because it reflects an incorrect assessment of what socialism has always delivered. To today’s youth: If you really care about making society better, take the time to study the history of socialism and learn why it failed and is bound to fail and why societies that are freer and law abiding are both more virtuous and more prosperous. “Socialism-as-seen-by-millennials”

Is Huawei a Security Risk?

This question is quite beyond my technical competence to answer.  Even the experts disagree amongst themselves.  President Trump thinks it is too risky to use Huawei equipment and insists that Britain and our other allies not use Huawei equipment for building out their 5G telephone infrastructures. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson thinks its OK (plus it is available and cheaper than its potential future competitors) for many but not all uses.  President Trump, who likes to think he is protecting American jobs even though our economy is fully employed, was so angry at Johnson’s unwillingness to bow to his demands that he hung up on Johnson in their most recent phone conversation.  Johnson promptly cancelled his planned trip to the White House. Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky, must be shaking his head in disbelief.

Trump has reason to be suspicious of foreign produced equipment following the recent disclosure that a CIA owned Swiss company, Crypto AG, sold encryption devises to 120 countries that enabled the U.S. and Germany to “easily break the codes that countries used to send encrypted messages.”  This went on for over 40 years allowing us to spy on our friends and foes alike. “National-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage”

But these days security is much more sophisticated and wouldn’t allow such hardware to slip through undetected. On the other hand, the spying technology is more sophisticated too. Britain and other European countries are avoiding Huawei equipment for sensitive applications and using it for the rest. My point is not to join the debate over whether and where to use Huawei equipment but rather to argue that the more promising approach to convincing our friends of potential dangers (the more Adult approach, if I may) is to present our evidence and endeavor to convince them of our views. Trump’s approach, as in so many other areas, is to threaten and bully. “The-basis-of-American-world-leadership”

It is not easy to determine when trade restrictions reflect genuine security concerns and when they are just another manifestation of Trump’s protectionist, central planning direction of our resources.  He has imposed and threatened to impose tariffs with abandon, inflicting harm on our own economy as well as the tariffs’ targets. “Trumps-recent-trade-moves-show-adversarial-approach-has-only-just-begun”  “The United States has also threatened duties of up to 100% on French goods, from champagne to handbags, because of a digital services tax that Washington says harms U.S. tech companies.”  “Trump-threatens-big-tariffs-on-car-imports-from-EU”  This use of tariffs has nothing to do with trade and violates WTO rules, which Trump seems to pay little attention to in any event.

While this type of bully approach might work sometimes, it is unsustainable in the long run.  Needless to say, world confidence in the U.S. to do the right thing has plummeted. While for now other countries bow to and follow orders from the U.S., not out of respect but out of fear of retaliation, they follow a strategic waiting game. They know that Trump will not always be in power. And after he is gone, the U.S. will no longer have allies but adversaries ready to bare their claws for revenge.  https://www”9-charts-on-how-the-world-sees-Trump”