At 9:30 a.m. on a sunny weekday, the phones at Candelia, a purveyor of sleek office furniture in Lille, France, rang steadily with orders from customers across the country and from Switzerland and Germany. A photocopier clacked rhythmically while more than a dozen workers processed sales, dealt with suppliers and arranged for desks and chairs …
Russia’s War Against Fracking in Europe
Covered here and here. It should surprise no one that Russia would do this, as realist theory predicts this behavior. Gazprom's profits need to be protected, after all, and those profits would not be protected if Europeans were allowed to engage in hydraulic fracking. But just because the allegations against Russia are not surprising does not mean that …
In which I Agree with James Stavridis
There are many reasons to support the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. One such reason is that Vladimir Putin cannot stand the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: President Barack Obama recently spent some quality time with leaders of Asian nations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing and again at the G20 Leaders summit, …
When It Comes to Punishing Russia, Our Options Are Limited
I know that economic sanctions are everyone's favorite way to punish Russia, and I allow for the possibility that over time, sanctions may well take a significant bite out of the Russian economy. But at best, sanctions are an imperfect and crude tool with which to coerce any nation-state, and when it comes to coercing …
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Now Angering Both Old and New Europe: Victoria Nuland
Remember when Donald Rumsfeld made a distinction between "old" and "new" Europe? Remember how undiplomatic it supposedly was? Remember how many people got upset as a consequence? Well, Victoria Nuland saw and raised the former secretary of defense: Germans were already smarting from revelations that U.S. intelligence listened in on the phone conversations of Chancellor …
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Of Kristallnacht and Modern Day Anti-Semitism
Kristallnacht occurred between November 9-10, 1938, so simple math tells us that we are commemorating its 75th anniversary this year. I'd like to think that we are light years away from anti-Semitism being worth mentioning, but silly claims like "anti-Semitism scarcely exists in the West" notwithstanding, there remain reasons to be concerned about how Jews are treated …
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THIS Is “Austerity”?
Paul Roderick Gregory begs to differ with the notion that Europe is in the grips of austerity:The Keynesian stimulus crowd blames austerity for the world’s economic woes without bothering to examine facts. I advise them first to consult my colleague at the German Institute for Economic Research (Georg Erber, I See Austerity Everywhere But in the …
Pejman Yousefzadeh 