How U.S. Can Compete With China in Latin America
Against the siren song of Beijing’s seductive statism, and Latin America’s turn to unpromising government-led solutions, the Biden administration’s emphasis on democracy, however laudable, is not enough.
U.S. intellectual leadership in Latin America, and against mounting challenges to the Western-led global order more broadly, requires a return to first principles. That includes a focus on the fundamental nature of the private sector, coupled with effective rule-of-law, to collectively enable the prosperity and protection of individual rights and freedoms that makes true democracy viable.
The key for the United States in maintaining a secure and prosperous Western Hemisphere for all, and in effectively responding to the global China threat, is not to outbid China with gifts, but to show a new generation the merit of putting private, not government, initiative at the core of its sovereign national strategies and policies, and to make those same good choices itself.
~ READ MORE HERE (National Defense) ~
Japan’s Shift To War Footing
Throughout the Cold War, the United States and Japan focused on the threat from the Soviet Union, but with tensions increasing around Taiwan, Tokyo has turned to its south, adopting principles that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed for before his death.
This week’s events are the latest in this trend, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington marks a significant change in the U.S.-Japan alliance. For the first time in decades, Tokyo and Washington are seriously preparing for the possibility of a major conflict in the near term. As Japan’s new National Security Strategy warns: “The possibility cannot be precluded that a serious situation may arise in the future in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in East Asia.” Yesterday, alliance leaders announced a set of defense posture changes, updated command relationships and new training arrangements. In short, the U.S.-Japan alliance is shifting to a war footing.
~ READ MORE HERE (War On The Rocks) ~
Putin’s Plan to Freeze Europe Has Failed
Threatening Europe with a freezing winter without Russian gas was precisely the Kremlin’s plan to prevent NATO from coming to the aid of Ukraine. But instead of rolling power cuts, factory shutdowns, mass protests and economic collapse, Europe’s midwinter gas prices last week fell to pre-war levels. Germany’s gas storage facilities – by far the largest on the continent – were more than 90 per cent full, a near historical high for the time of year. The US now supplies 30 per cent of the continent’s gas via liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments.
What happened?
~ READ MORE HERE (The Spectator) ~ |
