Category Archives: Government

Politics: Foreign Affairs Magazine – July/Aug 2024

July/August 2024

Foreign Affairs (June 25, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Does America Need a New Foreign Policy?…

A Foreign Policy for the World as It Is

Biden and the Search for a New American Strategy

“America is back.” In the early days of his presidency, Joe Biden repeated those words as a starting point for his foreign policy. The phrase offered a bumper-sticker slogan to pivot away from Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership. It also suggested that the United States could reclaim its self-conception as a virtuous hegemon, that it could make the rules-based international order great again. Yet even though a return to competent normalcy was in order, the Biden administration’s mindset of restoration has occasionally struggled against the currents of our disordered times. An updated conception of U.S. leadership—one tailored

The Return of Peace Through Strength

Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy

Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin phrase that emerged in the fourth century that means “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The concept’s origin dates back even further, to the second-century Roman emperor Hadrian, to whom is attributed the axiom, “Peace through strength—or, failing that, peace through threat.”

America Is Losing the Arab World

And China Is Reaping the Benefits

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – August 2024

Magazine

REASON MAGAZINE (June 22, 2024)The latest issue features The Debt Lies We Tell Ourselves….

The Debt Lies We Tell Ourselves

Both parties—and the voters—are to blame for the national debt fiasco.

Child Welfare Systems Are Trapping Innocent Families

CPS1 | Photo: Courtesy of Tony Schulz

Georgia parents were accused of child abuse after they took their daughter to the doctor. Does the state’s story add up?

EMMA CAMP

Congress ‘Can Regulate Virtually Anything’

DRUGS | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson

How legislators learned to stop worrying about the constitutionality of federal drug and gun laws by abusing the Commerce Clause

JACOB SULLUM

The Afghan Allies Left Behind in the Graveyard of Empires

U.S. soldiers speak with Afghan locals | Photo: An Afghan interpreter translates a conversation between an American colonel and a local in Ghazni, Afghanistan; Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty

Thousands of people who helped the U.S. in Afghanistan are still looking for an escape.

FIONA HARRIGAN

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – July 2024

Reason magazine, July 2024 cover image

REASON MAGAZINE (May 23, 2024)The latest issue features ‘It Was A Very Safe City’ – Crime and homelessness in America...

Gimme Shelter

The U.S. confronts a growing homelessness problem. Does Miami have the answer?

What Caused the D.C. Crime Wave?

DC | Photo: Al Drago/The Washington Post/Getty

Government mismanagement, not sentencing reform or sparse social spending, deserves the blame.

JOE BISHOP-HENCHMAN

American Small Businesses Are Desperate for Foreign Workers

Seasonal businesses can’t get the short-term labor from abroad that they need.

FIONA HARRIGAN

Cutting Off Israel

Ending U.S. aid would give Washington less leverage in the Middle East. That’s why it’s worth doing.

MATT WELCH

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – June 2024

Reason magazine, June 2024 cover image

REASON MAGAZINE (March 21, 2024)The latest issue features ‘The AI Issue’

In the AI Economy, There Will Be Zero Percent Unemployment

AI developer Andrew Mayne explains why technology could create more jobs and lead to unprecedented economic growth.

The Future of AI Is Helping Us Discover the Past

An AI-generated image using the prompt, “Illustration of AI helping the study of history in the style of Da Vinci." | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson/Midjourney

Historical teaching and research are being revamped by AI.

VIRGINIA POSTREL

Will Antitrust Policy Smother the Power of AI?

An AI-generated image using the prompt, “Illustration of antitrust smothering the power of AI." | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson/Midjourney

Left alone, artificial intelligence could actually help small firms compete with tech giants.

PATRICK HEDGER

Politics: Foreign Affairs Magazine – May/June 2024

May/June 2024

Foreign Affairs (April 23, 2024): The latest issue features Can China Remake the World?; Russia’s Divergent Futures; Iran’s Winning Strategy…

China’s Alternative Order

And What America Should Learn From It

By Elizabeth Economy

By now, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition to remake the world is undeniable. He wants to dissolve Washington’s network of alliances and purge what he dismisses as “Western” values from international bodies. He wants to knock the U.S. dollar off its pedestal and eliminate Washington’s chokehold over critical technology. In his new multipolar order, global institutions and norms will be underpinned by Chinese notions of common security and economic development, Chinese values of state-determined political rights, and Chinese technology. China will no longer have to fight for leadership. Its centrality will be guaranteed.

No Substitute for Victory

America’s Competition With China Must Be Won, Not Managed

By Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – May 2024

Magazine

REASON MAGAZINE (March 21, 2024)The latest issue features ‘What If America Runs Out Of Bombs?’ – Due to overzealous interventionism, the U.S. is dispensing munitions faster than they can be replaced…

What if America Runs Out of Bombs?

An illustration of Uncle Sam as a PEZ dispenser, dispensing bombs | Photo: Julian Dufort; Wikimedia

The U.S. is dispensing munitions to Ukraine and Israel faster than they can be replaced.

By MATTHEW PETTI 

How Capitalism Beat Communism in Vietnam

Two photos illustrate Vietnam's progress over time | Photo: Hanoi, Vietnam, 1985; Christopher Pillitz/Gettya; Photo: Hanoi, Vietnam, 2020; Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty

It only took a generation to go from ration cards to exporting electronics.

RAINER ZITELMANN

Anti-Chinese Xenophobia Fueled America’s First Drug War

opium | Photo: An opium den in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, in 1898; REASON 31 Strohmeyer & Wyman/Library of Congress

Opium dens in San Francisco were patronized “by the vicious and the depraved,” politicians of the 1800s claimed.

JACOB SULLUM

Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – April 2024

Reason Magazine, April 2024 cover image

    REASON MAGAZINE (February 23, 2024)The latest issue features ‘Commander In Chains?’ – What if a Presidential Candidate ends up in jail, incapacitated, or worse – in office?…

    Commander in Chains: 7 Scenarios If Trump Is Jailed and Wins the Election

    An illustration of a person wearing handcuffs in an orange prison jumpsuit with a presidential seal | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson; Source image: Peter Dazeley/Getty

    There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents an inmate from winning the presidency.

    KEITH E. WHITTINGTON 

    Don’t Let E.U. Bureaucrats Design Americans’ Tech

    An illustration of the European Union flag mangled by a frayed phone charging cord | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson

    Some Democrats want to mimic the Europe’s policies on phone chargers and more.

    JENNIFER HUDDLESTON

    The Future of Immigration Is Privatization

    featurefionaimmigrants | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson; Source images: Clay Banks/Unsplash, PinkBadger/iStock

    New immigration pathways are letting private citizens welcome refugees and other migrants—and getting the government out of the way.

    FIONA HARRIGAN

    Views: Novelist Margaret Atwood On Democracy – “Is It Fragile Or Resilient?”

    Financial Times (January 17, 2024) – In a year in which more than half the world goes to the polls, acclaimed novelist Margaret Atwood asks whether democracy is fragile and easily destroyed or flexible and resilient.

    This animated monologue is the first of four films examining the state of government, representation, rights and freedom.

    Read more at https://www.ft.com/democracy

    Preview: Foreign Policy Magazine – Winter 2024

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    Foreign Policy Magazine – December 28, 2023: The new issue features ‘The Year The World Votes’ – Elections have consequences. What will happen when nearly half of the global population heads to the polls?

    The Promise and Peril of Geopolitics

    The world’s most dismal science could make Eurasia safe for illiberalism and predation—or protect it from those forces.

    By Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

    An illustration shows a stylized globe with a crack through it. A hand with a wrench tightens the screw atop the globe.

    Alexander Dugin is a bit of a madman. The Russian intellectual made headlines in the West in 2022, when his daughter was killed, apparently by Ukrainian operatives, in a Moscow car bombing likely meant for Dugin himself. Dugin would have been targeted because of his unapologetic, yearslong advocacy for a genocidal war of conquest in Ukraine. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” he screeched after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of that country in 2014, adding: “This is my opinion as a professor.” Even at his daughter’s funeral, Dugin stayed on message. Among her first words as an infant, he claimed, were “our empire.”

    Opinion & Politics: Reason Magazine – February 2024

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    REASON MAGAZINE (December 21, 2023)The latest issue features ‘The Conformity Gauntlet’ – How Universities use DEI Statements to Enforce Groupthink; The Post-Neoliberalism Moment; We Absolutely Do Not Need an FDA for AI, and more…

    Universities Use DEI Statements To Enforce Groupthink

    An illustration showing college graduates navigating a maze | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson

    DEI statements are political litmus tests, write Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott.

    The Post-Neoliberalism Moment

    An illustration of Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek | Illustration: Friedrich Hayek, Margaret Thatcher, and Milton Friedman; Joanna Andreasson REASON 27 Source images: Graphic Goods/Creative Market, Mosi/Fiverr

    Anyone advocating neoliberal policies is now persona non grata in Washington, D.C.

    DANIEL W. DREZNER

    We Absolutely Do Not Need an FDA for AI

    topicsfuture | Photo: @eshear/X

    If our best and brightest technologists and theorists are struggling to see the way forward for AI, what makes anyone think politicians are going to get there first?

    KATHERINE MANGU-WARD