European Union
Euroguns
My friend Charles Lane, a former New Republic editor with whom I've tangled in the past over income inequality, has a Washington Post column up today ("Europe's Role In U.S. Gun Culture") that everyone should read. READ MORE >>
Euroguns
Europe's 1960s protest movement sought to chart a path to political power in the interest of a socialist agenda—a “long march through the institutions” is what they called it. But in his street fighting days, it’s safe to say that Dany Cohn-Bendit, the former enfant terrible of 1968’s Paris May, never imagined where this march would deliver him: ensconced at the European Parliament in Brussels, at the very pinnacle of the European establishment. READ MORE >>
The Weimar Union
THE PUBLIC DISCUSSION of Europe’s economic crisis has carried a curious air of repression: When commentators have worried about worst-case scenarios—the scenarios that harken back to the dark moments in the Continent’s history—they have generally been dismissed as alarmist. READ MORE >>
Euroredemption
Spain vs. Ronaldo
Last year, the football editor of The Independent ran an article with a surprising headline: “Portugal ‘sells’ Ronaldo to Spain in £160m deal on national debt.” Less than ten days earlier, Portugal’s prime minister, José Sócrates, had resigned upon failing to enact a fourth round of austerity measures to make up a severe budget shortfall. READ MORE >>
‘As Long As I Live’
The frustrating, and damaging, thing about Angela Merkel’s leadership in the European economic crisis is that she has consistently preferred incremental steps, even at the risk of exacerbating instability across the continent. Now, in advance of this week’s highly-anticipated EU summit, it seems she’s finally taken a bold leap. The problem is it’s in the completely wrong direction. READ MORE >>
The Group of Debt: A TNR Bracket
The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, which got underway last week, has our football-obsessed staffers and friends excited for purely sporting reasons (check out our new blog, Goal Post, for ample evidence.) For rest of us, however, the continental soccer tournament is fascinating for the way it intersects with the world’s most important pending economic and political drama: the slow-motion collapse of the European Union. READ MORE >>
The Need to Lead
Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global PowerBy Zbigniew Brzezinski (Basic Books, 208 pp., $26) READ MORE >>
