The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program: Latest Articles

In August, President Obama laid out the rationale for stepping up the fight in Afghanistan: If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people. Obamas Af-Pak plan is, in essence, a countersanctuary strategy that denies safe havens to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, with the overriding goal of making America and its allies safer. Under Obama, the… more

There is a movement afoot to kill the Google Book Search deal. That's the settlement between Google, American publishers, and the Authors Guild to relaunch Google's book search, which would allow for new digital access to out-of-print books, free of legal problems. Microsoft warns that Google and America's publishers are "misusing the judicial system" to create a "monopoly in digital books." It is joined

On October 1, the People's Republic of China will mark its 60th anniversary with the largest military parade in its history. The ruling Communist Party is not commemorating 60 years of ideological stability and continuity, however, but a period of speedy change and dramatic reversals. 

In the first part of this two-part piece, I noted that the hot issue-within-an-issue for Washington health care wonks is "bending the curve" on health care costs--that is, reducing future increases.

Even Barack Obama is talking the "bend" talk. In an interview with The Washington Post in July, the president used the "b-word" no less than 11 times. In this particular passage, he said that he wants to "bend" the cost curve, not only for government expenditures, but also for private-sector expenditures: 

In early September, Colombia's biggest businesses surprised everyone by declaring their wholehearted support for the country's president, Alvaro Uribe, in his deepening conflict with Venezuela. If they lost the huge export market next door, well, that would simply be too bad.