"...[T]o believe that the market will maintain its current risk assessment forever is to believe in the power of magical thinking. The economic and political stakes are overwhelmingly in favor of drilling. The White House is pushing for domestic sources of energy. Alaska's elected and tribal leadership will gain much from taxes on new economic activity. And our foreign competitors near the Arctic circle — including Russia, which sent an oil tanker through the Arctic during in December — are ready to plunge into the cold."

"Fuel convoys are particularly subject to attack by hostile forces, and half of the Marines killed in Afghanistan and Iraq were supporting fuel transportation. Oil and water are the two commodities we import the most to the battlefield; the long line of a supply chain is a welcome mat for every IED and enemy. The biggest cost driver in the Pentagon's shrinking budget is oil; fuel increases in 2011 and 2012 cost the government an extra $3 billion."

"Assuming Shell finds oil this summer, it will be the polar version of the California gold rush. More people means more permanent housing, a bigger police presence, a new runway at the already stretched airport where two guys still throw luggage from the cargo bay into the airport lobby, an expanded Coast Guard facility, greater fiber-optic capacity. And maybe, hopefully, a road to somewhere, perhaps Fairbanks."

"With France as the unstated leader, the Mediterranean Union is also animated by a hope to stabilize the region, improve it economically and thus slow the flow of illegal Arab immigration, and provide an alternative to extremism and terrorism. A modern and open Libya, brought to the world by France, would be a major step toward a new European center of gravity, mainly France."

The "war on terror" has always been a misnomer. It assumes that the terrorist threat can somehow be "eradicated" through the mechanism of war — through military action using bombs, guns and bullets. War may be the short-term answer to an immediate threat; it is not the answer to the long-term crises.

Nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, has the government adequately protected its citizens against terrorism and catastrophic disaster?