4 Items

U.S. President John F. Kennedy, right, confers with his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at the White House on Oct. 1, 1962 during the buildup of military tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that became the Cuban missile crisis.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - The Atlantic

Why the President Needs a Council of Historians

| September 2016

We urge the next president to establish a White House Council of Historical Advisers. Historians made similar recommendations to Presidents Carter and Reagan during their administrations, but nothing ever came of these proposals. Operationally, the Council of Historical Advisers would mirror the Council of Economic Advisers, established after World War II. A chair and two additional members would be appointed by the president to full-time positions, and respond to assignments from him or her. They would be supported by a small professional staff and would be part of the Executive Office of the President.

The Peace Palace in The Hague - 100th Anniversary

AP Images

Analysis & Opinions - The National Interest

2014: Good Year for a Great War?

| January 1, 2014

Precisely a hundred years ago today, the richest man in the world sent New Year’s greetings to a thousand of the most influential leaders in the U.S. and Europe announcing: mission accomplished. “International Peace,” he proclaimed, “is to prevail through the Great Powers agreeing to settle their disputes by International Law, the pen thus proving mightier than the sword.”

....

As we enter 2014, war between great powers seems almost inconceivable. But if we start at the other end of the telescope by imagining that a Great War with some similarities to World War I actually happened, what could future historians find in current conditions that permitted events to ride mankind to another catastrophe?

"History will judge this meeting not in terms of resolution of specific issues but rather on whether the leaders begin a serious conversation about building a new type of relationship between the two superpowers that bridges their rivalries"

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Obama and Xi Must Think Broadly to Avoid a Classic Trap

| June 6, 2013

"As President Obama welcomes China’s new president, Xi Jinping, for an informal “shirt-sleeves” summit meeting in California on Friday, the bureaucracies of both governments must be quivering...

Let us hope that these two leaders will rise above their bureaucracies’ narrow goals to confront the overarching challenge facing the two most important nations in the world.

Simply put, can the United States and China escape Thucydides Trap?

Lee Kuan Yew visits the United States, 2002

Wikimedia Foundation

Analysis & Opinions - Forbes

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew Talks America's Strengths And Weaknesses

| February 13, 2013

Both in the United States and abroad, many influential observers argue that the U.S. is in systemic decline. Not so, says Lee Kuan Yew, the sage of Singapore. Lee is not only a student of the rise and fall of nations.  He is also the founder of modern Singapore. As prime minister from 1959 to 1990, he led its rise from a poor, small, corrupt port to a first-world city-state in just one generation.