On the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th attacks, America learned that the country’s ambassador in Libya had just been killed in the line of duty. On business in Benghazi, J. Christopher Stevens, two contract security men and an information specialist had sought refuge in a U.S. consular …
New Dawn Fades
“It’s just a movie”, we so often hear in response to any criticism of a film’s suggestive power over the mass psyche. Thus propaganda emanating from Hollywood is made to appear a harmless diversion rather than the agent of social …
Pleasure-Dome Police State
“We should expect tyranny to result from democracy, the most savage subjection from an excess of liberty”. -Plato, Republic, Book VIII, 564 a This December, as many Americans attended to their rituals of shopping, spectator sports and celebrity voyeurism, the 2012 fiscal …
This is Sin
“This is sin”, said a bloodied Muammar Gaddafi to his tormenters in a last moment of humiliation. “Do you know right from wrong?” After NATO airstrikes destroyed his convoy and forced him to flee on foot through Sirte, Libya’s deposed …
Dark Hero
Not in vain is Russia heir to the traditions of Byzantium; intrigue, secret diplomacy and espionage are integral to the Third Rome’s strategic culture. Over the past decade Vladimir Putin has proven a consummate practitioner of statecraft in this fashion, as well as an able …
Solzhenitsyn: Stolypin’s Murder
After a series of pogroms tore through Russia in 1886, the young philosopher Vladimir Soloviev would exercise his prophetic impulse. Neither a slave to social fashions nor a stranger to controversy, Soloviev was a friend to the Jews out of …
Counter-Subversion in Art
On Palm Sunday of this year Charles Martel, victor of Tours, could smile upon his descendants. A small band of Franks wielding hammers again rose in defense of the West. The action was local-scale and humble; there was no smashing of the Saracen …
Facing Terror
The January 24th terrorist bombing at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow serves as a reminder of why Russia throughout its history has dwelt in a state of mobilization. The vast spaces of the Eurasian heartland have concealed a wide array of adversaries, from Poland’s Winged Hussars and the Grande Armée to Turkic nomads and rebellious …
The Peace Bomber
In the last few months of 2010, the United States has intensified its air campaign over the Pashtun tribal lands that lie astride a mountainous and poorly defined Afghan-Pakistan border. In the course of 102 days, 58 strikes against Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives (as …
Dostoevsky on Conservatism
Fyodor Dostoevsky has rightly been called a prophet of the modern age. With a depth of vision unrivalled, he saw that cultural, political, and economic disorder have their main source in a crisis of the spirit. Dostoevsky then foresaw how …
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