Sovereignty Solution

The strategic end state is to now allow the Afghans to take over and ‘fix’ Afghanistan into whatever they want: republic, autocracy, or unending civil war.  The Afghans have a constitution, a seated government, and a national defense force.  What sovereignty dictates is that they control their own destiny domestically.  What we owe the state […]

The three of us who have written this book believe there are at least six reasons why what we propose is a more viable strategy than any we are familiar with – with the caveat that sovereignty may be only a stopgap as the world shakes out, although it should also prove sufficient to shake […]

In a Sovereignty Rules world, the United States would not engage in the same sorts of behavior that anger so many people today.  We would not imprison people in other countries.  We would not indefinitely ‘detain.’  Nor would we occupy.  But also… if no one can ever be sure what won’t happen, then we need […]

Some level of international cooperation and adjudication will always be required to ensure shipping lanes remain clear; air traffic corridors are safely administered; the mail gets from point A to point B; and sensible rules are in place for currency exchange, banking, standardized weights and measures, and so on.  Because these things do not impede […]

We need to remember that others’ values matter to them just as much as ours do to us.  So long as our sovereignty is not threatened, or attacked, what difference do our differences make?  In the twenty-first century, this is no longer a libertarian question: instead, it goes to the heart of why we have […]

Academics can quibble over how exceptional America may or may not be.  But ask most Americans – or most people, period – and among the things that distinguish us is the unique nature of our government as well as our identity. By being much more forthright about which specific values we Americans adhere to, we […]

The United States has issued formal Declarations of War eleven times and has followed each declaration with a victory.  Not a single Declaration of War has been issued in the past sixty years, yet the United States has pursued political objectives through military force almost continuously.  The correlation should be striking.  Declarations of War appear […]

[Here]… we add another plank to the “if…then” logic that lies at the heart of our argument: If the only way to put responsibility back into the sovereignty equation is to hold other governments accountable for anything and everything that crosses their borders, then that means that any government that has harbored, given a passport […]

Not only is the world today carved up among 192 countries, but one of the most under-appreciated realities of modern existence is that there is not a space on the planet that does not nominally belong to a government somewhere.  Nor is there a government that does not want to be taken seriously and treated […]

One premise of this book is that we Americans are already more divided than most of us might care to imagine, although not necessarily in the ways that some might believe.  Yes, we belong to different classes and hail from different regions.  We come at problems with differing levels of education.  Race and ethnicity make […]