'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Hybrid warfare is a relatively new term. I think it was coined by Frank Hoffman when he was working at the Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities. Rather than use any set definition, I will lay out what hybrid warfare seems to mean to many of the essay authors in this important and often entertaining book. I think the editors are correct in their contention that hybrid war may be the face of the future.
The clash of economic ideas perhaps has never been this bitter. The possible breakup of the eurozone may bring Europe into uncharted waters, but the debate over the future of the Continent is shaped by ideas that are at least a century old: restraint in public finance versus economic stimulus.
Did you know that in Denmark, the poorest 30 percent pay 14.1 percent of all taxes and the richest pay 48.7 percent, while in the United States, the poorest 30 percent pay just 6.1 percent of all taxes and the richest 30 percent pay a whopping 65.3 percent? The surprising thing is not that the richest pay most of the taxes but that the U.S. has nearly the most progressive tax system in the world, while the Scandinavian countries have about the least progressive tax systems, contrary to commonly held belief.
Ever since the 1960s, revisionist historians and religious leaders have condemned President Harry S. Truman's use of the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan in August 1945.
Climate change isn't a threat. CO2 isn't a significant factor. But the action we're proposing to take on climate mitigation will devastate our Western economies and impoverish a whole generation.
Remember when we heard that if only our leaders had known how to "connect the dots," the September 11 attacks could have been prevented? After nearly six years without a similar attack, the government has learned much about detecting the outlines of jihadist terror plots before they take shape. As a result, and after all the aggravations and humiliations of what I still hope are temporary safety procedures, our security has remained essentially intact. But can we say the same thing about our freedoms?
How will we lose the war against "radical Islam"? Well, it won't be in a tank battle. Or in the Sunni Triangle or the caves of Bora Bora. It won't be because terrorists fly three jets into the Oval Office, Buckingham Palace and the Basilica of St. Peter's on the same Tuesday morning.
