War and Foreign Policy

We are continually told that democracies guard against war. But that view abstracts from the U.S. imperial experience. James Ostrowski compares the rhetoric to the reality.

Harry Jaffa's new book on Lincoln overlooks the implications of a crucial fact: Some of the the most passionate opponents of forced political union were the radical abolitionists. Myles Kantor explains.

Think about it: a major motion-picture, "Enemy at the Gates," that dares to lump nazis and communists into one reprehensible leftist dung-heap. Lawrence Reed wonders if he is dreaming. 

While America Sleeps might better have been called While the Kagans Sleep. The book is divided into two parts: one on British foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s and another on American foreign policy in the 1990s.

Lincoln’s main objective was protectionism for Northern manufacturers and the creation of a massive spoils system, writes Thomas DiLorenzo

What causes an economic downturn? The business press keeps getting it painfully wrong, writes Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

While it did not make headway in this latest presidential campaign, events of the last year have weakened one of the longest-standing policies of the US government: the trade embargo with Cuba.

When, precisely, did a foreign power ever threaten to take it away? All threats to voting rights have been domestic, write Joseph Stromberg.

One of the pillars of an interventionist US foreign policy is foreign aid. Since World War II, the United States has dispensed billions of dollars in foreign aid to virtually every country on the planet. Foreign aid was lavished on our friends and our foes during the cold war and a decade after. It is extended to both sides of military conflicts. It is even accorded to countries that regularly vote against the US in the UN. The recipient countries are less likely to reform their economies once they get on the US dole.

Regulations don't consider that safety is not an absolute value that automatically trumps all others, writes Gene Callahan.