Afghanistan, and a Lesson from History that Goes Unheeded
THE TELEGRAPH: Great leaders can see the bigger picture in times of conflict, says Irwin Stelzer

Reading Andrew Roberts's Masters and Commanders is a depressing experience. Not because of any flaws in this beautifully researched and wonderfully told tale of the Masters (Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) and Commanders (General George Marshall and Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, both chiefs of staff) who forged the strategy that won the Second World War. You leave this book unread this summer at peril to your understanding not only of the war, but of the relevance of that history to the policy decisions confronting whatever government British voters decide to trust with their fate at the next general election.

The baseball player Yogi Berra once famously said: "I came to a fork in the road and I took it." Britain's policymakers do not have the luxury of such choice-avoidance: nuclear-armed Pakistan is threatened by Afghanistan-based Taliban jihadists, Russia is on a roll, Islamic fanatics are threatening to continue terror attacks on our countries, British and American citizens are being trained in Afghanistan for suicide missions, Iran's mullahs are close to acquiring nuclear weapons, and North Korea is becoming the nuclear-arms supplier of choice for groups that wish to do us harm. In short, the threats Britain and America face might not be as visible as those presented by Hitler, but are in the long-run as dangerous to the survival of the West, especially because many are posed by non-state actors who do not have a "return address" should we seek to respond to any attack.

President Obama is sufficiently impressed with the danger posed by the Taliban to face down many in his own party and order a troop surge – though that Bushite word never passes the Obama lips – in Afghanistan. If this anti-Iraq war disciple of "soft power" feels the need to put 20,000 more American troops in harm's way, there surely must be good reason for concern. >>> Irwin Stelzer | Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Weimar 1923 May Have More Lessons than US 1932
THE TELEGRAPH: Are we heading for another Great Depression?

Many baffled forecasters are asking just that, and studying what the US did wrong after the stock market crashed in 1929. But the more relevant policy errors might have been those made earlier across the Atlantic - in Weimar Germany from 1919 to 1923.

Policymakers have learned from the US mistakes. This time around, there has been no shrinkage of the money supply and no repetition of President Hoover's increase in tariffs in 1930 and income taxes in 1932. On the contrary, money supply has expanded rapidly while fiscal policies have been expansionary and protectionism limited.

But look at the Weimar government. Suffering from the trauma of defeat in the First World War and the burden of reparations, it was too weak to raise taxes. It ran large budget deficits instead. Interest rates were kept far below the rate of inflation, while money supply expanded rapidly. About half of government expenditure was funded by newly printed money. >>> By Martin Hutchinson, breakingviews.com | Wednesday, April 1, 2009