Originally published on June 1, 2020
From the Hill:
What Coronavirus Reveals About Securing Encryption Backdoors
Ultimately, our government’s efforts to secure encryption backdoors undermines U.S. credibility. We are certain to learn many lessons as a result of this pandemic—and the fundamental importance of encryption to protecting our digital society should be one of them.
—Michael V. Hayden
From the Washington Post:
Trump’s Purge of Inspectors General Is Alarming. His Replacements May Be Worse.
Appointing an official to investigate an agency while still reporting to that agency head presents a huge conflict of interest and runs contrary to the rule of law. It should be explicitly barred. These officials will also be privy to confidential information and the complaints and identities of whistleblowers. This is disturbing and could leave whistleblowers afraid to come forward if they witness wrongdoing.
—David C. Williams
From the Houston Chronicle:
Opinion: Michael Moore Documentary ‘Planet of the Humans’ Unveils Flaws with Renewable Energy
The complications presented in the film should resuscitate climate justice in reality, demonstrating the need for a more holistic understanding of environmental problems. Only celebrating green capitalism could renew the present or existing level of harm against our planet, and kill any possibility of restoring ecological balance with our environment.
—Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Alexander Dunlap
From the Washington Post:
The End of Life as We Know It? Get Real.
There is, of course, a germ of truth and a measure of logic behind many of these prognostications, alongside the rampant myopia and overreach. But if history is any guide, once a vaccine has been found and the economic storm has passed, life will return pretty much to the way it was before.
—Steven Pearlstein
From the Hill:
The United States Needs the World Trade Organization
Short of this, it has sabotaged the very WTO dispute settlement system that the United States designed. The main motivation here seems to be not practical but ideological, a loathing of all things multilateral. This blindly nationalistic posture risks undermining the actual economic interests of the United States, representing a self-inflicted, commercial wound.
—Kenneth A. Reinert
From War on the Rocks:
No Sure Victory: The Marines’ New Force Design Plan and the Politics of Implementation
What can Berger do to ensure that his transformation of the Marine Corps will succeed? To be blunt, the commandant needs a campaign plan to circumvent, neutralize, or defeat those inside and outside the organization that oppose his vision for the Marine Corps. Ideally, he should have had such a plan in place before publicly announcing his intentions. Nevertheless, a belated effort is better than no campaign at all.
—Matthew Fay and Michael Hunzeker
From the Washington Post:
Northam Stumbles Through a Crisis That Should Have Made Him a Rock Star
Northam’s medical training uniquely positioned him for confident, assertive and sure-footed leadership of Virginia in the defining crisis of our time. But his stewardship has been marked by confusion, halting half-measures, questions about whether testing data were fudged to begin a reopening early and a bewildering resistance to providing timely, essential information to an anxious public.
—Mark J. Rozell
From the Atlantic Council:
Has Moscow Really Turned Against Assad?
Finally, if Putin decided that he could oust Assad and successfully replace him with someone beholden to Moscow, he would certainly not alert Assad and the rest of the world that he was contemplating this by unnecessarily allowing the Russian press to criticize Assad. As he showed with his sudden moves into Georgia in 2008, Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, and Syria in 2015, Putin likes his surprise attacks to actually be surprises.
—Mark N. Katz
From the Hill:
COVID-19 and the Future of North American Borders
The worst-case scenario would be an extended or even permanent partial to total closure of the continent’s borders that would include Trump’s border wall, a halt on legal and irregular immigration in the three countries and a renegotiation of the USMCA. This could happen if the deaths from COVID-19 continue to spiral exponentially, particularly in the developing countries of the Americas or if a second wave of the disease follows the reopening of the world economy.
—Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Victor Konrad (Carlton University)
From Jagran News (India; in Hindi):
First Step to End Lockdown: Need for a Fiscal Stimulus
While the sustainability of a higher deficit is an important consideration, we have to realize that an absence of fiscal stimulus can condemn the economy to a gloomy expectations trap with protracted stagnation. This is the rationale behind decisive and massive fiscal expansions in the U.S., the U.K. and across EU countries.
—Maurice Kugler and Shakti Sinha
From the Hill:
Trump’s Strategy to Stay in Office
If no candidate wins a majority of the electoral vote, we have what is called a “contingent election” for president. That has happened only once before, in 1824. The House of Representatives would choose the president from the top three candidates in the electoral college vote. And get this: Each state would have one vote.
—Bill Schneider
From the Hill:
Ideologues Versus Pragmatists in the Fight Against COVID-19
Conservative ideologues argue that big government policies like bailouts and mandated social distancing can’t possibly work because they give government too much power. And that’s always wrong.
—Bill Schneider
From Responsible Statecraft:
Is Putin Really Not Worried About a Rising China?
But being the hard-headed realist that he is, Putin must surely see that China has been growing more and more powerful economically while Russia has been stagnating, and that China’s greater economic strength as well as population size could soon result in Beijing becoming stronger than Moscow militarily.
—Mark N. Katz