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<p>Westinghouse Electric Co. must prove that the building it designed to shield its nuclear reactors can withstand natural disasters such as strong earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes before the reactors are approved for a Georgia power plant, a federal agency said yesterday.</p>

Doubts in White House on approach to N. Korea Though official policy is to pursue talks, some aides believe the focus should be on containment, to prevent the communist nation from selling nuclear know-how or parts. By Paul Richter July 14, 2009 Reporting from Washington -- American diplomatic efforts on North Korea are coming under fire within the Obama administration from officials who consider talks futile and instead want to focus on halting the regime's trade in nuclear weapons and missile equipment, U.S. officials said. The administration's official goal has been to coax the Pyongyang government back into the six-nation...

About 11:30 Central Time (History Channel) As my wife was sitting in our study grading papers I happened to walk in. On the TV was a show about the Vietnam war and it immediately struck me when some self proclaimed expert stated that the “Domino Theory” which was used as a justification for continuance of intervention was hand waved away and the pundit literally stated: “As we all know today, that didn’t occur.” Excuse me? Does this guy have a clue about what happened in Cambodia? What happened in Laos? Or who attacked Thailand? Who has naval bases in Vietnam...

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2007 – Lessons of the Cold War are important, because the same hatred that led to millions of people’s deaths during the 20th century is still at work today in the world, President Bush said today as the dedication of the new Victims of Communism memorial here. Bush lauded the new memorial in the U.S. capital as a lasting tribute to an estimated 100 million innocent men, women and children whose lives were cut short by imperial communism. They include innocent Ukrainians starved to death during Josef Stalin’s great famine, Russians killed in his purges, and...

The United States should build up military forces in Asia to counter China's military expansion, according to a report on U.S.-China relations by a blue-ribbon panel. "The United States should sustain and selectively enhance its force posture in East Asia, ensuring it has capabilities commensurate with the region's growing importance to the U.S. economy and other vital national interests," the report by a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations stated.

Two major public statements, coming less than a week apart, nicely capture the confusion besetting U.S. foreign policy these days. The first is the report of the Iraq Study Group, released on Dec. 6. In good old-fashioned "realist" style, the report offers nothing about how to promote democracy and human rights in the Middle East, focusing instead on the single-minded, amoral pursuit of the U.S. national interest. Just five days later, outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan delivered his valedictory address, imploring Americans to uphold human rights and the rule of law in prosecuting the war on terrorism -- idealism...

South Korea to expand mass cull to curb bird flu Thu Nov 30, 12:02 PM ET South Korea is to cull hundreds of thousands more chickens after its first bird flu outbreak for three years spread to a second poultry farm, officials said. Quarantine officials had originally begun culling poultry within 500 meters of the two infection sites on the outskirts of Iksan city, 230 kilometers (140 miles) south of Seoul. But the agriculture ministry decided at an emergency meeting Thursday to slaughter all poultry within three kilometers after the potentially deadly H5N1 virus was detected Tuesday at a second...

On October 5th, 1956 the top songs in the country included both sides of Elvis Presley's RCA 45rpm record ("Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel") as well as Doris Day's "Que Sera Sera." The Brooklyn Dodgers hosted the New York Yankees for Game 2 of the World Series at Ebbets Field. And a jury in Boston convicted the Brinks robbery suspects. This same day the United Nations Security Council met in New York to consider the Suez Canal matter. The long list of diplomats included Selwyn Lloyd, British Foreign Secretary, the French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau and America's Secretary of...

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was firmly committed to stopping Britain and France from going to war over the Suez Canal. Dulles himself started the cycle of events by cutting off a loan to Egypt for the Aswan Dam. The cutoff occurred because of increasingly close relationship Egypt had with the Soviets. Dulles knew Egypt would probably take the canal from the Anglo-French Suez Canal Company but figured a possible shutdown of the canal would not stop oil from reaching the United States or Europe because tankers could use alternate routes. United States foreign policy featured a lot of...

Anthony Eden held an emergency cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street into the early morning hours of July 27th, 1956. Eden told the American diplomatic representative at the meeting that "The Egyptian has his thumb on my windpipe. Tell Mr. Dulles I cannot allow that." Eden had promised that his deals with Nasser would make the Egyptian ruler more friendly. Seizure of the Anglo-French owned canal proved that promise wrong. He spoke that night by phone with the French Foreign Minister Pineau. The French were eager to work with their newfound friends in Israel to launch military action against Nasser...

Bill Engvale is a member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. For years he’s been doing a routine about stupid things that people say. Each example ends with the tag line, “Here’s your sign.” That means a big sign with STUPID written on it. Although geopolitics are not Bill’s metier, he offers a way to cut through the twaddle about the beginning of WW III. Let’s start with Howard Dean. (Remember him? He was in all the papers.) Dean cropped up today giving a fire-breathing speech to the faithful (and forlorn), screaming that we wouldn’t have these problems in the...

The Suez Canal crisis began with an American-led decision to deal with Soviet influence in Egypt. John Foster Dulles was part of "power family" in 1950's Washington. He was Secretary of State and his brother Allen was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Foster Dulles has been historically reviled for his profession of Christianity and his opposition to Communism. He was also attacked for his "brinksmanship" policy of using diplomatic pressure to deal with America's enemies as part of the official "containment" policy. I can't honestly comment on Dulles's Christianity but his verbal anti-Communism was real enough. However, it always...

"The sun never sets on the British Empire" was a cliche that rang true 100 years ago, but as the 20th Century unfolded Britain's power and influence declined. By 1945 an emotionally and economically drained nation picked up the pieces after World War II by electing the Labor Party to power. This was the first time that the Labor Party exercised real power and ruled on the basis of its socialist ideals. In foreign affairs, the Labor Party led the way in the process of decolonizing and getting Britain out of places where British rule was violently opposed like India...

The Arab nations vowed to "drive the Jews into the sea" when the United Nations partition plan for Palestine came into force in May 1948. But the new nation of Israel survived the onslaught with arms smuggled in from all kinds of places including Eastern Europe (Czech arms). Communists apparently saw some hope in Israel's Socialist founders. However, the Soviet's were able to spread Communist influence into Israel's Arab neighbors with ease by the middle of the 1950's with Syria and most notably Egypt. The flow of Soviet arms provided a sobering picture to Israel's leader David Ben Gurion. Israeli...

For many people including humanists who worhsipped France as a "modern secular state", the sudden fall of that nation to the Nazis came as a shock. When the German blitzkrieg took out France in little more than a month, many asked why. Treason from the Right was a common theme from liberals. France's conservative government was unwilling to fight Nazis as much as Communists and put many of them in jail when the war began in 1939. Historian-Journalist William L. Shirer also took note that the Left was unwilling to fight too because they were sympathetic to the Soviets, then...

History marks many anniversaries but this year marks the 50th Anniversary of events that showed how impotent the free world at that time was in the face of Communist expansion. It took the West time to regain moral and political strength to take on the relatively easy job of standing ground and seeing the Communist "Evil Empire" led by the Soviet Union collapse in Europe. Fortunately that happened in the 1980's. But in the 1950's the "Cold War" was in full swing. "Cold War" I guess because that the name the liberal elites in media, education, politics etc. have given...

AMERICANS will certainly have 9/11 in mind when they vote today. But they should keep another date in mind, too — one almost exactly a quarter-century ago: Nov. 4, 1979. A clear path runs to 9/11 from the day of the raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the seizure of American hostages. The 1979 embassy attack came at a time when the administration of President Jimmy Carter was trying to prop up the new Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Carter had decided to support Khomeini in the context of the so-called "Green Belt" strategy developed by National Security...

The Big Four Alliance The New Bush Strategy By Thomas Donnelly Posted: Friday, December 2, 2005 NATIONAL SECURITY OUTLOOK AEI Online   Publication Date: December 2, 2005   December 2005Over the past six months, the Bush administration has upgraded its budding “strategic partnerships” with India and Japan. Along with the steady "special relationship” with Great Britain, what is beginning to emerge is a global coalition system--it is too soon to call it a true alliance--for the post-Cold War world. Much work remains to be done to translate the expressions of similar political interests and values into usable military strength. Still,...

THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is scheduled this week to decide whether to refer Iran to the United Nations' Security Council for alleged violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran is making a last-minute effort to stall the decision, but it is already clear that the European strategy--carried out by Britain, France, and Germany--for dealing with Iran's clandestine quest for nuclear weapons has failed.The trio of E.U. nations had based their policy on three assumptions. The first was that Tehran was playing the nuclear issue merely for short-term political gains, to attract attention and...

There has been much discussion recently about how to "manage the rise of China." The phrase itself is soothing, implying gradualism, predictability and time. Time enough to think and prepare, to take measurements of China's trajectory and adjust as necessary. If China eventually emerges as a clear threat, there will be time to react. But meanwhile there is time enough not to overreact, to be watchful but patient and not to create self-fulfilling prophecies. If we prematurely treat China as an enemy, it is said, it will become an enemy. The idea that we can manage China's rise is comforting...