Free Republic

HEADLINE: CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; How Books Have Shaped U.S. Policy BYLINE: By MICHIKO KAKUTANI BODY: President Bush has never been known as a bookworm. An instinctive politician who goes with his gut, he has usually left the heavy reading in the family to his wife, Laura, a former librarian. He is "often uncurious and as a result ill informed," his former speechwriter, David Frum, wrote in a memoir this year, adding that "conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House." It is curious then that books by historians, philosophers and policy analysts have played a significant role in shaping...

Francis Fukuyama shocked the world with his 'End of History' thesis that the market would take over the role of mighty nations. But 9/11 changed all that. Now, in this exclusive article, the world's foremost economic philosopher argues that our very survival depends on stronger government The death of Ronald Reagan last month and the moving tribute paid to him by Margaret Thatcher remind us that we still live in their shadow, in an era in which the chief impulse of politics has been to reduce the size of the state. That agenda was critical in its time, for it...

Q. What are your expectations for the next US presidential elections? A. I think George W Bush could lose the November elections because he is going to be faced with a lot of disadvantages. For example, if Iraq continues to be a big mess by the time of the elections it could cost him the White House. Q. Do you trust John Kerry? A. Not particularly. I do not know for whom I am going to vote this time around.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, and Francis Fukuyama come together to discuss the end of history in Israel. Tel Aviv FAMOUSLY, Zionism founding father Theodor Herzl proclaimed that the aim of the Jewish state should be to permit Jews to live as a nation like other all other nations. A century later, contradicting his hopes in ways that might have made Herzl proud, Israel continues to distinguish itself. Witness the remarkable gathering of 1,200 Israelis at Tel Aviv University last Monday evening, along with foreign diplomats, from, among other countries, Switzerland, South Africa, Guyana, and Egypt. Under the auspices of the...

Fifteen years after his controversial end-of-history thesis celebrated liberalism's victory over communism, political thinker Francis Fukuyama probes terror's challenge to the world. Many and varied are the critics of US policy in Iraq - both of Washington's decision to go to war, and the way the US has handled matters since "victory" was declared. What makes Francis Fukuyama's criticism of the US policy different - a policy heavily influenced in the Pentagon and White House by such neo-conservatives as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Lewis Libby, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams - is that Fukuyama is a fellow "neocon."...

he transformation of George W. Bush from a presidential candidate opposed to nation-building into a President committed to writing the history of an entire troubled part of the world is one of the most dramatic illustrations we have of how the September 11 terrorist attacks changed American politics. Under Bush's presidency the United States has taken responsibility for the stability and political development of two Muslim countries—Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot now rides on our ability not just to win wars but to help create self-sustaining democratic political institutions and robust market-oriented economies, and not only in these two countries...

<p>We have seen demonstrations all over Europe and the Middle East to protest the French government's proposed prohibition of Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in public schools. This ban is part of a larger struggle taking place throughout Europe over the continent's cultural identity. France and other European countries are host to Muslim minorities that constitute upward of 10% of their populations, minorities that are becoming increasingly active politically. European Muslims are primarily responsible for the rise in anti-Semitic incidents over the past three years, and their perceptions heavily color European media reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This demographic shift has already affected foreign policy: the French government's stance against the Iraq war and U.S. foreign policy more generally seeks in part to appease Muslim opinion.</p>

A new ideological challenge to liberal democracy 'transnational progressivism' is emerging from inside rather than outside Western civilisation. Three weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States, Francis Fukuyama stated in an article in the Wall Street Journal that his 'end of history' thesis1 remained valid 12 years after he first presented it, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fukuyama's core argument was that after the defeat of communism and National Socialism, no serious ideological competitor to Western-style liberal democracy was likely to emerge in the future. Thus, in terms of political philosophy, liberal democracy is...

Writing as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Francis Fukuyama famously announced the “End of History.” The world, he argued, was fast approaching the final stage of its political evolution. Western democratic capitalism had proved itself superior to all its historical rivals and now would find acceptance across the globe. Here were the communist regimes dropping into the dustbin of history, Fukuyama noted, while dictatorships and statist economies in Asia and South America were toppling too. A new world consumer class was evolving, leaving behind such retrograde notions as nationhood and national honor. As a result, war would grow rare...

<p>After enduring criticism from much of the world for embarking on Operation Iraqi Freedom, Americans have been justly celebrating the downfall of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and the fact that the war was neither as protracted nor as morally ambiguous as many had feared. Once again the U.S. military has shown itself to be the best in the world by any conceivable measure.</p>

Democracy in Arabia An unexpected home. By Amir Taheri When Iraq's opposition leaders gathered last month to discuss the future of their country, one of the few words they agreed on wasn't even of Arab origin. The word is dimuqratiah (democracy) which was first introduced to the Arabic political lexicon in the mid-19th century as the Nahda (Awakening) movement spread in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The word had entered other Islamic languages, including Persian and Turkish, slightly earlier in the form of demokrasi. It was the magic word that inspired the constitutional movements in the Ottoman Empire...

How could someone seriously be in favor of early death, disease, and disability? Ask Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and author of Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. "Early death, disease, disability: pro or con?" is how Fukuyama characterized what was at stake in our recent debate on the ethics of dramatically extending human lifespans. (The debate was sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Alliance for Aging Research in Washington, D.C., as part of their Science of Aging Crossroads policy forum....

VH1's upcoming special, One Hit Wonders, calls to mind popular tunes by long-forgotten artists known only for one song (link2). Who can forget catchy hits like "99 Luftballoons" by Nena, "Tainted Love" (Soft Cell), "Play That Funky Music" (Wild Cherry), and "Hot Child In The City" (Nick Gilder)? But try to name another song by these groups, and you’ll be stumped. But – how's this for a segue? – one-hit wonders are not restricted to the world of pop. They populate the neocon world too, though their hits are not as memorable. Case in point is Francis Fukuyama, the obscure...

Libertarian Thought at the Dawn of the Third Millennium: A Reply to Fukuyama by David DietemanOn May 2, 2002, "libertarianism" mistakenly appeared in a rather official-sounding obituary.Francis Fukuyama, who has previously written of "the end of history" (it was quite some time ago), now claims that: the liberal revolution of the 1980s and ‘90s, having morphed from classical liberalism to libertarianism, [has] crested and now [is] on the defensive. Today, the 103rd anniversary of the birth of Nobel prize-winning Austrian economist F.A. Hayek, it must be observed that Professor Fukuyama is completely wrong.Like the silver-tongued Saruman in Tolkien’s Lord of...

<p>Sept. 11 might have also brought down a political movement.</p> <p>The great free-market revolution that began with the coming to power of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan at the close of the 1970s has finally reached its Thermidor, or point of reversal. Like the French evolution, it derived its energy from a simple idea of liberty, to wit, that the modern welfare state had grown toolarge, and that individuals were excessively regulated. The truth of this idea was vindicated by the sudden and unexpected collapse of Communism in 1989, as well as by the performance of the American and British economies in the 1990s.</p>

It Could Have Been the German Century by Francis Fukuyama My nominee for man of the century is considerably less well known than Time's choice, Albert Einstein, even though his actions arguably left a much greater imprint on the century. He is Alexander von Kluck, the hapless general commanding the German First Army as it swung around the French right while dashing toward Paris in September 1914. The French line miraculously held, and von Kluck lost the first battle of the Marne. The German drive was stalemated, and the two sides then settled down for four horrible years of trench...