Global Paradigms

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/did-trotsky-tweet/ Did Trotsky Tweet? Share| The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov, PublicAffairs, 408 pages By Leon Hadar | April 5, 2011 Published just a month before Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak was deposed in an Internet-boosted revolt, The Net Delusion might seem a singularly untimely book. But for that reason, it is all the more provocative. Its author, Belarus-born American scholar Evgeny Morozov, set out to challenge the conventional wisdom about the Internet: the notion that social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are becoming agents of political change and can help topple authoritarian regimes in countries like, say, Egypt. Not so, argues Morozov, who is skeptical that cyberspace is conducive to democracy and liberty. He dumps into the recycle bin the Friedmanite axiom—Tom, that is, not Milton—that no government will be able to crush the Internet’s libertarian spirit, an idea first enunciated by John Perry...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/obama-middle-east_b_845030.html Leon T. HadarJournalist and foreign affairs analyst Muddling Through in the Middle East Is Not a Substitute for Strategy Posted: 04/ 5/11 04:03 PM ET President Barack Obama's response to Libya's civil strife has been hailed as a model of foreign-policy pragmatism. Based on lucid cost-benefit analysis of U.S. interests and values and the resources available to advance them, Obama decided on a "time-limited, scope-limited military action" aimed at averting massacre of civilians in Libya. There was something refreshing about a U.S. president insisting that the intervention in Libya wasn't the prelude to the making of a grand strategy or to the launching of a new ideological crusade. In contrast to his predecessor, Obama was not trying to remake the Middle East or even pretend that Washington could control developments there. Instead, Obama was going to make his decisions case by case, evaluati...