Out of Four, One? Why Germany’s “Impossible” Coalition Just Might Work
“Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” So wrote Lampedusa in The Leopard about a Sicilian aristocracy coping with revolutions in nineteenth century Italy. But this phrase …
Voting for the Eurozone on September 24th
The German elections are just over two weeks away on September 24. Chancellor Angela Merkel is nearly certain to be reelected to a fourth term, so the main unknown surrounds …
Two Cheers for the House Russia Sanctions
Energy policy is the geoeconomic tool par excellence. Whether it is the OPEC oil embargoes of the 1970s, the subsequent creation of the International Energy Agency by Western consuming nations, …
Germany’s Number 1 Task: Renew the Global Economic Order
The most important contribution the new German Federal Government can make is to support and reform the global economic order that has been responsible for 70 years of peace and …
A Tale of Two Communiqués
During Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to China, the U.S. president reportedly asked Premier Zhou Enlai what he thought about the impact of the French Revolution on history, to which …
Polls, Parties, Politics: Elections 2017
AGI ProjectWill Globalization’s Third Phase Be Like Its First?
During the world’s first phase of globalization before World War I, I had a great-grandfather who was a cigarette manufacturer in Czarist Russia. He traveled regularly to Turkey to purchase …
Companies Compete. Countries Pursue Their Interests. That’s a Big Difference.
If it becomes a new White House mantra, a key paragraph that appeared in an op-ed by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council chief Gary Cohn in …
John Kennedy and Illiberalism
May 29 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Kennedy may be well known not only to Germans, …
A Geoeconomic Agenda: Transatlantic Strategy in an Age of Populism
Issue Brief 56 In the face of growing challenges to an open, rules-based global economic order, there is a need to identify new ideas and narratives about the importance of …
Pragmatic France Elects a Reformer
There is an old story about the serious French thinker who, when presented with a common-sense solution to a problem, will find fault by retorting that the idea “works in …
Fixing Trade Rules—Or Fixing Trade Deficits?
In international relations, a distinction is often drawn between the “realist” school that bases decision-making on an objective calculation of national interests, and an “idealist” school that emphasizes principles such …