Why do writers chronicling the Asian rise ignore Europe? Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, asked Kishore Mahbubani why he practically ignored Europe in his book The New Asian Hemisphere. Mahbubani is a former Singaporean diplomat and leading intellect articulating the “Asian view” and he does discuss Europe, primarily to attack the EU’s failures in the Balkans and continuing poor treatment of Turkey in EU accession negotiations. These are legitimate criticisms and the EU is no fount of perfection. Yet, Mahbubani and other articulators of the Asian transformation story, joined with American skeptics of Europe in characterizing it as sclerotic, aging, slow and overregulated.

American progressives might take home an important political lesson from Margaret Thatcher.

The Iron Lady was swept into office in 1979 in circumstances not unlike our own.  Following a period of economic turmoil under the leadership of the opposition party, Thatcher was able to reshape Britain’s basic economic philosophy to a degree that US progressives could only hope to attain.

But is it REALLY that complicated?  (Post coming soon…)