John J. Tierney Jr.

Above: The political situation after the Congress of Vienna in June 1815. Preventing War If the main purpose of international organizations is to prevent war, the only one worth examining is the historic congress held in Vienna, Austria, 1814-1815. The others – League of Nations, United Nations – are worth examining only if one wants…

In 1992, after nearly a century of winning world wars and forging world orders, America finally gave up. In winning the presidency that year, the Governor of Arkansas campaigned on the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid.” With this motto on almost every poster and campaign circular, Bill Clinton rode to power against the grain of…

Overstretch The word “overstretch” first came to prominence in 1987 when Professor Paul Kennedy (Yale) defined it as the cause of great power decline in his book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. The theme was applied later by Professor Walter McDougall (Pennsylvania) in The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy (2016). It is no coincidence…

The title is taken from the third volume of Alistair Horne’s trilogy on French-German relations (wars) between 1870 and 1940. France lost two and won the middle (1918), but, in the last (1940), France, in effect, lost itself, i.e. its “country.” What does the loss of “country” imply and does it occur every time a…

Above: Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address Inaugurations Probably the most important speech ever given by any President of the United States was his first official one. While all the subsequent addresses, some in the thousands, related to situations, circumstances, and events, the Inaugural Address has an importance that is all its own. Not only does…

Guilt The quality of being “guilty” is a pervasive accusation, whether true or not, that can have a powerful effect on the behavior of anything so charged, be it individuals or nations. The precise definition of the term is “feelings of deserving blame for imagined offensives or from a sense of inadequacy.” Synonyms are “contrition,…

Boston On September 9, 1919, the Boston police force went on strike against what the police union called poor labor and wage conditions. The strike lasted five days and to this day represents the first and only organized police strike in American history. But considering the conditions in cities today, with calls for defunding and…

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Abraham Lincoln, 1858 Lincoln Lincoln first brought up the danger of “a house divided” when he announced it “cannot stand” in the 1858 Senate debate in Illinois. Although he was referring to slavery, the analogy is timeless and universal and has been proven accurate in countless situations,…

Words have meaning. To misuse a word or an expression may turn around the entire content of what one is trying to relate. Precision in language, written or vocal, is often scrutinized carefully so as not to convey a wrong impression. Political Words In world politics, examples of such confusion are legion. During the Cold…

Hope Presidents are prone to elevate their policies to the highest levels, using words, “great,” “new,” etc. to advertise how unique they are going to be in the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy introduced us to a “New Deal” and “New Frontier,” respectively, and now Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (AOC to us) has added…