Free Republic

Take a look around the world and it’s hard not to conclude that the United States is a superpower in decline. Whether in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East, aspiring powers are flexing their muscles, ignoring Washington’s dictates, or actively combating them. Russia refuses to curtail its support for armed separatists in Ukraine; China refuses to abandon its base-building endeavors in the South China Sea; Saudi Arabia refuses to endorse the U.S.-brokered nuclear deal with Iran; the Islamic State movement (ISIS) refuses to capitulate in the face of U.S. airpower. What is a declining superpower supposed to do in the...

"..........This systematic pusillanimity is not a new phenomenon. Other examples: the refusal by the Obama administration to criticize the Iranian regime when it put down the “Green Revolution” in 2009; the administration’s eagerness to “reset” relations with an increasingly hostile Russia; its secret negotiations with the Taliban even as the group continued its attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; the refusal to meet with any Egyptian opposition groups other than the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama is hardly the first president to seek rapprochement with our adversaries and reconciliation with our enemies, of course. But his determination to make nice—even in the...

A hacker or an “angry” employee has overtaken the official NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Twitter account to re-tweet rants against US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “@NASAJPL Why are you re-tweeing anti-Romney Tweets?” a Twitter user wrote in response. Shortly after, the culprit started to delete the tweets, but at that point, Twitter was already buzzing because NASA was apparently getting very involved in politics. “Items retweeted this evening were not intended nor approved for this account. They do not in any way represent the views of NASAJPL,” NASA JPL representatives wrote after regaining the account. They haven’t revealed if...

The United States remains the top dog in space, but it is losing its competitive advantage as the nation’s space program undergoes a series of major transitions while other nations, in particular China, improve their space capabilities. So says Futron’s 2012 Space Competitiveness Index, which was released on Wednesday. It’s the fifth anniversary edition of the report, and the fifth year in a row in which Futron has documented America’s declining lead in space. What a fun read. Perhaps to offset that depressingly familiar conclusion, Futron has spiced up the report by adding five emerging space powers to the 10...