Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — The exit looked chaotic because the strategy had been incoherent for years. We went in with shifting objectives — counterterrorism, then nation-building, then a residual presence — without a durable definition of success. August compressed twenty years of contradictions into two weeks. The thirteen killed at the gate and the … Continue reading Did the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrate that the United States still lacks a coherent long-term strategy for limited military interventions?
Thinking Outside the Boxe Releases Transcript of Q&A Session from 18th Annual Symposium
Myrtle Beach, SC, Orlando, FL and Washington, D.C. January 2, 2022—Thinking Outside the Boxe has released the transcripts of the question and answer session from its 2021 Annual Symposium. Participants included correspondents from Sydney, Australia; Owatonna, Minnesota; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Sheffield, Jamaica. Topics included the withdrawal from Afghanistan, federal spending and inflation, consistent … Continue reading Thinking Outside the Boxe Releases Transcript of Q&A Session from 18th Annual Symposium
Should the United States condition COVID-era IP waivers and booster diplomacy on actual manufacturing capacity in partner countries, or treat waivers as a moral gesture regardless of fill-finish?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — A waiver that can't fill a vial is a press release, and press releases don't lower a curve in a country without fill-finish capacity, cold chain, or a regulator who can release a lot. Intellectual property isn't a vial. It's a recipe plus a factory plus a quality system, and … Continue reading Should the United States condition COVID-era IP waivers and booster diplomacy on actual manufacturing capacity in partner countries, or treat waivers as a moral gesture regardless of fill-finish?
Is the summer 2021 labor shortage a temporary residual of enhanced unemployment and school disruption, or evidence that reservation wages have shifted in a lasting way?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Help Wanted in a window and a federal supplement that still competes with a shift isn't a mystery of the human soul. It's a residual with a date on it. Reservation wages can move. People who spent a year staring at a kitchen table may want more money or a different … Continue reading Is the summer 2021 labor shortage a temporary residual of enhanced unemployment and school disruption, or evidence that reservation wages have shifted in a lasting way?
Should social-media platforms’ post-2020 amplification and suppression decisions trigger common-carrier rules, or remain a matter of private discretion and advertiser pressure?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Private discretion that can remove a sitting president and suppress a newspaper's reporting in the same season is not a coffee shop. A common-carrier rule that treats a ranking algorithm as a telephone line will be captured by whichever office writes it. So the honest menu is unattractive in both … Continue reading Should social-media platforms’ post-2020 amplification and suppression decisions trigger common-carrier rules, or remain a matter of private discretion and advertiser pressure?
As U.S. forces leave Afghanistan toward a September deadline, should Congress reassert statutory requirements for evacuation planning and equipment accountability, or accept that limited wars end in messy improvisation?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — A deadline isn't a plan. A plan is a list of people you won't leave and a list of equipment you won't gift to whoever holds the road in October. Limited wars do end messy. Messy isn't a permission slip to treat interpreters as weather. Congress should write the dull requirements … Continue reading As U.S. forces leave Afghanistan toward a September deadline, should Congress reassert statutory requirements for evacuation planning and equipment accountability, or accept that limited wars end in messy improvisation?
Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Industrial policy that lasts looks like a plant and a rule a banker can still use after a House flips. A credit stack looks like a catalogue with timers. This draft is a catalogue. Climate pages are credits and adders and approved equipment. Tax pages are rates that will be … Continue reading Is the first-year tax-and-climate reconciliation draft a durable industrial policy, or a credit stack that will be relitigated when inflation is no longer “transitory”?
Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Local control is a real value and it isn't a shield for a second lost year after the emergency year already happened. Vaccines are available to every adult who wants one. Pediatric risk was never the intensive-care story. Learning loss is now measured rather than theorized. Federal money already comes with … Continue reading Should schools that remain remote or hybrid into the 2021–22 year face federal funding consequences tied to learning-loss metrics, or is that an intrusion on local control?
After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — When a pipeline stops and a meat packer stops, you're not in a fraud unit anymore. You're in a country that just learned a criminal group can ration fuel and supper. Criminal casework still matters — attribution, the wallet, the employee who opened the attachment. What can't stay is the … Continue reading After Colonial Pipeline and JBS, should ransomware against critical infrastructure be treated as a national-security event with offensive options, or remain a criminal matter for firms and the FBI?
Is the infrastructure bill taking shape this summer a once-in-a-generation capital program, or a conventional spending package with an infrastructure label?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — Once-in-a-generation is a fundraising sentence. A capital program is a bridge that exists and a pipe that doesn't poison a child. What took shape in late June is actually two things now, which is the useful development. There's a bipartisan framework that's mostly roads, bridges, transit, water, and broadband, and there's … Continue reading Is the infrastructure bill taking shape this summer a once-in-a-generation capital program, or a conventional spending package with an infrastructure label?
