In The Spectator, Travis Aaroe knits together the seemingly isolated instances of bland functionaries suddenly thrusting themselves into politics and quickly being installed to govern a troubled Western country. Aaroe regards this rise of what he terms “liberal Caesars” as globalism’s answer to populist democratic nationalism, a view that clarifies the otherwise inexplicably meteoric political rises of Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Donald Tusk – and Mark Carney.
Toppling a Communist Empire for $2.7 Million
Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.
