Author: Rachel Marsden

PARIS — An intriguing social phenomenon prompted a horrific killing spree in Santa Barbara, California, last week, and the same phenomenon might help explain the surprising results of last weekend’s European Parliament elections. The suspected Santa Barbara killer, 22-year old Elliot Rodger, left behind a 141-page diatribe and multiple online videos expressing frustration over a […]

PARIS — The U.S. Justice Department filed charges this week against five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking American companies to steal secrets, including the nuclear energy company Westinghouse. In March, reports surfaced that the National Security Agency had hacked and spied on the Chinese telecom company Huawei. Hard power hitting soft targets: This […]

PARIS — As a chronic immigrant, I’m loath to support immigration policies that might make life difficult for anyone seeking to legitimately integrate into and contribute to an adoptive nation. Nonetheless, as the Obama administration attempts to reform U.S. immigration policies, there needs to be some standard of selection for immigrants. That standard should be […]

PARIS — The good news is that the Obama administration plans to create a lot of new jobs. The bad news is that those jobs will mostly be in Asia. President Obama’s recent trip to Asia revived debate about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the cornerstone of this administration’s so-called pivot to Asia. The controversial […]

PARIS — A Cold War is purely an intelligence war. If you go on a Ukrainian geopolitical bender in front of a former KGB chief like Russian President Vladimir Putin without having a firm grasp of the opposition’s mind-set, you risk launching yourself into a wall like some kind of drunken frat bro on a […]

PARIS — The day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met for Ukraine crisis de-escalation talks in Geneva with his Russian and European counterparts in an attempt to stabilize the country, Kerry’s department released a statement that undermined America’s own economic and national security — again. Disrupting Russia’s traditional interests in Ukraine should be […]

PARIS — Russia and the West are both warning of the risk of escalation to a civil war in Ukraine between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions. Rhetoric is heating up, with each side referring to members of the other’s ground team as “terrorists,” setting the stage to justify any potential opposition force. A Russian fighter jet […]

PARIS — First, Cubans would receive fun little text messages about baseball and music. Then, one day — bam! — they would learn via cell phone that they’d been living in a dictatorship for over half a century and would realize that it was time to overthrow the regime. Hopefully American taxpayers like the plot […]

PARIS — In an apparent effort to fight bribery with even more overt state-sanctioned bribery, the battle for the hearts and minds of Ukraine has devolved into two suitors — the West and Russia — flashing their respective bank account statements. How obscene. I don’t recall U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev […]

PARIS — There’s no faster or easier way to shut down legitimate debate than to slap an undesirable label on someone based on their views. Criticize same-sex marriage and you’re a bigot. Take issue with immigration policy and you’re dismissed as a racist. In the latest incarnation of this phenomenon, any conservative who dares to […]

PARIS — There are fewer things more pathetic than watching someone take a running dive off a high board only to end in a spectacular belly flop and still think that they’re scoring a perfect 10. That’s U.S. President Barack Obama right now on the issue of sanctions against Russia. It’s a worrying attitude that […]

PARIS — Later this month, U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Here’s hoping he decides to stay home and help his daughters with their homework instead. America’s decreasing influence in the Middle East and Eurasia might be the result of deliberate strategic policy. Or it’s simply ineptitude — in which case it’s […]

PARIS — Remember when you were a kid and packed your bag to run away from home, only to quickly realize that you lacked the requisite means to follow through on your threat? Mom and Dad, after giving you a little time to save face, had to drive down the road and toss your penniless […]

PARIS — Ceding to protestors’ demands, Ukrainian parliament members voted last week to impeach President Viktor Yanukovych and hold early elections, which have been set for May 25. Online “slacktivists,” keyboard warriors and various media outlets responded by breathlessly declaring the situation a “revolution” — and in some cases even proclaiming it a successful one. […]

PARIS — Here we go again. Yet another country full of voters who foolishly bought into the socialist pipe dream of endless nanny-state freebies is noticing the check coming due. Facing hyperinflation and shortages of necessities like toilet paper, Venezuelans are spilling into the streets, pleading for Captain America to rescue them from their own […]

PARIS — At a time when many of us have become fixated on U.S. intelligence agencies’ “big data” programs, authorities are becoming aware of a much more insidious kind of threat — one that could successfully exploit the growing blind spot created by our overreliance on technology. Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the Federal […]

PARIS — An environmentalist lies down alongside his fellow organic cucumber aficionados to block the construction of an oil pipeline and wakes up a member of a proxy army serving the billionaires who are fighting against America’s economic and national security interests to line their own pockets. How did that happen? This phenomenon is on […]

PARIS — On the occasion of President Obama’s State of the Union address this week, marking five years since he was sworn into office with the stated primary objective of turning around the post-crisis domestic economy, it’s worth asking: Is America safe from another economic crisis? Despite the regulatory efforts hustled in as a result […]

PARIS — What’s the point of intervening in a foreign country under the guise of humanitarianism, or sending aid, if you’re just going to end up importing its citizens en masse anyway? Isn’t the whole idea to shape up the place so that its people can safely remain there? The Obama administration is in such […]

The most disappointing thing about the news that French President Francois Hollande allegedly has been rendezvousing with an actress in the privacy of her apartment is that it’s a testament to how pathetic and petty some segments of French society are allowing public discourse to become in a country historically renowned for grand ideas and […]

At the London 2012 Olympics, various media outlets probed the notion of the Olympic athletes’ village being a giant bed-hopping venue — a phenomenon that not only disgusted my mother every time she heard it mentioned (which was often) but also puzzled me as a former international-level swimmer who spent every night before a race […]

Well, that was fast. In an early-September column about the Syrian conflict and the new world order, I wrote that Russia and the West could team up against the forces of radical Islam. It looks set to happen sooner than expected, given the current wave of Islamic terrorist attacks not far from the site of […]

By the looks of it, U.S. President Barack Obama may be close to joining the French in taking on the Chinese — in Africa. According to my sources in the French government, Obama made it clear to both British and French leadership at the onset of his presidency that he was going to leave it […]

Former New York Times foreign correspondent Joel Brinkley is on sabbatical. His column will return to American Voices in June 2014. During his absence, John Kass has been added to American Voices.) A new report commissioned by the French Socialist government to make recommendations on how France can better integrate its residents of foreign origin […]

PARIS — When U.S. President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, it marked the first time that a local “community organizer” had risen to the highest office on the planet. I wasn’t entirely optimistic. Granted, the geopolitical competition (Russia) is also led by a community organizer of sorts, Vladimir Putin, except that the community he […]

PARIS — Tens of thousands of protesters are flooding the streets of Ukraine, blocking access to government offices and threatening to start what the media is largely (and preemptively, if not mistakenly) referring to as a “revolution.” All this over the pro-Russian Ukraine leadership’s decision to renounce a free-trade agreement with Europe that would have […]

PARIS — Remember when you were a kid and you would open a full refrigerator right after mom’s latest grocery-shopping trip, only to complain that there was nothing to eat and that she was starving you to death? Well, that’s Iran right now. Iran has enough energy to light up the entire planet several times […]

PARIS — The U.S. has accepted a proposal by Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan to train as many as 7,000 conventional Libyan soldiers plus counterterrorist forces. What an exceedingly bad idea. This could put the Obama administration’s Hope-and-Change bus on the road to a potential new fiasco in Libya. Think Benghazi — except everywhere. Speaking […]

PARIS — The Geneva talks on Iranian nukes have turned into a “pull my finger” charade. Iran says that it’s only making electricity, not nuclear bombs. The U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany are somehow all supposed to agree on reeling Iran in — but let’s face it: Russia and China are close Iranian […]

PARIS — History judges a leader exclusively through his actions and their ultimate results rather than through fleeting words. It appears that U.S. President Barack Obama is finally putting the brakes on his mouth after flooring it down Hope-and-Change Highway for most of his tenure. Remember the Syrian crisis that dominated chatter for months before […]