The New Year Past and Future
12.31.2018 :: United StatesIntroduction: They year 2018 ended with bitter partisan conflicts over narrow issues. Over seventy percent of the federal budget was approved by both parties and another twenty-nine percent was delayed because of a conflict over ‘border security’ involving expenditures of less than one hundredth of one percent.
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Multiple wars, coups, sanctions and trade disputes dominated the US political agenda. War budgets grew, military sales increased and frictions between the US and Saudi Arabia bubbled to the surface . . . and dissipated.
We will proceed to provide a realistic assessment of the US in world politics during the past year, as a prelude to what we can expect in the coming year – 2019.