Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Logan McMillen

“The rules-based international order, a system America largely built and championed after World War II, was predicated on the belief that global maritime and trade norms were foundational, applying equally to the weak and the strong. In the Middle East, memories of the Suez Crisis, combined with the threat of Soviet influence in the Persian Gulf, precipitated the creation of the Carter Doctrine to ensure this framework was upheld. The tanker wars of the 1980s challenged this doctrine, but the U.S. and Iraq emerged victorious, and, following a few years of international fighting, the United Nations’ ‘Law of the Sea’ was finally instituted in 1994. … Under Trump, however, status quo international agreements are being cast aside the moment they constrain his political impulses.” (04/01/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-oil/

Source: The Daily Economy
by Stefan Bartl

“The President returned to office on promises to lower costs at home and restore our reputation abroad. Americans got the opposite.” (04/01/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/april-fools-for-america-first-higher-prices-and-new-war/

Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman

“The biggest losers from the Iran War are buyers of diesel, jet fuel, chemicals and fertilizer.” (04/01/26)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/4-gasoline-is-less-than-half-the

Source: Antiwar.com
by Ramzy Baroud

“The origins of chess are contested, but few dispute that while the game began in India, it was the Sassanian Persian Empire that refined it into a recognizable strategic system. It was Persia that codified its language, symbolism and intellectual framework: the shah (king), the rokh (rook), and shatranj, the modern chess game. This is not a trivial historical detail. It is, in many ways, a metaphor that has returned with force. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, 2026, political discourse – across Western, Israeli and alternative media – has repeatedly invoked the analogy of chess to describe Iran’s conduct. The comparison is seductive. But it is also incomplete.” (04/01/26)

https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2026/03/31/yes-iran-is-playing-chess-but-only-after-rewriting-the-rules-of-the-game/

Source: Niskanen Center
by Maureen Klovers

“In December 2020, I became the director of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s nearly $2 billion RESTORE Act1 programs to revitalize the economy and ecosystems of the U.S. Gulf Coast. It was a nonpolitical appointee position and a fascinating opportunity to oversee two grant programs to address the damage done by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Funded by civil and administrative penalties imposed because of the spill, our work spanned economic development and workforce development, infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, scientific research, and other activities in the 47 states and counties named in the statute as the most affected by the oil spill. The very first thing I did was ask our grantees for feedback on working with us — and I got an earful.” (03/31/26)

https://www.niskanencenter.org/a-treasury-grant-program-reduced-its-processing-times-from-233-to-75-days-what-went-right/

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Andy Fischer

“Karl Marx believed machines would eventually turn workers into something disposable. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that industrial labor had already reduced the worker to ‘a mere appendage of the machine.’ In Capital, Marx argued that machinery would create a permanent ‘industrial reserve army’ of unemployed workers. As automation increased, workers would lose bargaining power while capital consolidated control. The proletariat would become poorer and more desperate. From that condition, Marx believed revolution would follow. That prediction sits at the center of his entire framework. But history moved in the opposite direction.” (03/31/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/artificial-intelligence-hammers-final-nail-karl-marxs-coffin