Norman Ball

My guest today is Norman Ball.  Norm graduated from Washington and Lee University and worked on the presidential campaign of independent John Anderson in 1980.  After a career in the consulting business, he has returned to writing and politics. He has published two essay collections, The Frantic Force and How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable, and writes for a number of political websites.  He lives in the Washington DC area.

Norman Ball refers to the Triffin Paradox and to a document entitled Providing for the Common Defense (pdf)), the assessment and recommendations of the National Defense Strategy Commission appointed by Congress.  An article in Foreign Affairs outlines the idea of US tactical aggressive use of nuclear weapons as a viable strategy.  That article is behind a paywall but is discussed from the Russian perspective in a blog post from the Russian Nuclear Forces Project.  Other recent articles on US nuclear posturing include Martin Berger’s “Washington is Getting Dangerously Jumpy”, and the new study by the National Defense Strategy Commission that concludes the US needs to spend more money on the military despite a $716 billion American defense budget this year, which is four times the size of China’s and more than 10 times that of Russia.  

The Chris Hedges interview with Ralph Nader can be found here.  A brief explanation of Michael Glennon’s idea of the Trumanite Network can be found on Wikipedia.  The article that led me to Norman is entitled The Life of the Party Has Left.  You can find more articles by Norm on http://thesaker.is and other websites.

For more information on the Triffin Paradox and its relation to US foreign policy, see Norman Ball's essay on the Triffin Paradox on his website.

While Ball’s views are outside the progressive framework, they are quite intriguing and give those of us engaged in anti-imperialist and anti-war work something useful to chew on.