A Damaged Soul and a Disordered TRUMP

March 24, 2018

Trump’s continuing attacks on John McCain reveal a worrisome state of mind.

Mar 18, 2019

by Peter Wehner

Contributing editor at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Donald Trump is not well. Over the weekend, he continued his weird obsession with a dead war hero. This time, his attacks on John McCain came two days after the anniversary of McCain’s release from a North Vietnamese prison camp. He tweeted this:

And this:

And retweeted this:

All this comes in the aftermath of Trump’s comments about McCain in 2015. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

These grotesque attacks once again force us to grapple with a perennial question of the Trump era: How much attention should we pay to his tweets; and what exactly do they reveal about America’s 45th president?

Read: The mind of Donald Trump

I’m sympathetic to those who worry that too many Americans spend too much time paying too much attention to what Trump tweets. The danger is that we allow Trump to succeed in keeping us in a state of constant agitation and moral consternation, in ways that are unhealthy and even play to Trump’s advantage, allowing him to control the nation’s conversation.

 

But that view, which might apply in some circumstances, shouldn’t apply in all circumstances. The real danger in so desensitizing ourselves to Trump’s tweets is that we normalize deviant behavior and begin to accept what is unacceptable.

A culture lives or dies based on its allegiance to unwritten rules of conduct and unstated norms, on the signals sent about what kind of conduct constitutes good character and honor and what kind of conduct constitutes dishonor and corruption. Like each of us, our leaders are all too human, flawed and imperfect. But that reality can’t make us indifferent or cynical when it comes to holding those in authority to reasonable moral standards. After all, cultures are shaped by the words and deeds that leaders, including political leaders, validate or invalidate.

“To his equals he was condescending; to his inferiors kind; and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender,” Henry Lee said in his eulogy of George Washington. “Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.”

But the other reason we should pay attention to the tweets and other comments by the president is that they are shafts of light that illuminate not only his damaged soul, but his disordered personality.

Read: Is something neurologically wrong with Donald Trump?

It doesn’t take a person with an advanced degree in psychology to see Trump’s narcissism and lack of empathy, his vindictiveness and pathological lying, his impulsivity and callousness, his inability to be guided by norms, or his shamelessness and dehumanization of those who do not abide his wishes. His condition is getting worse, not better—and there are now fewer people in the administration able to contain the president and act as a check on his worst impulses.

This constellation of characteristics would be worrisome in a banker or a high-school teacher, in an aircraft machinist or a warehouse manager, in a gas-station attendant or a truck driver. To have them define the personality of an American president is downright alarming.

Whether the worst scenarios come to pass or not is right now unknowable. But what we do know is that the president is a person who seems to draw energy and purpose from maliciousness and transgressive acts, from creating enmity among people of different races, religions, and backgrounds, and from attacking the weak, the honorable, and even the dead.

Donald Trump is not well, and as long as he is president, our nation is not safe.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Peter Wehner is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He writes widely on political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues.

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Mourning the Passing of Economist Alan Kruger

March 20, 2019

Normally this newsletter would be concerned with events in the wider world. But right now I just have to write about the shocking death — reportedly by suicide — of my former Princeton colleague, the economist Alan Krueger, at the age of 58.

I thought I knew Alan reasonably well and never saw a hint that something like this might be coming. But people’s lives often feel very different from the inside than they look on the outside.

What I can talk about is Alan’s work and why it mattered so much to other economists, myself very much included. For his research arguably did more to change how we view the economy than that of any other modern economist.

Alan’s most influential, paradigm-shifting work was his 1992 study with David Card on the effects of minimum-wage increases.

Before Card and Krueger, most economists just assumed that raising the minimum wage leads to lower employment. But Card and Krueger realized that this was a proposition you can test. Their initial study compared employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before and after New Jersey raised its minimum wage. And they found no adverse effect on employment — if anything, a small rise in New Jersey relative to its neighbor.

His study opened a new frontier in economic research. Economics is always bedeviled by the lack of controlled experiments; there are so many things going on in the economy that it’s hard to tell what’s causing what. But unilateral state wage hikes amount to natural experiments that tell you far more than standard economic methods.

Furthermore, this was a method that could be replicated many times, and has been over the years, right up to the recent round of minimum wage increases in a number of cities. And the preponderance of the results have confirmed Card and Krueger’s initial finding: raising minimum wages has far less negative impact on jobs than standard economics would have predicted.

This has implications that go far beyond minimum wages themselves. What Card, Krueger and the research that follows tell us is that labor markets are a lot more complicated than we thought, that market power matters a lot and that there may be much more room for public policy to raise wages in general than Econ 101 would have it.

This paper alone would secure Alan Krueger’s reputation as one of the greatest labor economists ever. But he did far more, on everything from growth and the environment to the effects of computers on wages — and he was a public servant too. He will be sorely missed.

 

 

In Honor of John” Jack” BOGLE–The MAN who opened financial markets for ordinary people

January 26,2019

by Art Carey and Erin Arvedlund, Updated: January 16, 2019

DAVID SWANSON / Staff

John C. Bogle, 89, who revolutionized the way Americans save for the future, championed the interests of the small investor, and railed against corporate greed and the excesses of Wall Street, died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Bryn Mawr, his family confirmed.

 

Mr. Bogle, a chipper and unpretentious man who invited everyone to call him “Jack,” was founder and for many years chairman of the Vanguard Group, the Malvern-based mutual-fund company, where he pioneered low-cost, low-fee investing and mutual funds tied to stock-market indexes. These innovations, reviled and ridiculed at first, enabled millions of ordinary Americans to build wealth to buy a home, pay for college, and retire comfortably.

Along the way, Vanguard, which Mr. Bogle launched in 1974, became a titan in the financial-services industry, with 16,600 employees and over $5 trillion in assets by the end of 2018, and Mr. Bogle earned a reputation as not only an investing sage but a maverick whose integrity and old-fashioned values set an example that many admired and few could match.

 

“Jack could have been a multi-billionaire on a par with Gates and Buffett,” said William Bernstein, an Oregon investment manager and author of 12 books on finance and economic history. Instead, he turned his company into one owned by its mutual funds, and in turn their investors, “that exists to provide its customers the lowest price. He basically chose to forgo an enormous fortune to do something right for millions of people. I don’t know any other story like it in American business history.”

Mr. Bogle is the second financial titan from the region to die in the last three days. Raymond G. Perelman, the master deal-maker and philanthropist who gave away more than $300 million to the University of Pennsylvania and other causes, died Monday at his home in Philadelphia.

 

Like Perelman, Mr. Bogle carved a remarkable path. In 1999, Fortune named Mr. Bogle one of the investment industry’s four giants of the 20th century, and in 2004, Time listed him among the 100 most influential people in the world.

 

Motivated by a mix of pragmatism and idealism, Mr. Bogle was regarded by friends and foes alike as the conscience of the industry and the sheriff of Wall Street.

 

“He was like the last honorable man, a complete straight-shooter,” said Rick Stengel, former managing editor of Time and former president of the National Constitution Center, where he worked closely with Mr. Bogle, who then chaired the center’s board. He was fond of saying that “‘so-and-so is all hat and no cattle.’ Jack was all cattle and not very much hat.”

More than a successful businessman, Mr. Bogle was a capitalist with a soul.

 

MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Inquirer File Photo

John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group Inc., was chairman of the board of the National Constitution Center in 2006 when he stood beside one of his favorite signers, Alexander Hamilton, far left.

“Whatever moral standards I may have developed over my long life, I have tried to invest my own soul and spirit in the character of the little firm that I founded all those years ago,” he wrote in his 2008 book, Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life.

 

While Mr. Bogle was facile with numbers, he was much less interested in counting than in what counts, and his intellectual range was broad. He revered language, history, poetry, and classical wisdom, and frequently amazed and delighted people by reciting long passages of verse. He was the author of at least 10 books, mainly about investing — all of which he proudly wrote himself.

He was a social critic, civic leader, mentor, and philanthropist whose generosity to the institutions that shaped his character, notably Blair Academy and Princeton University, far outstripped his legendary frugality.

n his 70s, he displayed the energy of men half his age, and his pace and ambition were the more remarkable because of his lifelong battle with heart disease, the result of a congenital defect that affected the heart’s electrical current.

Mr. Bogle had his first heart attack in 1960, when he was only 30, and his heart stopped numerous times thereafter. When he was 37, his doctor advised him to retire. Mr. Bogle’s response was to switch doctors.

Mr. Bogle outlived three pacemakers, and kept a gym bag with a squash racket by his desk. In 1996, surgeons at Hahnemann University Hospital replaced his faulty heart with a strong one, ending a 128-day wait in the hospital. He reunited with his doctors years later. With his new pump, Mr. Bogle experienced an adolescent surge of vitality that left associates panting to keep up.

“Jack operated at only two speeds, as fast as is humanly possible and stop,” said Paul Miller, the late private investor and founding partner of Miller Anderson & Sherrerd, who was a close friend of Mr. Bogle’s for decades.

 

Bogle with Ed Rendell (left) and President Bill Clinton (right) in Philadelphia about 20 years ago. He said of the economy: “The disparity in income is deeply regrettable. I don’t know what we do about it exactly.”

 

“He was fiercely competitive when it counted, more intellectually alert than any person I’ve ever met, willing to face — indeed, almost court — controversy and criticism, stubborn but willing to compromise when absolutely necessary, and most importantly, loving, sentimental, kind, charitable, and courageous.”

 

 

His greatest accomplishment, Mr. Bogle often said, was “putting the ‘mutual’ back in mutual funds.” His most important innovation was the index fund.

Mr. Bogle had long argued that a mutual fund representing a broad range of businesses — for instance, the Standard & Poor’s 500, an index containing the stocks of 500 large publicly held U.S. companies — would not only match the market’s average return but also generally surpass the performance of actively managed funds.

 

“You want to be average and then win by virtue of your costs,” Mr. Bogle said. “Cost is a handicap on the horse. If the jockey carries a lot of extra pounds, it’s very tough for the horse to win the race.”

 

That philosophy attracted a following, including a group of grateful devotees who called themselves the Bogleheads, and convened annually to swap investment advice and pay homage to the man who had done so much to nourish their portfolios.

 

Bogleheads.org

Vanguard founder John “Jack” Bogle signed copies of his book at the 2017 Bogleheads conference, Desmond Hotel, Philadelphia.

 

 

“What impressed me most about Jack was his humility and approachability,” said Mel Lindauer, a leader of the Bogleheads and coauthor of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing. “His zeal for his mission of helping investors get a ‘fair shake’ was legendary. He worked tirelessly toward that goal, and his message never changed with the investing climate. The world won’t be the same without Jack. He was a true American hero.”

 

Mr. Bogle had hoped that the Vanguard model — “structurally correct, mathematically correct, and ethically correct” — would goad other investment firms to give customers a fairer shake. While index funds have become widely popular, Vanguard’s competitors often have been less than keen about following the company’s penny-pinching lead.

 

Nevertheless, Mr. Bogle, to use a pet phrase, “pressed on regardless.” After retiring as Vanguard’s chairman and CEO in 1996 and its senior chairman in 2000, he became president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center, quartered in the Victory Building on the Vanguard campus.

 

When he was not touting the advantages of the Vanguard mode of investing, Mr. Bogle, a self-proclaimed “battler by nature,” was lambasting his professional brethren for “rank speculation,” reckless assumption of debt, “obscene” multimillion-dollar paychecks, and golden parachutes, and saying they had abdicated their duty as stewards in favor of self-interested salesmanship.

 

Scott S. Hamrick / Inquirer File Photo

The life size statue of John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group, is shown Oct. 20, 2005, at the headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Bogle, then 76, had written his fifth book, The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism.

Along the way, Mr. Bogle attracted his share of critics. He was called a communist, a Marxist, a Bolshevik, a Calvinist scold and zealot, a holier-than-thou traitor and subversive who was undermining the pillars of capitalism with un-American rants.

 

Mr. Bogle characterized his pugnacious relationship with the financial industry as “a lover’s quarrel.” His mission, he said, was simple: to return capitalism, finance, and fund management to their roots in stewardship.

“He held our industry to a higher standard than it held itself, and I think a lot of people took umbrage at that,” said Arthur Zeikel, a former Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO who knew Mr. Bogle for decades.

 

“He never failed to mention, in speech after speech and talk after talk, that money managers had failed miserably to earn their high fees,” said Miller, the investment manager and longtime friend. “That he was correct in calling them the ‘croupiers at the gambling table’ did not endear him to the profession.”

 

“Simply put, Jack cared,” said William Bernstein. “He cared enough about his clients to personally answer their letters; he cared enough about his employees to be on a first-name basis with thousands of them, and to pitch in at the phone banks when things got busy; and in the end, he cared enough about his country that he spent much of his last two decades away from home tirelessly crusading against an increasingly elephantine and dysfunctional financial system.”

 

File Photo

 

John C. Bogle, then chairman and president, Wellington Fund in 1974.

John Clifton Bogle early realized the value of a penny. His grandfather, a prosperous merchant, founded a company that became part of the American Can Co., and Mr. Bogle’s early years in Montclair, N.J., were affluent. But the Great Depression eventually erased the family fortune. Mr. Bogle’s father, an improvident charmer, was ill-equipped to cope. The Bogles lost their home and were forced to move in with relatives.

 

 

Mr. Bogle was proud of the many jobs he held in his youth — newspaper delivery boy, waiter, ticket seller, mail clerk, cub reporter, runner for a brokerage house, pinsetter in a bowling alley.

 

“I grew up in the best possible way,” Mr. Bogle said in 2008, “because we had social standing — I never thought I was inferior to anybody because we didn’t have any money — but I had to work for everything I got.”

 

Mr. Bogle attended Blair Academy in northwestern New Jersey, where he blossomed academically. From there, he went to Princeton, which offered him a full scholarship and a job waiting tables in the dining hall. At first, Mr. Bogle floundered, and his low grades in economics, his major, almost cost him his scholarship. But he applied himself and slowly mastered the demands.

 

In December 1949, while leafing through Fortune, he happened upon an article about the embryonic mutual-fund industry, and Mr. Bogle developed the topic for his senior thesis.

 

Mr. Bogle produced a scholarly opus that proved to be a blueprint for his career. “The principal function of mutual funds is the management of their investment portfolios,” Mr. Bogle wrote. “Everything else is incidental…. Future industry growth can be maximized by a reduction of sales loads and management fees.”

 

The thesis earned Mr. Bogle a top grade, and he graduated magna cum laude. After he sent a copy to Walter Morgan, Class of 1920 and founder of the Wellington Fund, based in Philadelphia, Morgan hired Mr. Bogle. In short order, Morgan became Mr. Bogle’s mentor. In early 1965, when Mr. Bogle was only 35, Morgan anointed him his successor.

 

Headstrong and impulsive, Mr. Bogle arranged a merger with high-flying investment managers in Boston. For six go-go years, the partnership flourished, but when stock prices plunged in 1974, Mr. Bogle was fired.

 

Refusing to surrender, Mr. Bogle persuaded the board of Wellington to split from the management company that canned him and appoint him to administer the funds at cost, thereby saving a bundle in fees.

 

Inspired by the 1798 Battle of the Nile, during which Lord Horatio Nelson sank the French fleet, snuffing Napoleon’s dream of world conquest, Mr. Bogle chose the name Vanguard after Nelson’s flagship.

 

“I wanted to send a message that our battle-hardened Vanguard Group would be victorious in the mutual fund wars,” Bogle wrote in Enough, “and that our ‘vanguard’ would be, as the dictionary says, ‘the leader in a new trend.’ ”

Now one of the world’s largest investment-management companies, Vanguard vies with BlackRock and Fidelity Investments for the title of biggest mutual-fund group.

 

INQUIRER ARCHIVES

John Bogle, Vanguard

 

If Vanguard runs a tight ship, it’s a direct reflection of its founder. When traveling, Mr. Bogle usually took the train or flew coach. From the station or airport, he walked to his destination rather than taking a cab, or hailed a cab rather than riding in a limo, even in his 70s.

 

When he was president of the Constitution Center, Stengel regularly met Mr. Bogle for power breakfasts at one of Mr. Bogle’s favorite eateries, Benny’s Place at Fourth and Chestnut Streets. There, Mr. Bogle ordered his customary breakfast of two eggs over easy, fried potatoes, two slices of rye toast and coffee, all of which he consumed, Stengel recalled, in an “incredibly systematic” way. Price: $3.60. Said Stengel: “I often felt compelled to leave an extra tip so the waitress wouldn’t feel shortchanged.”

 

Bill Falloon, an editor at John Wiley & Sons, remembers when Mr. Bogle visited the publisher’s Park Avenue office for a marketing strategy meeting about Mr. Bogle’s The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

 

Weary from the train trip, Mr. Bogle asked where he could catnap. There was no bed or couch, he was informed. Not to worry, Mr. Bogle said. Just find me a room.

 

“So he walked into this little office and pushed a chair over so its back was on the floor,” Falloon recalls. “And then he stretched out and put his head on the back rest.”

Before nodding off, Mr. Bogle issued instructions: “If anybody wonders what I’m doing, tell them I’m dead.”

 

Mr. Bogle’s children recalled growing up in a drafty house in Haverford where the thermostat was set low in winter and they piled into their parents’ bedroom on steamy summer nights because it was the only spot with an air conditioner.

 

Inquirer archives

John Bogle, Vanguard chief inside the corporate office in Chesterbrook in 1989.

 

“He wore the same wool ties and suits forever,” said son Andrew Armstrong Bogle. “He had no desire to be ostentatious, and he didn’t hang out with just investment titans. He was just as comfortable, if not more so, with someone whose cab he happened to get into, talking to people in the subway or to a waiter at the Princeton Club. He genuinely liked talking to people and hearing their stories.”

 

While Mr. Bogle may have been cheap in the transactions of daily life, he was remarkably generous in a grand way. For more than 20 years, he donated half his annual income to philanthropic causes, particularly those institutions that helped develop his mind and form his character.

 

At Blair, Mr. Bogle chaired the board of trustees, chose the headmaster, and helped finance the construction of several buildings.

 

“He was like a surrogate father to me,” said former headmaster Chan Hardwick. “He told me the most important thing in a relationship is trust, and trust is based on honesty. After he hired me, he said, ‘You’re going to make mistakes. There will be things you’ll do that you’ll wish you hadn’t, and things you won’t do that you’ll wish you had. If you’re honest with me, I’ll support you fully.’ ”

 

At Blair and Princeton, Bogle endowed the Bogle Brothers Scholarships, which enabled scores of budding scholars to further their education. His twin brother David died in 1995.

 

“He took chances on people because someone took a chance on him,” said Stengel. “Much of his own altruism stems from the fact that he was a scholarship kid.”

 

“It will surprise no one who knew Jack that he directed his support to financial aid and promoting community service,” said former Princeton president Shirley Tilghman. “He served his university on many occasions — from leading the Class of 1951 at its 25th reunion to advising the Princeton University Investment Co.”

 

Mr. Bogle’s philanthropy reflected his belief that to whom much is given, much is expected.

 

Two of his children followed his example of service in an obvious way. His daughter Barbara Bogle Renninger served on the board of the Gesu School in North Philadelphia, where she was also a volunteer math tutor; his son Andrew was a patron of Robin Hood, a philanthropic organization established by investment bankers and hedge-fund managers to alleviate poverty in New York City.

 

“When we were growing up, we were told that we’re very fortunate in so many ways and that we were expected to give back,” Andrew Bogle recalled. “We could choose our own way of contributing, whether it be time or money or just our thoughts, but we knew that the default option is that you’re going to give back.”

 

Disengaging himself from guiding Vanguard and forging a new role for himself was challenging for Mr. Bogle, who was dismayed by the rift that developed between him and the man he had groomed to succeed him, John J. Brennan. Mr. Bogle was incapable of retirement.

 

Although he played no role in managing Vanguard after 2000, he continued to show up every weekday, usually in suit and tie and shined shoes, to discharge his duties as president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He wrote articles, speeches, and books, answered questions from investors, granted interviews to reporters, and continued to cultivate and encourage members of Vanguard’s “crew” while keeping a three-person staff busy.

 

“In a lot of ways, the last decade, an extra decade of my life, has been the happiest of my life,” Mr. Bogle said in 2008. “I’m contributing to society. I’m doing what I want to do. I’m writing what I want and saying what I want, and I think my name and reputation, for whatever that’s worth, have been enhanced.”

 

Mr. Bogle wasn’t afraid to criticize his own index fund creation — which he wrote may have grown too large. In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in 2018, he warned that the concentration of ownership created by indexing firms presented a threat to the markets.

 

Three index fund managers dominate the field with a collective 81 percent share of index fund assets: Vanguard has a 51 percent share; BlackRock 21 percent; and State Street Global 9 percent.

 

“Most observers expect that the share of corporate ownership by index funds will continue to grow over the next decade. It seems only a matter of time until index mutual funds cross the 50 percent mark. If that were to happen, the ‘Big Three’ might own 30 percent or more of the U.S. stock market — effective control. I do not believe that such concentration would serve the national interest,” he wrote.

 

Another institution that benefited tremendously from Mr. Bogle’s involvement was the Constitution Center, whose board he chaired from 1999 to 2007.

 

“Introducing the center to the nation with Mr. Bogle as chairman was a huge advantage,” said Joe Torsella, the center’s president at the time and now Pennsylvania treasurer. “It declared to the outside world that we were national and bipartisan, and aspired to the highest level of excellence.”

 

Mr. Bogle served on numerous boards during his career, including the board of governors of the Investment Company Institute, which he chaired in 1969 to 1970. He was also a fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary degrees from a dozen universities, including his alma mater, which also bestowed on him its highest accolade, the Woodrow Wilson Award, for “distinguished achievement in the nation’s service.”

In addition to squash, Mr. Bogle enjoyed tennis and golf, sailing, and summering at Lake Placid, N.Y. He kept his wits sharp by daily attacking the New York Times crossword puzzle, which he was known to complete in less than 20 minutes.

 

Mr. Bogle especially loved to write. Most recently, he published Stay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution” (Wiley, 2018).

 

“I don’t think there’s an author who spent greater care on the words he chose,” said Falloon, the Wiley editor who worked with Mr. Bogle. “When he did a book, he was so meticulous; he’d rewrite and rewrite. He always went the extra mile to make sure there wasn’t a single person who could not understand what he was saying.”

 

Despite the heavy demands on his time, Mr. Bogle put his family first. When his children were growing up, he was almost always home for dinner.

“This was our time to talk to each other and find out what was going on in each other’s lives,” Andrew Bogle recalled. “Looking back now, I find it remarkable that he was able to work as hard as he did but still say, ‘This is a priority and what I’m going to do — be home every night.’

”Another family rite revolved around the Fourth of July, a holiday that evoked Mr. Bogle’s strong sense of patriotism. Children and grandchildren gathered at the family camp on Lake Placid. They sang patriotic songs (Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” was a favorite), and Mr. Bogle raised a toast to the country of which he was so proud.

 

“My dad may have seemed like a hard-charging businessman, but underneath there was real emotion and care and concern and empathy,” said daughter Barbara. “Even as he became more prominent, he did not change within the family. He remained a man without pretense and pomposity.

<“When he had the heart transplant, it changed him dramatically. He became much more connected to the family. He was very emotional, and teared up easily over things. He was literally reborn, and he really appreciated the chance of having a second go at life.”

 

“It’s about being a good husband, a good father, a good colleague, a good member of the community. Everything else pales by comparison. The accumulation of material goods is a waste — you can’t take them with you, anyway — and the waste is typified by our financial system. The essential message is, stop focusing on self and start thinking about service to others.

 

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Bogle is survived by his wife, the former Eve Sherrerd, whom he married in 1956; children Jeanne Bogle England, Nancy Bogle St. John, Sandra Hipkins Bogle, and John C. Bogle Jr.; and at least 12 grandchildren.

A private service will be held next week.

 

“Towering intellectual inferno” : A daughter’s tribute to Syed Hussein Alatas

January 23, 2019

Dr Sharifah Munirah Alatas Pakar Geopolitik, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)
January 23, 2019 17:51 MYT

Syed Hussein Alatas, a world renown sociologist and a Malaysian revolutionary thinker was also a kind, fair and no-nonsense father. – Filepic

TODAY marks the twelfth year after the passing of my father, Allahyarham Syed Hussein Alatas.

A world renown sociologist and a Malaysian revolutionary thinker, he was also a kind, fair and no-nonsense father.

He instilled in us children the values of hard work, persistence, honesty, integrity and service for a  ‘glocal’ society.

The latter is not an oxymoron. Rather, it is exactly what my father strove for—to identify the universal crises facing global society.

My father knew of the disease that was destroying Malaysian society. He informed leadership and the rest of society through his painstaking writings, by his reference to historical case-studies.

He predicted the disease of corruption that would destroy the cohesion any multi-racial society needs to thrive.

For Alatas, it was corruption ‘of the powerful’ or elite corruption. No matter what race, religion, historical experience or type of civilisation, corruption has been the cause for the decline and fall of societies throughout human history.

Some may say there is nothing revolutionary about the values that I attributed to my father. In the case of Alatas though, he was consistent in his criticisms for more than half a century. He ‘walked the talk’.

To my mind, this is an extremely rare quality. A majority of people worldwide rarely practice what they preach.

My father’s life though was all about setting an example by making sacrifices. For him, it was most important that he first set the right example for his family.

It would then naturally follow that he would be perceived as a genuine advocate of a morally dignified lifestyle.

This was a lifestyle of honesty and depth. Not one merely described by religious rituals decorated with a superficial display of piety.

I am proud to see today, that he has earned tremendous respect, merely by being true to his word and living an impeccable and simple life.

I constantly overhear conversations and read news about my father, that he should have been conferred a ‘Tan Sri-ship’, or ‘Tun-ship’, or even appointed a Minister.

Syed Hussein Alatas was never about this. For him, the value of one’s life is not determined by the number of awards received, titles conferred or positions attained.

Neither should one’s service for the nation be determined by whether one has a political position, be it an MP, Senator or Minister.

For Alatas, his toolbox was bare. All he was equipped with was his valuable mind. This unique quality is attributed to only a few prominent drivers of social change.

Like Alexander Herzen, Subhas Chandra Bose and Jose Rizal, his mind became sharper with age.

His penchant for speaking and writing about society’s problems increased with time. His conviction to educate all levels of society gained momentum, despite his failing health.

If there is one person who did not fear his mortality, it was Syed Hussein Alatas—because in life and in death, he remained satisfied that he was able to contribute, selflessly, for the greater good.

He also knew early on that he would not live to see the fruits of his efforts. And he was the embodiment of what is truly a morally upright gentleman.

Syed Hussein Alatas was an impeccably-patient man. He was not deluded into thinking that his works would be recognised while he was alive.

In one of his masterpieces, Intellectuals in Developing Societies, he outlined what a true intellectual is.

He wrote: “In countries like Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Ceylon….and Lebanon, the sense of superfluousness may yet be overcome by forging one’s own public hearing where recourse to publication is still open.

“Being ignored by the bureaucracy and left out of public affairs may still be compensated for in this way. But only the very few would have the energy and patience to adopt this line of action—to swim against the tide”.

I quote another short paragraph penned as an autograph in his book “Modernization and Social Change”.

He presented this autograph to me on the eve of my leaving for the U.S. for my university education.

It reads: “To my daughter Munirah. Everything in life is subject to change. You, Munirah, will also go through it. When this happens, see that the central purpose of life remains intact. Do not allow the wave of change to drown your being.

“Float and swim against it. When you reach the shore then you will appreciate the value of the effort. Your loving father, Abah. (Singapore, 30 July, 1982).”

Till today, as a soon-to-retire adult, I am still moved to tears, by these words.

Syed Hussein Alatas never succumbed to metaphoric drowning, despite his unceremonial and unjustified politically – inspired“dismissal” as Universiti Malaya’s Vice-Chancellor, for example.

Even that episode in his life wreaked of corrupt politicking. The laughable irony is that despite being falsely accused of corruption, Alatas goes down in Malaysian history (as well as regional and global history) as the intellectual authority on corruption, cronyism and nepotism in elite politics.

Malaysians can be  proud to lay claim to a fellow citizen who has put Malaysia on the world map.

He did it tirelessly, with neither pomp nor pageantry. He predicted in the 1950s, that corruption would be the single factor that would culminate in Malaysia’s decline and fall as a progressive society.

It is no secret now that rampant corruption ended Barisan Nasional’s 61 year leadership.

It contributed to the racial and religious divide our society faces now. Many emerging economies and developing nations have become notorious for making headlines that expose their  kleptocratic leadership. Malaysia has now joined that embarrassing “hall of shame”.

As I continue to miss my father after 12 years, so will I continue to pay tribute to his priceless contribution to Malaysia.

As I encourage myself, I urge others to also continue in the struggle. It is my hope that our leadership does the same, by reading what he has written, by recognising the relevance of his analyses, by emulating his disgust for corruption and excessive waste, and by accepting the truth behind his rejection of the feudal mindset.

I miss you Abah.
January 23, 2019

---

* Dr. Sharifah Munirah Alatas is an academic at the National University of Malaysia (UKM), specialising in geopolitics. She is also an active member of the moderate Muslim group G25.

** The views expressed here are strictly of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect Astro AWANI’s.

Tag: Kolumnis AWANI, Syed Hussein Alatas, revolutionary thinker

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KP Waran Passes On–R.I.P

October 14, 2018

 

Former executive editor of the New Straits Times KP Waran died today after a nine-month battle with cancer. This was confirmed by his wife, Sheila Singam, via a Facebook posting that was accompanied by a picture of a smiling Waran.

In another posting, she attached an NST news article on her husband’s demise which also detailed his many achievements, captioning it with “So proud of you, my husband”.

According to his former employer, Waran, 60, had over two decades of experience in the news and media industry and had covered conflicts in places like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Cambodia.

Bernama senior editor Jamaluddin Muhammad, who was with him covering the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, said Waran showed an exemplary character in facing difficult situations.

“He helped plan our dangerous journeys meticulously with the assistance of locals, paying particular attention to things like roadblocks, possible landmines and so on,” he said.

He recalled that the media veteran also refused to be intimidated by Serbs manning a roadblock who asked him to surrender film rolls that captured scenes of the conflict.

“He was not afraid to stand his ground when we were threatened by gun-toting Serbian troops over the film rolls despite the moment being a life-and-death situation,” Jamaluddin said.

Waran, he said, also provided constant guidance on the dos and don’ts during their time there, such as the need to always be aware of the surroundings and to always move in a zig-zag pattern in areas where snipers were anticipated.

Jamaluddin said the lessons he learned from Waran in Bosnia were put to good use when he was later sent to cover the Iraq war. Meanwhile, former colleagues paid tribute to Waran on social media.

“On behalf of The New Straits Times Press, I would like to convey our heartfelt condolences to the family of the late KP Waran on his demise today,” said Mustapha Kamil Mohd Janor, who is an NSTP board member and Media Prima Bhd executive director of news and editorial operations.

He pointed out that Waran served the newsroom as a journalist for the most part of his life, and contributed significantly to the operations of the newspaper.

Former NST journalist Roziana Hamsawi expressed sadness over his passing. “You were my favourite editor at the news desk. You made my years there bearable. Always kind to the stories I wrote. Always cool about everything. “Loved working with you! Rest in peace boss!” Roziana wrote.

– Bernama

More Tributes to John McCain: A True American Patriot

August 28, 2018

Elephants in the Room

John McCain Was Always There for America

Remembrances of a hero the United States—and the Republican Party—will miss.

By Elephants in the Room contributors

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/26/john-mccain-was-always-there-for-america/#39;s%20Picks%20OC

John McCain (R-AZ) prepares to greet supporters during a Veterans rally for U.S. Sen candidate and U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) at the American Legion Post on October 13, 2014 in Covington, Louisiana. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

By Will Inboden

“There were giants in the earth in those days…” Genesis 6:4

A giant has departed from among us. With Sen. John McCain’s death on Saturday, our nation has lost a war hero, a statesman, and a patriot.

As an Arizonan, I grew up under the long shadow cast over our state by McCain. He may not have been a native son, but on moving there in 1981 he quickly embraced Arizona and we embraced him in return. The state and the man were made for each other: proud, independent, stubborn, free, and on occasion as prickly as the countless saguaro cacti that adorn Arizona’s southern landscape.

His first run for the House of Representatives in 1982 remains the stuff of Arizona political lore. Criticized during a primary debate for being a carpetbagger, McCain responded defiantly: “I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.”

Even as a young conservative congressman in the vanguard of Ronald Reagan’s revolution, McCain built a close friendship with fellow Arizona Rep. Mo Udall, a liberal Democrat and senior House member who graciously mentored McCain despite their political differences. Displaying the loyalty and honor that were his lifelong traits, McCain in turn never forgot Udall, to the point of visiting him regularly in the veteran’s hospital even when the dying Udall was barely conscious and had been forgotten by the rest of his former colleagues.

McCain won election in 1986 to the Senate seat previously held by the iconic Barry Goldwater. McCain and Goldwater combined served 61 years in the Senate, each a pillar of the institution and each a pillar of Arizona. In particular, they wielded enormous influence on defense policy as both became chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee and both designed landmark defense reform measures while working tirelessly to strengthen and equip our military.

Part of McCain’s greatness came from his sense of history. He venerated the past and felt a special duty to be worthy of the legacies he inherited. Whether in his own family Navy lineage as the son and grandson of admirals, in Arizona as the successor to the Goldwater Senate seat, and especially as an American who loved his country with abiding and unrelenting passion, the past captivated McCain. (Because of his devotion to history and national security leadership, we were honored to have McCain serve on the Statecraft Board of Reference for the Clements Center for National Security that I oversee at the University of Texas at Austin.)

McCain also carried forward the Reagan legacy on national security policy more than almost any other U.S. political leader. Like Reagan, McCain was a stalwart advocate for human rights and democracy, exemplified by his longtime chairmanship of the International Republican Institute. Like Reagan, McCain stood for a strong military, free trade, loyalty to our allies, and U.S. international leadership.

Like all giants, this treasure in an earthen vessel had his flaws. McCain could too often let political differences become personal, had a combustible temper, and was rarely guilty of excessive humility. Few Republicans, myself included, agreed with him on every policy stand he embraced. Almost all of us who served in national security roles in the George W. Bush administration found ourselves crosswise with McCain on some occasion or another.

 But those past feuds and frailties now fade and give way to our mourning of his loss and our celebration of his life. Death has a way of concentrating the mind and causing us to reflect on those things that really matter. Those include the ancient virtues of duty, honor, and country that lived on in the life of McCain. To those, I would add truth. McCain’s Senate colleague Ben Sasse put it well: “Our nation aches for truth-tellers. This man will be greatly missed.”

 

A great country produces great men, and John McCain was a great one indeed. May he rest in peace but may his legacy rest not.

* * *

By Daniel Twining

I started working for John McCain in 1995. I never really stopped working for him. I served on his Senate staff, including as his foreign policy advisor, a role that took me to some 40 countries with him and allowed me to witness the great man in action during some of the most consequential moments of modern American history, including the campaign for NATO enlargement, the 9/11 attacks, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I volunteered for both his presidential campaigns, doing everything from driving him to events to penning parts of his foreign policy platform. I now run an organization, the International Republican Institute, that he chaired for 25 years until reluctantly handing over its leadership in the weeks before his death. The John McCain I know is not the one in the glare of the media spotlight. The private John McCain is in fact more impressive than the public one.

The media narrative always had McCain in the center of the great public policy cause of the day: from campaign finance reform to North Korean nuclear proliferation to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Russian aggression against its neighbors. He was a leader in these and other causes, foreign and domestic. But the causes that animated him equally passionately were those with no media bandwidth whatsoever: a coup in Fiji that subverted democracy; the cause of human rights defenders in Belarus; persecution against online dissidents in Vietnam; the fate of Cambodia’s opposition in the face of repeated government crackdowns; the prospects for Zimbabwe’s democratic opposition; the future of Iraq’s Kurds; the fate of tiny Baltic nations most Americans could not find on a map; prospects for peace in the Balkans; ethnic cleansing in Burma by the powerful against the powerless.

Sen. McCain was not selective in his belief that advancing universal values of democracy and human rights served American interests in a more peaceful, stable world. He raged against tyranny in countries such as the Maldives, population 400,000, as virulently as he fulminated against the strongmen in control of authoritarian great powers who had turned their nations into prisons for their people. He took repression personally: How did Putin get away with conning Russians into believing he was protecting their country from American encirclement even as Moscow invaded neighbors in Georgia and Ukraine in an effort to build a new empire? How did successive North Korean despots charm American presidents into negotiating closer ties when large segments of the North Korean population lived in gulags?

Sen. McCain believed deeply that America must lead internationally—and that while our country did so imperfectly and at times intemperately, it was vacuums left by the absence of American leadership that ultimately made the world more dangerous and insecure. America was a different kind of great power, he understood—one whose universalist aspirations were not simply a cloak for the covetous pursuit of territory and resources but a reflection of the belief that our founding ideals were the prerogatives not only of Americans but of all people. If Americans were endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, should that not be true for everyone else too? Those authoritarians who stood in the way of their people’s natural rights to freedom and dignity were the targets of his greatest wrath.

It takes courage and commitment to care so much about the liberty of those who did not have a voice, or who could not pay Washington lobbyists to push their case. Sen. McCain could have made an equally successful career leading on popular causes that made the front pages of the newspapers and led the storylines on cable television. But he was haunted by an insight he had learned in solitary confinement in Vietnam, where he saw the best and worst of humanity.

Honor is not defined by fame and fortune; it’s not determined by the choices you make when everyone is watching. “Honor is who you are in the dark,” he would say, when you are alone—and when no one but yourself will know whether you did the right thing or whether you accommodated, yielding your principles in the pursuit of a narrower self-interest.

John McCain never yielded. America and the world are better for it.

* * *

By Michael Green

More than any other public figure I have had the opportunity to meet, John McCain is the one I tell my own children to exemplify as they seek a life made meaningful by patriotism, integrity and service. My son was very young when I worked on the foreign policy team of the 2008 McCain campaign. At the time my wife bought him the book My Dad John McCain written by Meghan McCain to introduce the candidate to young readers. My son’s collection of books has changed several times since then, but he still keeps My Dad John McCain front and center.

As Max Boot notes, John McCain was an easy Presidential candidate to support as a foreign policy advisor. In 2008 I represented the campaign in a series of proxy debates organized by think tanks and the press. The Obama team would always come armed with thick books looking like litigators in a complex anti-trust case. While I had a lot of respect and admiration for the guys on the other side of the table, it was clear that their talking points were designed to avoid alienating key Democratic constituencies as much as they were to articulate a clear foreign policy strategy. Team McCain came armed only with an understanding of our candidates’ vision, principles and record. Our counterparts later joked that our clarity on human rights, alliances or trade probably didn’t move any voters in swing states like Florida, but there was no doubt we had much more fun.

Like others, I have also been under the glare of Sen. McCain. As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain authorized an external review of U.S. basing strategy for the Pacific that I co-chaired in 2010. Always focused on the taxpayers’ money and the readiness and welfare of our forces, McCain was cranky about the cost of new housing for Marines on Guam and the Rube Goldberg-like airfield the Pentagon was constructing in Okinawa to satisfy local complaints about noise and safety. After six months of intense work, our outside panel concluded that the new dispersed laydown of bases and access arrangements made good operational and strategic sense given China’s growing missile arsenal and reach into the South China Sea, but that the plan would need adjustments. When I first briefed McCain, he grimaced. When I testified, he called me up afterwards and told me I would need “a bigger piece of lipstick” for this particular pig. He was not going to be convinced by ideology, party, or talking points. In the end, he supported the plan, but only after Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work personally squeezed the Navy to bring costs down almost 50 percent and only after we could explain with precise citation of history, geography and operations how the plan could be implemented in a way that would make our service personnel, our country and our allies safer.

John McCain was a constant reminder of American power and principle for our allies in Asia. Secretaries of defense were grateful when he led bipartisan delegations to the Shangri-La security summit every year to reinforce the administration’s message of commitment and staying power in the region. In 2016, when Beijing began bullying the new government of Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, McCain added a stop in Taiwan on his way back from Singapore to buck her up and push back against the PRC. When Japan was hearing mixed messages about Chinese incursions around the Senkaku Islands, McCain pressed the Obama administration to clarify its support for Tokyo. As many tributes to this great man have emphasized, he relished nothing more than channeling his outrage to plug the gaps in our national security and the shortcomings in our sense of national purpose.

I have been asked in Tokyo, Canberra, Seoul and Taipei on recent trips who will now fill this enormous space in the Senate. I tell our friends that McCain nurtured a strong cohort of principled internationalists on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Sentors Dan Sullivan and Joni Ernst. John McCain has left them—and all of us—a charge to keep.

* * *

By Phil Levy

I had the honor of coordinating international economic policy for Sen. McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. I have worked on such issues for two presidential administrations and three presidential campaigns, despite my background as an academic economist. There is normally some combustion that occurs when academic economists encounter American politics: The economist will talk about optimal policies; the politicians will dismiss those stances as naive fantasies.

With Sen. McCain’s campaign it was different, at least as far my experience went. Sen. McCain firmly supported whatever policies were most likely to help American consumers, workers, and businesses. He resisted intense pressures to resort to economic demagoguery, such as promises to name China a currency manipulator (a popular stance that both recent winning candidates for the presidency expounded, only to eschew once in office). Sen. McCain was a man of strong principle and believed in doing what was right, even if there was a significant political cost.

One of the great ironies of the 2008 campaign was the dismissal of Sen. McCain as weak on economic issues. It was certainly true that his passion was for security issues. His self-deprecation allowed this to be cast as insufficient preparation for dealing with the economy. Yet his instincts and his stances on economic matters were unusually strong. While he may not have been enamored of the details, he did not need to be; he was of sufficient caliber as a leader that he attracted excellent, experienced people around him, such as Doug Holtz-Eakin, to whom I reported, and some of the others involved in Elephants in the Room.

I cannot claim to have known Sen. McCain well. But I am very proud to have had a small role working with such a principled leader, a true American hero. He will be sorely missed.

* * *

By Dov Zakheim

I knew John McCain since he was a Navy captain, working in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs after he returned from Vietnam. I always admired his heroism, his honesty, and his decency. He had a sense of what was best for the country that sadly too many contemporary politicians seem to lack.

He could have a ferocious temper—but it was one that could dissipate quickly. He once blew up at me when I was testifying at a hearing and did not like my reply to his comments. He absolutely refused to accept my apologies. That summer, however, my wife—not knowing that he was furious at me—bought his latest book on CD, to which we listened while driving to our summer home in New Hampshire. (I write from there now.) One of the items that struck me was his statement that he didn’t believe in personalizing policy differences. When I saw him again in September, he growled at me until I told him that I had listened to his latest book. “You did?” I replied in the affirmative, adding, “And you write that you don’t personalize policy differences.”

His reply: “You’re right. I apologize,” and he extended his hand.

That was John.

He could, however, be ferocious when he knew he was in the right. During the Air Force tanker scandal, he told me that he would not rest until he sent the guilty parties to jail. And to jail they went.

Quite independent of our relationship, John was especially nice to my son Roger. They developed a quite close relationship during conference committee for the Armed Services Authorization bills when Roger was a senior staffer on the HASC. For that I am exceedingly grateful.

I will miss John and so too should everyone who shares his deep concern about our alliances and friendships with partners worldwide, our commitment to those who fight for our freedom, and the values that have made this country great and that he held so dear.

May his memory be a blessing for us all.

* * *

By Dan Runde

Sen. John McCain distinguished himself by having the right adversaries. My wife and I hosted a fundraiser for McCain during the 2016 election cycle. Our key pitch was: “How will the Mullahs in Iran, the Chinese leadership, and Vladimir Putin feel if John McCain loses his Senate seat?” That was the question that moved people to give.

McCain also distinguished himself by the wonderful friends and allies he had. In the Senate, these included Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, and Joe Lieberman. He also sought the foreign-policy advice of brilliant people such as Richard Williamson, Randy Scheunemann, and Stephen Biegun. In politics, McCain was fortunate to have the loyalty and persistence of wonderful folks including Wayne Berman and Charlie Black.

McCain valued allies, worked tirelessly to maintain the rule-based international system set up after World War II, had a clear sense of America’s leadership role, and was (thankfully) our adversaries’ worst nightmare. The world is a freer, safer, and better place for his efforts. He understood that the United States needed both a strong defense and many friends. He also understood that we couldn’t just kill our way out of our problems, so we needed to use our soft power just as we used our hard power.

I always felt as if I was in the presence of greatness when I was with McCain. Like all of us, he had his foibles, but he earned a stack of waivers from me and millions of Americans after spending five-plus years in a prison camp in North Vietnam. In my mind, he had the right to break with Republican orthodoxy or have a personal moment of weakness whenever he wanted.

I made a point of taking my three children to the fundraiser my wife and I organized to make sure they met a real hero. The fundraiser was organized around the time that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump made the accusation that McCain was “not a hero.” I told my children that McCain had made great personal sacrifices for the United States and that his sacrifices and his service were things to admire. I encouraged my children to look up to McCain. I told my children that McCain was a hero. He will always be one of mine.

* * *

By William Tobey

With John McCain’s passing, we must mourn the loss of an American hero. We are blessed that for two centuries men and women such as McCain have stepped forward to protect and to defend America’s constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

McCain possessed both physical and moral courage. In 1967, he pressed ahead on his mission over North Vietnam in the face of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles that he knew risked his life and which ultimately brought down his airplane. Later, as a prisoner of war, he refused an offer of release ahead of other Americans who had been held longer. Even injured, imprisoned, and tortured, he would not take the easy way out. He did the same thing in his years in the Senate and an unsuccessful campaign to be president.

In 2006, I faced a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. With me were other Republican nominees chosen by then-President George W. Bush. The senator who gave our panel the most difficult time was not a Democrat; it was McCain, because he cared so deeply about the defense of our nation. He would not permit partisanship to prevent him from asking difficult questions. He was relentless in his pursuit of U.S. security—whether in an aircraft cockpit or on the Senate floor.

I mourn his passing and honor his service, and so should all Americans who value our constitution and our liberty.

* * *

By Thomas G. Mahnken

His passing leaves a yawning void as the United States struggles to deal with a world characterized by the reality of great-power competition and the increasing possibility of great-power war. The U.S. military is nonetheless stronger, and the United States more secure, because of his tenure in Congress.–Thomas G. Mahnken

 

Americans committed to vigorous internationalism and strong national defense have lost a champion, and America has lost a fine and decent public servant.

I had the honor of testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee periodically, and the pleasure of working more frequently with the truly stellar members of his staff. And I was honored to have been one of three commissioners that Sen. McCain appointed to the National Defense Strategy Commission, which has been charged with reviewing the 2018 National Defense Strategy and reporting its findings to Congress, the President, and the Secretary of Defense.

John McCain truly loved the U.S. armed forces, though not in a starry-eyed, reflexive way. This was not bumper-sticker patriotism. Rather, he possessed a deep and abiding connection to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces in which he himself had served, together with a sense of duty that often led him to ask uncomfortable questions of civilian and military leaders in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Where he saw inaction, he prodded; where he saw problems, he sought solutions; where he experienced obfuscation, he berated. Over the years, he championed the causes that he believed needed championing to improve the nation’s defense, to include strengthening the U.S. military in the Asia-Pacific region and moving the services to adopt new ways of war. His committee’s Restoring American Power laid out a vision of a stronger U.S. military better positioned to confront the operational and strategic challenges that confront us. To the extent that there is a Trump military buildup, one of its chief architects was John McCain.

Even before he was diagnosed with cancer, he acted with a sense of purpose. As befit a man who according to the odds should have died twice—first during the deadly fire that engulfed the flight deck of the USS Forrestal, and later as the result of injuries sustained before and during his captivity in Hanoi—he was fearless, impatient, and abrasive.

His passion, determination, and dedicated focus on national defense—qualities the nation needs now more than ever—will be hard to replace. His passing leaves a yawning void as the United States struggles to deal with a world characterized by the reality of great-power competition and the increasing possibility of great-power war. The U.S. military is nonetheless stronger, and the United States more secure, because of his tenure in Congress.

Fair winds and following seas, Senator.

Elephants in the Room is a blog about U.S. foreign policy in the age of Trump, written by experienced GOP policymakers, scholars, and others not currently working in the new administration. It is curated by co-editors Peter D. Feaver and William Inboden.