Polaris  

The Best—and Worst—of 2009

It has been almost one year since I started blogging at Polaris. I have decided to celebrate by reviewing the hundreds of articles I linked to in 2009, and compiling a list of greatest hits and misses (after all, who can resist digging up the misses?). The nominees are:

The Barack H. Obama Award for Speech of the Year

• Stanley McChrystal on COIN mathematics
• Shyam Saran on geopolitical consequences of the economic crisis
• Dave Kilcullen: “Crunch Time in Afghanistan-Pakistan“
• Honorary Mention: P. Chidambaram on restructuring India’s security architecture.

The Kautilya Award for Best Writing on Education

• Amitabh Mattoo on the study of international relations
• “Living in HRD Times” by R.P. Singh
• Joseph Nye on scholarly irrelevance

The Gen. James Jones Award for ”Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”-Inducing Moment of the Year

• “India and Climate Change,” in The Wall Street Journal
• Roger Bate on Baseball and Cricket
• Pankaj Mishra on Af-Pak in The Hindu
• Stratfor on the imminent failure of the Indian dream
• “Time of the Underdog” in The Hindu

The Nitin Pai Prize for Fisking of the Year

• B. Raman on David Miliband’s excuses
• Suhasini Haider, also on Miliband’s excuses

 The Asif Ali Zardari Award for Bizarre Writing by a World Leader

• Yukio Hatoyama’s “A New Path for Japan“
• Asif Ali Zardari: “Partnering with Pakistan“
• Muammar Gaddafi: “The One-State Solution“

The Hidden Gems of the Year, brought to you (more often than not) by aldaily.com

• Brink Lindsey, “Nostalgianomics“
• Christopher Hitchens, “Assassins of the Mind“

The Tom Friedman Award for Moment of Hyperventilation

• R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick on the South Asian arms race
• Bush and Singh as soulmates in Reuters India

The Steve Coll Prize for Best Reporting on U.S. Afghan Policy

• Peter Baker et al. on the Afghan ’surge’
• George Packer on Richard Holbrooke

Cast your ballots in the comment box. Voting concludes at midnight on January 10. Honorary awards go out to:

 The Swapan Dasgupta Honorary Award for Self-Criticism

• “Local Militancy” in Dawn

The Nouriel Roubini Award for Prescience

•  R. Hariharan, “Looks Like Prabakaran’s Last Battle” in The Hindu

Icarus Award for High Flyers Brought Down to Earth

• Kilcullen and Exum, “Death from Above, Outrage Down Below“