The European Union (EU) has announced plans to levy a tax on airline emissions for all planes landing and taking off from EU airports. This tax would be calculated not only based on mileage flown in EU airspace but also for the entire length of the flight (thus, Chinese and Japanese airlines would be taxed for an entire journey from Beijing or Tokyo).

In "Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II," Pulitzer Prize finalist Arthur Herman describes how the U.S. won history’s greatest conflict by harnessing free market principles and private-sector creativity and innovation to increase war production.

We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The cost of the Iraq war was high. Almost 4,500 American servicemen and women died, and many more were injured. American taxpayers paid billions of dollars. Was the Iraq war worth it? Yes.

The massive government spending during World War II did not lead to an economic boom. Economic historians have known for some time that the war cut personal consumption as Americans saved their paychecks in record amounts.

The European Union is planning to tax all airlines that travel to and from the 27 EU nations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce.  The tax, to be collected beginning in 2013 for prior year emissions, will be calculated based on the length of each flight. The farther the airlines travel, the heftier the tax.

At this AEI event, bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Arthur Herman will reflect on America's experience in mobilizing for World War II, how it relates to our current predicament, and how we can learn from it to solve today's problems.