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The year 2011, without a doubt, was the year of the protestor. The Arab Spring swept the Middle East, with oppressed peoples refusing to be denied their basic rights and freedoms any longer. In Russia, protestors filled the streets; indignant at the liberties United Russia was taking with their democratic system. In Burma, activist Aung San Suu Kyi was freed, as the government caved to international and internal pressures to replace the reigning military junta with a democracy. These examples are but a few of the forces for freedom and justice that challenged autocratic powers worldwide.

It was also a year of continuing economic turmoil. Greece and Italy both lost their heads of state over serious economic mismanagement, while Germany and France fought tooth and nail to hold the precarious Euro Zone together. America continued its external struggle to hold its position as the world’s policeman and sole power, while fending off increasingly skeptical internal forces on its...