The Cold War might be over, but the cables beneath the Baltic Sea suggest otherwise. In a world increasingly dependent on digital connections and undersea infrastructure, Russia’s maritime behavior feels less like routine navigation and more like a game of cloak-and-dagger warfare. The culprit? Russia’s elusive “shadow fleet”—a murky network of commercial-looking vessels suspected of […]
Tag: war
Might Makes Right: the DRC, Rwanda, and a Shifting World Order
The winding path of international politics has reached a fork of values: enduring liberalism versus an emergent imperialism. Our new path will be chosen in Central Africa, a war-ridden and oft-ignored part of the world, where the Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing a resurgence of violence inflicted by its neighbor Rwanda. In 2012, […]
The Limits of Israel’s Wars
The Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz famously said “War is merely the continuation of policy with other means.” A state sets a definable list of objectives, and when diplomatic or conventional political means do not suffice, it turns to military means to achieve its goal. War may be accompanied by violence, destruction, and chaos. However, […]
Care About Soccer—It Ends Wars and Starts Rebellions.
In 2005, the world was not sure whether Cote d’Ivoire could continue to exist. Home to over three million Ivorians of about 60 different ethnic groups, the coastal African nation was torn by a three-year-long civil war. Despite attempts by both France and the United Nations to de-escalate, tensions were reigniting between the Ivorian government […]
The Koreas: Stars of a Familiar Global Standoff
70 years after South Korea and North Korea called a ceasefire on their ongoing armed conflict, tensions have run high between the two countries, but not culminating in mass violence. Their diplomatic relations continue to remain frosty, and their differences have diverged further through their respective alliances with the United States and Russia. Given the […]
Putin’s Side Project, and the Warning It Sends to Democracies
Written in July 2022 As Vladimir Putin’s baseless war in Ukraine unfolds, the Russian propaganda machine has been hard at work churning out false narratives—like asserting the U.S. and Ukraine are training birds and reptiles to spread viral pathogens in Russia. Though seemingly trivial, this claim may be the pretext for the use of chemical […]
War Within a War: Sexual Violence in Ukraine
Trigger Warning: Discussion of sexual assault and violence against women The United Nations departments of Sexual Violence in Conflict and UN Women put forth a joint statement on April 9th stating that they are “gravely concerned about mounting allegations of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls in the context of the war in Ukraine.” […]
Ethiopia’s Tigray Crisis: Famine, Humanitarian Tragedy and Tribal Politics
The year-long conflict in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray has ushered in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Through it all—killings, looting, sexual violence, and displacement—civilians continue to pay the high price for the descent of the second-most populous country in Africa into ethnopolitical confrontations and mass starvation. In November 2020, tensions […]
Confronting China: Restoring U.S. Military Hegemony in East Asia
Over the last decade, Americans of all political parties have been waking up to the threat posed by China. With rapidly growing military and economic might, China seems determined to further its own interests at the expense of the freedom, liberties, and sovereignty of neighboring countries and the liberal-democratic institutions which underpin the global order. […]
No End in Sight for the Venezuela Stalemate
Over the past few years, the economic and political situation in Venezuela has gone from serious to cataclysmic. Under the lead of President Nicolás Maduro, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela seized nearly complete control of the country. They gutted the power of the opposition-led legislature by handing legislative authority to a “Constituent Assembly” elected […]
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Government Waste or Areal Titan?
Over the last decade, the F-35 joint strike fighter has received a steady stream of bad press. Literally everything that could go wrong with the development of a new weapons system did, and there was seemingly no end to cost overruns, delays, failed technologies, crashed prototypes and more. As a result, critics point to the […]
The U.S. Must End Military Aid to Saudi Arabia
On September 1, 2019, nearly 100 civilians died in Saudi Arabia’s deadliest attack of the year — an overnight offensive on Dhamar, a city in the southwestern region of Yemen. Attacks such as these contribute to regional instability, a hallmark of Saudi Arabia’s continuous commitment to the war in Yemen. The war in Yemen is […]
The Ascendancy of Non-State Armed Actors
States no longer need to declare war to wage it. Citizens have, for the most part, remained ignorant of their respective nations’ new “foreign policy” and the increasing ease to engage in conflict. Underlying the new strategies of modern warfare include modern economic and political upheaval, globalization, but also most importantly, an upheaval of the […]
China v. the US: Tariff Threats and Redirection Techniques
On the economic front, the world has recently been shaken by the continued intensification of the Chinese-American trade war initiated by President Trump. Marking just over a year since Trump began his Section 301 investigations on Chinese trade, the newest tariff policy Trump is threatening to impose on total Chinese exports is $200 billion dollars. The […]
To Engage or Not to Engage: Diplomacy with North Korea?
Editors’ disclaimer: this debate was crafted during early 2018, before the development of new events between North and South Korea’s possible peace treaty that would formally end the Korean War. The contents discussed in the debate below ought to be evaluated as if such a groundbreaking event has yet to occur. RESOLVED: The United States […]
Soldiers of Fortune: the Rise of Private Military Companies and their Consequences on America’s Wars
By Alexander Casendino War and conflict are synonymous with human history, and where there is conflict, there are often mercenaries who reap the profits. These “armies for hire” appeared as early as Ancient Egypt and Rome, with rulers deploying paid auxiliary forces to supplement imperial armies. In present-day America, mercenaries have consolidated into one of […]
Colombia’s Conundrum: An Elusive Peace
When the Colombian government’s peace agreement with the Farc (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), to end the 52-year war was rejected, many were shocked. After all, it was turned down by an incredibly thin margin, about 0.2%. However, that thin margin highlights what a fragile peace it would have been. For half of voters […]
Yemen on the Brink of Civil War
Yemen is on the brink of civil war, after the Houthis, a well-organized group of Shia rebels, put current interim President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi under house arrest, leading to his resignation. Hadi fled the capital city Sana’a in late January and settled in his hometown of Aden, where he claimed the legitimate government resided. He […]
AUMF 2015 and the War on ISIL
There is a common refrain in American politics when politicians discuss taking military action in foreign countries. “[insert country of interest here] is going to be another Afghanistan… another Iraq… another Vietnam.” In Vietnam, what began with light air support and humanitarian aid lead to deployment of “advisors,” who invariably were involved in firefights, escalating […]
Darfur: Will the West Ever Care?
When on October 30th, 2014, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s vicious government forces mercilessly raped 221 women and girls over 36 hours, the residents of Tabit stood helpless. The small town of Tabit in Northern Darfur, Sudan, had been subjected to another atrocity. It was not long ago that images of George Clooney’s ‘Save Darfur’ campaign […]
Apocalypse Tomorrow
Part 4 of a series on U.S. cybersecurity. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein The age of cyberwarfare is finally upon us. This transformation is irreversible; former Defense Secretary Chuck […]
A Failed State No More: Somalia’s Waning War
Sleek Boeing 737-800s operated by Turkish Airlines fly into Mogadishu’s gleaming new international airport as patients flock to the recently refurbished Erdoan hospital, the best-equipped medical center in East Africa. Al-Shabaab, the Al-Qaeda affiliate that has terrorized Somalia for eight years, is in tatters and on the run from a legitimate federal government that is […]
American Sniper: Opposing Scopes
From The Hurt Locker to Zero Dark Thirty, military combat films have become increasingly controversial in the media. But has political correctness gone too far or can these films divorce politics from art? Staff writers Adora Svitak and Jordan Ash offer contesting views of the Oscar-nominated movie American Sniper.
America “Incorporated”
As of today, more than 3000 private companies have been assigned to do the job Americans believe are exclusive to U.S. agents and James Bond lookalikes: clandestine, special operations. The recently released “Remote Control Project” report reveals how the American government is now using private corporations for special operations like surveillance, “psychological operations,” and interrogation. […]