by JOSH ZAKHAROV, ’20 In August 2016, Juan Manuel Santos, then President of Colombia, and Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez, then leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), shook hands in Havana to seal an agreement that would end a civil conflict that had wreaked hundreds of thousands of casualties,
by JOSH ZAKHAROV, ’20 Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in an interview with CNBC that the United States would oppose a hypothetical International Monetary Fund bailout of Pakistan’s $12 billion debt to China. “We will be watching what the IMF does,” said Pompeo, as “there’s
by BEN SILVIAN, ’20 In March, the Indian government’s relatively new ID database, Aadhaar, suffered a major data breach.1 Aadhaar stores a plethora of identity and biometric data on 1.1 billion of India’s just over 1.3 billion citizens, including their fingerprints and iris scans, making
by BEN SILVIAN, ’20 At first glance, the U.S. military’s successful drone strike against Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), on June 13 is a major success. Fazlullah, who had lead the militant group since 2013, was known to be a “particularly ruthless militant.”[i]
The following piece is a response to a recent blog post by staff contributor Ben Silvian. by JAKOB URDA, ’19, and ZACHARY LEMONIDES, ’19 In his recent piece, ‘The Case for Unconditional Aid,’ Ben Silvian claims that “the problem is that structural adjustment programs are unequivocally bad”— but history rarely
by KATIE GARCIA, Columbia University ’20 The nationalization of Iranian oil and the subsequent emergence of nationalist leader Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister signify a watershed moment in the history of diplomatic relations between the United States and Iran. Domestically, Mossadegh represented constitutionalism, resource autonomy, and popular nationalism. In the
by SARAH MANNEY, Stanford University ’18 At the end of the French Revolution of 1789, historian R. R. Palmer wrote that “The wars of the kings were over; the wars of the people had begun.”[1] Today, this maxim threatens to be reversed. Although increasing Chinese and Russian assertiveness towards
by SARAH McKELLAR, American University ’19 The Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report, Arctic Imperatives: Reinforcing U.S. Strategy on America’s Fourth Coast, stated, “The United States, through Alaska, is a significant Arctic nation with strategic, economic, and scientific interests.”[1] For a significant amount of time,
by REBECCA MOONEY, University of Rochester ’18 Abstract This study analyzes the efficacy of the no-concessions policy used against terrorist groups during hostage crises and related incidents. Specifically, I address whether conceding to a terrorist organization’s ransom demand influences the frequency of future attacks committed by the group. Existing
by GABRIEL BROSHY, ’20 Many argue that we ought to refrain from giving money directly to the poor. Since it was their faulty decision-making that caused their current predicament, giving money directly to these individuals would only perpetuate the cycle of poverty. At least in developing countries, this line of
by EMMA MADDEN, ’18 On December 9th, 2016, two schoolgirls entered a crowded marketplace in Madagali, Nigeria. The young girls, posing as customers, paused to shop at a stall selling grain and second-hand goods. Suddenly, they detonated the two suicide vests hidden under their clothing, killing and wounding over 100
by GAURAV KALWANI, ’19 In May of this year, Chinese forces deployed surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missiles on its occupied reefs in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea (SCS).[1] China’s actions, though certainly concerning to the international community, were hardly surprising. The placement of missiles was