by SURYA GOWDA, ’22 Western defenders of liberalism commonly claim that there is an impending backslide into authoritarianism in Eastern Europe. Many Western commentators hold that a rise in populist nationalism in Hungary and Poland, both previously considered poster children for successful post-communist democratization, demonstrates that these countries have turned
by DAVIS LARKIN, ’19 This past week, the Maroon and the Gate repeatedly clashed on an issue as near and dear to campus affairs as the geopolitics of the Arabian Peninsula. Atman Mehta wrote in the Maroon to criticize a number of articles published in the Gate as uncritically echoing
by MOLLY MCCAMMON, ’21 In the last few years, Nepal has generated billions of dollars in investments from its northern neighbor China. Trade between the two countries has grown from 108 million US dollars to 990 million dollars in the past decade alone, making China Nepal’s second-largest trading partner.
by MOLLY MCCAMMON, ’21 Turkey is in the midst of an economic crisis, with the lira down nearly 45 percent from the beginning of the year. [1] High inflation combined with President Erdogan’s stubborn insistence on keeping interest rates low have influenced the current crisis, causing Turks to fret
by JAKOB URDA, ’19 On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first orbital satellite. No less astounding was the R-7 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile which carried the small metal ball into space—capable of also delivering thermonuclear warheads to American cities. In launching the space race,
by JACK HAYNIE, ’20 The oil industry, like any other sector of the economy, is eternally at the mercy of technological change. Increasingly, petroleum has been pressured by changes to industries where it once was the unquestioned energy source of choice. Even where it is still used, innovations in fuel
by JACK HAYNIE, ’20 For decades, rising oil demand has been taken almost as a given by policymakers and private sector energy producers alike. Rhetoric about “peak oil,” from the 1970s onwards, has become a trope in popular discussions about the energy industry and resource management policy. The logic goes
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