Three Chinese Navy Ships ready to sail. Earlier this month, on September 13, the U.S. Navy sailed a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Wayne E. Meyer, into the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands. The mission’s objective was to challenge Chinese territorial claims in the region. As Commander Reann Mommsen, spokesperson for the U.S. Navy’s … Read more
On June 26, President Trump tweeted that “much can be learned” from Australia’s refugee policies. Other leaders, including Italy’s Matteo Salvini and The Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, have also expressed admiration for Australia’s deterrence-based refugee policies. The numbers are convincing. In the seven years before the Liberal government’s Operation Sovereign Borders took effect, approximately 50,000 asylum … Read more
Even as it poses an unprecedented planetary threat, the rise of far-right leaders has inspired a new scale of climate activism. Representing a greater resistance to right-wing extremism, public and private institutions alike, alongside citizens of all ages, are mobilizing to derail the world from a climate collision course while there is time left to … Read more
China’s rise is often discussed as inevitable, and for good reason. The country has become an economic powerhouse, with the world’s largest GDP measured in purchasing power. No country has a bigger standing army, and China, with its aggressive foreign policy, massive population, and rich culture, is rightfully regarded as second only to the United … Read more
While the world has been focused on the tensions within its best-known continental free trade area, the European Union, countries across Africa have come together to create their own economic union, the African Continental Free Trade Area. Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs estimated in 2015 that only 12 percent of Africa’s trade … Read more
In an April 2018 episode of Saturday Night Live, President Donald Trump zones out during a press conference with the leaders of the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — preferring to focus on such pressing issues as Roseanne and the Lithuanian president’s hair. Soon, the episode pivots from issues of foreign policy … Read more
In 1995, after her husband’s physical abuse caused her to miscarry days before she was due to give birth, Tzviyah Gorodetsky filed for divorce. The 19-year-old Russian, who had just migrated to Israel, filed for the dissolution of her marriage under the Jewish rabbinic courts, which govern all matters of marriage and divorce. She was … Read more
The world’s largest democracy confronts a difficult choice in 2019. As India’s 875 million voters prepare for what is expected to be the most expensive election in history, its largest state — Uttar Pradesh — is ripe for sectarian battle. Uttar Pradesh elects 80 of the 543 members in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house … Read more
A crew member salutes an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter in the Pacific. Late 2018 saw tensions rapidly escalate in the South China Sea following a dangerous encounter during a U.S Freedom of Navigation exercise in September. The USS Decatur came within 45 yards of a People’s Liberation Army vessel on September 30. The confrontation took … Read more
When business meets politics, the result may be quite contentious. When international business meets international politics, it can result in geopolitical disarray. Such is the case of Nord Stream 2, a natural-gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany that is owned and operated by Nord Stream AG. According to both Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, … Read more