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By Justin Baker May 2010 Imagine an almost paradoxical dynamic whereby the state with the greatest defense posed the greatest threat to international strategic stability. In this dynamic, wars will no longer be won or lost based on the offensive prowess of the advancing military; rather, they will be won or lost based on a nation’s ability to [...] By Bécquer Medak-Seguín April 2010 The Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest and most species-rich tropical rainforest, has suffered severe deforestation since the early 1960s when colonists1 established farms and companies began illegal logging operations within the forest. The last two decades have witnessed a motivational change in the Amazon operations from one that was executed by and for [...] By Samantha R. McRoskey April 2010 High-level U.S. and Mexican officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, met recently to re-strategize the war on drugs initiated under the 2008 Merida Initiative. This year’s budget, valued at $330 million, will provide continued military aid, but will be directed toward judicial reform and programs to promote [...] By Rheanne Wirkkala April 2010 Kenneth Waltz, in his important 1979 book entitled The Theory of International Politics, puts forth a theory of positional structure in the international system. He asserts that the structure of the international system, once created, is unchanging and self-reinforcing. Waltz’s ontology is as follows: Discrete units (states) interact at an initial level and [...] By Ian King, Guest Columnist April 2010 With the recent formation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), many have begun to wonder why the U.S. and Canada were not asked to join the new organization. A quick economic explanation makes the answer to this question very clear: in a region where class distinctions still [...] By Bécquer Medak-Seguín March 2010 Of the upcoming elections in Latin America, the Colombian presidential election will likely command the most attention by United States politicians and pundits. The election itself, set to take place on May 30, still lacks an outright frontrunner among the six major candidates largely owing to the legacy of the current president, Álvaro [...] By Samantha R. McRoskey March 2010 Imagine this: at a distance, you see tiny bodies moving across dozens of oil rigs perched in the waters of the Santos Basin off of the São Paulo, Brazil, coastline. It is 2020, and production in Brazil’s Tupi oil field is topping out at more than 150,000 barrels per day. As you [...] By Kevin Taber March 2010 Due to various factors endogenous and exogenous to the historical development of the party structures of many advanced industrialized democracies, the argument has been made that major political parties have evolved from their “catch-all,” mass-based roots to become more “cartelistic” in nature. The nature of the party system itself has changed through this [...] By Rheanne Wirkkala March 2010 Since last fall, the US has raised the number of drone strikes carried out in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan from roughly one per week to nearly one every day. The strikes have been largely successful in targeting al Qaeda and Taliban operatives hiding out in the border region between Afghanistan and [...] By Samantha R. McRoskey February 2010 President Obama’s State of the Union Address made it clear how the public, and the administration, view the state of our union: our most pressing problems are at home. For most of his speech, the president addressed the vulnerabilities of the economy and how to overcome them. He transitioned to issues of foreign [...] |
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