international relations

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• 1/29/2023
  

  On Ukraine, International Law is Against Russia—But to What Consequence?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  If the United Nations can define the rules of international relations, but sufficiently powerful nations can flout them without consequence, it's time for a change in global governance. 

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• 1/22/2023
  

  Do Sanctions on Russia Portend a Return to the Interwar Order of Trade Blocs?

  by Carl J. Strikwerda

  The economic response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of a new Cold War. But a better—and scarier—analogy might be the drastic contraction of global trade and the rise of colonial and imperial trade blocs between the World Wars. 

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• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  1/3/2023
  

  The Ghosts of Kennan and Lessons of the Cold War

  by Frederik Logevall

  George Kennan was instrumental in defining the doctrine of containment, but later objected to the bellicosity undertaken in its name. Key parts of his intellectual journey have remained obscure; a new book tries to examine them and draw lessons for foreign policy today. 

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• SOURCE: Catalyst
  12/20/2022
  

  The Redistributive Agenda of the New International Economic Order, and How the IMF Thwarted It

  by Sarah Babb

  Henry Kissinger responded diplomatically to demands from Third World nations for changes in trade and investment rules to alleviate inequality with a pragmatic approach that recognized inequality as a major issue, but prevented poor nations from forming a united front or organizing around their more radical demands. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/7/2022
  

  Gaddis Smith, 89: Legacy of Teaching and Modernizing at Yale

  "Dr. Smith was a Yale institution. He arrived on campus as a freshman in 1950, received his doctorate from the university in 1961, and, aside from a short teaching stint at Duke, never left."

• 
• 12/4/2022
  

  What's New About Putin's Nuclear Threats? Just that the US is on the Receiving End

  by David P. Barash

  From the American perspective, the seeming danger of Putin's nuclear saber-rattling is partly due to the novelty of being on the receiving end. 

• 
• 12/4/2022
  

  Can the World Stop Imperialist War?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  It's past time to finish the halting progress made a century ago to rally international cooperation against imperial aggression. The stakes are too high to leave peace in the hands of individual nations. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/21/2022
  

  The US-China Relationship: Why It Collapsed, How it Can Be Fixed

  by Jake Werner

  The split between the US and China precedes the leadership of Biden, Trump, and Xi, as politicians in both countries have increasingly come to see the others' prosperity as a threat. Solving the split requires looking to the problems of global market capitalism that exacerbated the rift. 

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  10/27/2022
  

  Small Nations, Big Feelings: America's Favored European Nations Before Ukraine

  by Madelyn Lugli

  "Feeling patriotism for a foreign country is, when you think about it, odd."

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• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  10/15/2022
  

  Ukraine Isn't Munich, Berlin, or Vietnam: The Limits and Dangers of Historical Analogies

  by Christopher David LaRoche

  Analogies are vital cognitive shortcuts that enable us to comprehend complexity. But their usefulness means we risk transposing biases and fallacies about the past onto how we understand the present. 

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• 10/16/2022
  

  Bye Bye, World: Will Humanity Continue to Tolerate the Risk of Nuclear War?

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Since the dawn of the nuclear age, broad-based disarmament movements have demanded a world without the threat of nuclear annihilation. Will the governments of powerful nations lead the way to realizing that goal? 

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  10/11/2022
  

  Don't Forget about the Nuclear Danger over Taiwan

  by Michael Klare

  Ukraine isn't the only potential nuclear flashpoint. The United States and China need to begin negotiations to limit the risk around the conflict over Taiwan's status. 

• 
• 10/9/2022
  

  There Are Alternatives to War

  by Lawrence Wittner

  The Ukraine war points to the urgent need to reform the United Nations so it can serve as a true global organization with the power to ensure peace. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/21/2022
  

  Biden's Taiwan Rhetoric Risks Antagonizing China For No Gain

  by Stephen Wertheim

  The United States' "One China" policy is ambivalent, awkward and dissatisfying. But it's served to prevent a destructive war for decades. Biden's recent comments threaten to destabilize the arrangement. 

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• SOURCE: War on the Rocks
  9/16/2022
  

  How Ideology Shapes America's View on the World

  Christopher McKnight Nichols, Raymond Haberski, Jr., and Emily Conroy-Krutz join host Jeremi Suri of the University of Texas, Austin to discuss what ideology is, and explore the ways in which it has shaped, and continues to shape, America’s role in the world.

• 
• 9/18/2022
  

  Ukraine Shows the Need to Break the Cycle of National Insecurity

  by Roger Peace

  It doesn't excuse Russian aggression against Ukraine to recognize that the United States has fumbled the opportunity to forge a global order based on cooperative and mutual security in the years since the end of the Cold War. 

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• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  9/12/2022
  

  49 Years Later, Nixon's Knowledge of Pinochet Coup Remains Secret

  It is beyond time for the Biden Administration to declassify presidential records related to American operations in Chile around the overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.  

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• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  9/5/2022
  

  W.E.B. DuBois's Insight on Race and the Global American Century

  by Zachariah Mampilly

  Both racism and anticommunism helped to minimize the impact of DuBois's thought on international relations, contributing to significant blind spots in the liberal international order. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/30/2022
  

  Sending Dictators to a Luxury Retirement? More Practical Than You Think

  by Brian Klaas

  From a realistic point of view, approaching dictators in crisis with an offer of a safe and luxurious retirement is the best way to spare their countries the violence and economic pillaging that accompany the bitter end of an autocratic regime. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/1/2022
  

  Will Putin's Invasion Derail the Quincy Institute?

  The think tank was founded to counter what its leaders saw as a bipartisan alliance of neoconservatives and liberal interventionists that pushed the United States toward military intervention as the solution to foreign policy problems. How will the Ukraine war affect its credibility in policy circles?