The Philippines, Australia, and even China helped the United States defeat imperial Japan in World War II.
UN Origins Project Series, Part 4: In WWII, It Took Teamwork to Defeat Not Only Germany, But Japan
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United States
Cut Deficit, Increase Militarization?
The recent deficit deal includes potentially deep cuts in U.S. security spending. One likely but perhaps counterintuitive outcome would be staffing reductions in foreign development programs and in diplomatic missions. The deal will also hit the budgets of domestic security programs like border patrols, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. These are not the sort of security cuts decried by hawkish lawmakers who fear that potential cuts to the military will hollow out the U.S. armed forces and cripple the military industry.
Islamophobia’s Poisoned Wellsprings
The right has been conducting a campaign with deep pockets to instill fear and hatred of Islam in Americans.
Hiroshima, Mon Ami: “History’s Most Awkward Handshake”
Reality TV today has nothing on a show from the 50s that hosted both a prominent Hiroshima victim and the co-pilot of the Enola Gay.
Why Not a Fantasy Foreign Policy League?
Military intelligence threat assessments are like a counterterrorism version of fantasy football ratings.
Governments Kill
Governments kill on our behalf. This arrangement is a form of social contract, which means that governments are basically contract killers. Some states, like Nazi Germany, use the tremendous power of arms and bureaucracy to transform their territories into slaughterhouses. Regimes that are merely authoritarian can be equally brutal but display a greater selectivity in their tyranny. In our more decorous democracies, meanwhile, we perfume our conversations with words like “justice” and “national security” to mask the odor of death.
Feeding the World
Come October, Atlas won’t be shrugging, he’ll be groaning as global population passes the 7 billion mark. Until very recently, demographers predicted that these numbers would peak in 2050 at just over 9 billion and then start to decline. The latest research, however, suggests that despite declining fertility across much of the world, population will continue to rise through this century to over 10 billion people. With famine spreading in Somalia, another food crisis gripping North Korea, global food prices near a record high, and climate change threatening to reduce future harvests, the question continues to nag: are we outstripping our capacity to feed ourselves?
Most Asylum Seekers Are Not Cheaters
Allegations have surfaced that the Guinean woman who accused the former executive director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of sexual assault had lied during her asylum proceedings. This story has fed into a larger narrative that desperate immigrants, assisted by unscrupulous enablers, cheat their way through the system to gain asylum. Some media outlets played their part to further advance this impression.
Nye’s Future of Power
In his new book The Future of Power, co-founder of neo-liberalism theory Joseph S. Nye outlines a synthesis of his more than two decades of scholarship on the future of world power politics.
Revisiting the Atlantic Charter
The world once again teeters on the brink of catastrophe, just as it did in the middle of the 20thcentury. Today, we face much more subtle threats – such as economic instability, climate change, weapons proliferation, and food shortages — than simply an axis of World War II adversaries. However, as with Hitler a half century ago, these issues constitute a tremendous threat to international security and world stability. They require the United States to once again broaden the purview of its foreign and military policy objectives and engage with its international partners to seek solutions.