By: Logan Bayroff For the first time in quite a long time, something new is happening in Russia. Sure, the former superpower has popped up in the news now and then since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Stories about saber-rattling autocrats and obscenely rich oligarchs are always popular with journalists, and the sordid corruption and crime that accompanies them [...]
by Melissa Roberts Given the horrifying stories of famine and suffering in the Horn of Africa, it seems absurd to propose a reduction of in-kind US food aid to Africa. Yet this might be the only way to end the relentless outbreaks of famine. While all efforts should be made to get emergency food aid to Africa during this famine, [...]
by Logan Bayroff In the wake of Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he will once again stand for president in Russia’s upcoming spring elections, and with the limit on presidential terms extended from four years to six, Russians face the prospect of another twelve years under the reign of their peerless leader. While Putin’s enemies bemoan his now all but inevitable [...]
by Sophia Dimitrova The United States and European countries are currently confronted with a difficult choice: either accept the rise of the rest of the world as synonymous with their own decline or recognize that the perception of world affairs as a zero-sum contest between the West and the “rest” is outdated. For several decades, we have been witnessing the [...]
by Antonis Cotzias Art by David Ko 2049 Thousands of people live on floating city-nations, having chosen their own government and the rules by which they will be governed. “Seasteads” compete with one another for citizens, and the government sector produces radically better laws and evolves. Governments on land continue to be forced to adapt to this new reality and [...]
Disclaimer: Умом Россию не понять It’s a truism to say that Russian government is broken. Finding benevolent, selfless leaders anywhere in Russian history is like playing “Where’s Waldo?” Perhaps Alexander the II qualifies…Ivan the Terrible probably falls under the selfless category, but any man wielding an army of brutal soldiers dressed in black who sees himself as God’s earthly executioner probably [...]
As I write this, the ultimate outcome of the revolutionary fervor sweeping the Arab world has yet to reach a clear outcome. But from Mauritania to Oman, a clear tide of political, economic, and social discontent has swept regimes long presumed invulnerable to such forces. Most observers, if asked to pick a Middle Eastern state liable to revolution, would have [...]
by Darina Shtrakhman East or West? Turkey has been debating this question as long as it has been a country, perhaps even since the Ottoman era a century earlier. After World War II, Turkey made a name for itself by maintaining a secular democracy in a predominantly Muslim country — an impressive straddling of Middle Eastern and Western values which has [...]
by Mihir Garud It took just 18 days for one of the most entrenched leaders in the Middle East, Hosni Mubarak, to be forced out of power. Despotic leaders from around the region are feeling the pressure that revolutions may be inevitable. Leaders in Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are struggling to prevent their countries from losing [...]
With autocratic, dictatorial regimes falling left and right in the Arab world, one might anticipate a few demonstrations by the oppressed in other corners of the globe. North Koreans in particular have been receiving news of the uprisings via leaflets flown in by balloon from the South. “A dictatorial regime is destined to collapse,” they claim. Sadly, so long as [...]
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