Foreign Policy Blogs

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Op-Ed: What Is American Nationalism?

Op-Ed: What Is American Nationalism?

Marking the centennial Armistice Day, Emanuel Macron called nationalism the opposite of patriotism.   Whatever his inspiration, his comment should spur Americans to consider what nationalism means to us. Macron may have been channeling historian Timothy Snyder, in his cite of novelist Danilo Kis: “… nationalism ‘has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.’”  Snyder quoted […]

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Ramifications of Royal Psychopathy

Ramifications of Royal Psychopathy

The scope of the conspiracy, the magnitude of the savagery, the imbecility of the cover-up, and the subsequent cheap royal mea culpa were all appalling. Jamal Khashoggi’s death was a premeditated murder. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, insisted that this criminal act transgressed against both Turkey-Saudi relations and all diplomatic norms, and that this could […]

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Special Contributor Op-Ed: The Druze religion…

Special Contributor Op-Ed: The Druze religion…

The Druze religion is a very ancient religion that is proven in the Bible and the New Testament.  It started from the days of Jethro, the priest of Median in the Bible.   At that period of time, the religion consisted of tribes and united ethnic groups.  It wasn’t a religion that emerged of the boundaries […]

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Indians protest against Hamas terror as Israel agrees to cease-fire

Indians protest against Hamas terror as Israel agrees to cease-fire

In the light of the present security crisis in Israel, where Israel just agreed to a cease-fire after facing a barrage of almost 500 rockets and mortars being fired into the southern part of the country, a group of Indians decided to demonstrate in support of Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism. “Today’s demonstration in New […]

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Op-Ed: Will Bangladesh be the next Pakistan?

Op-Ed: Will Bangladesh be the next Pakistan?

The Sheikh Hasina government recently declared that Bangladesh is an Islamic state and “anyone who pronounces offensive statements against it or against the Prophet Muhammed will be prosecuted according to the law.” Ahead of next month’s elections, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has announced that she plans to get the Saudis to build 560 model […]

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Somalia and the Houdinis of Corruption

Somalia and the Houdinis of Corruption

In the moral version of human history – expressed in the Quran, Bible, and Torah – corruption is considered the worst reckless impulse that caused men to fall from grace. It was the betrayal of trust and loyalty for purely selfish gains. From that perspective, the root cause of corruption is individual moral shutdown, derailment […]

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Conflict Minerals: A Manifestation of Modern-Day Colonialism

Conflict Minerals: A Manifestation of Modern-Day Colonialism

                                                                 (Photo from the Enough Project)   The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has historically been the focal point of devastating internal conflict since colonial […]

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Op-Ed: Lara Alqassem verdict highlights Israel’s vibrant democracy

Op-Ed: Lara Alqassem verdict highlights Israel’s vibrant democracy

American writer Andy Griffith once stated, “Whether a man is guilty or innocent, we have to find that out by due process of law.” For anyone who lives in a democratic society, these basic principles are a given but following Israel’s detention of Lara Alqasem, it appears as though the international media pushed those principles […]

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American foreign policy and Congressional volatility

American foreign policy and Congressional volatility

United States foreign policy has lacked an aspirational guiding principle for a generation.  One reason might be the historic volatility of political parties, unlike anything in the past century. United States foreign policy has a record of long-term trends that depend in part on the political parties in power.  During the Cold War, for example, […]

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Op-Ed: Why Lara Alqasam does not belong in Israel

Op-Ed: Why Lara Alqasam does not belong in Israel

In recent days, many have been critical of Israel for detaining Palestinian American activist Lara Alqasem. However, such criticism is not justified in any shape or form. Lara Alqassem was the president of the University of Florida’s chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, a radical group that supports the BDS Movement. According to […]

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African Regimes at a Crossroads

African Regimes at a Crossroads

New hope is blowing across the African continent against the backdrop of toppled heads of government and state in South Africa and Zimbabwe and a rejuvenated government that is pursuing ambitious reforms in Ethiopia. Other recent examples of transitions from long-sitting governments have also played out in Burkina Faso and The Gambia where the sitting […]

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U.S. Now Officially Wants New Cold War With China

U.S. Now Officially Wants New Cold War With China

The U.S. confirms that its trade war with China was just the opening salvo in a much larger geopolitical struggle, resulting in a new Cold War.

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Post-Soviet Neo-Eurasianism, the Putin System, and the Contemporary European Extreme Right

Post-Soviet Neo-Eurasianism, the Putin System, and the Contemporary European Extreme Right

Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism. By Charles Clover. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.   The Gumilev Mystique: Biopolitics, Eurasianism, and the Construction of Community in Modern Russia. By Mark Bassin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.   Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship. Edited […]

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“New Pakistan” – what’s the truth?

“New Pakistan” – what’s the truth?

Imran Khan, elected on his good looks and apparent disagreement with the status quo, was going to bring with him sweeping change, transforming the country into what he called “Naya Pakistan,” or “New Pakistan”. His two-decade-long journey to the premier house in Pakistan has not gone unnoticed. After losing the last national elections in 2013, […]

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Why and How a New Democratization of Russia Can Happen and Be Supported: The West Should Get Ready for and Promote a Different Post-Soviet Future

Why and How a New Democratization of Russia Can Happen and Be Supported: The West Should Get Ready for and Promote a Different Post-Soviet Future

Western comments on Russian domestic and foreign affairs have, during the last years, become more and more gloomy. Among other topics, this pessimistic discourse (to which I too have contributed) features Putin’s neo-imperial plans for the post-Soviet area, the many varieties of post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, the fragility of the geopolitical grey zone between the Kremlin-dominated […]

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