Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, the United States of America is progressively distancing from its global leadership role. President Trump is clear that he wants American dollars spent on American people. In line with this ethos, America has withdrawn from major treaties to focus on getting its own house in order – […]
The political transformation in the Horn of Africa is arguably the most counterintuitive development in the 21st century so far. Ethiopia has steered away from implosion and, for the first time in its history, appointed an Oromo Prime Minister with an Islamic name and heritage, ending the 20-year-long conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nonetheless, Abiy […]
I attended the American Geological Union (AGU) Fall Meeting this week in San Francisco. It’s billed as “the largest worldwide conference in geophysical science,” with over 20,000 attendants. There was a vast number of talks on the cryosphere, which I’ll try to cover over the next few days. One session I attended, “Frontier Science from Extended Continental […]
Four months after its acceptance as an observer to the Arctic Council, South Korea is fulfilling expectations surrounding its new role by leading a research survey into the Beaufort Sea to look for subsea permafrost and methane hydrates. The East Asian country’s self-constructed icebreaker, the Araon, left Barrow, Alaska on September 8 bound for Canadian waters. The Araon will spend […]
During the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Kiruna, Sweden last Wednesday, the body’s Secretariat released the “Vision for the Arctic” (PDF). The Secretariat is composed of the eight Arctic States together with the six permanent participants, the Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations. The vision has seven sections, which I analyze below. The document’s introduction describes how […]
Next week, starting March 4, the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at U.N. HQ in New York. The main focus of CSW57 will be the “elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.” A worthy cause, and one which in my ideal world […]
My colleague Dr. Greg Austin and I wrote a short discussion paper titled “Cybersecurity: Crime Prevention or Warfare?” for the 49th Munich Security Conference which took place this February in Munich, Germany. We identified some of the top challenges pertaining to cybersecurity and outlined six policy action ideas. Given the recent revelations about the Chinese […]
Today, I will explore the linkages between two concepts of the sublime – the natural and the technological – and the Arctic. In the book, “American Technological Sublime,” author David Nye explores how the U.S. has established its national character through the use of the technological sublime. Readers may be familiar with the work of […]
Me culpa. Yesterday I speculated about the origins of Flame and noted at the outset that Stuxnet generally is attributed to Israel, perhaps with the United States as an accessory. In an exhaustive report published this morning, the New York Times reports that Stuxnet was in fact a U.S. product, part of a cyber-sabotage program […]
The Cable reports that President Barack Obama and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) are behind a renewed effort to have the Senate ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, has been trying to set up hearings since last year, but Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the top-ranking Republican […]
Canada: Operation Nunalivut The Canadian Forces have just commenced one of their annual sovereignty exercises in the Arctic, called Operation Nunalivut. 150 Canadian Forces personnel from the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Canadian Rangers are participating. This year, the exercises are taking place around Cornwallis Island and on the western portion of Devon Island in […]
By Anne Bilala, Anna Maria Barcikowska, Jordan Becker, Benjamin Bilski, Benedetta Berti, Dustin Dehez, Hristiana Grozdanova, Francisco Galamas, Dominik P. Jankowski, Gonca Noyan, Jelena Petrovic and Timothy Stafford Over the past six weeks, a group of young leaders from all over the world has been actively involved in discussing the future of transatlantic relations through […]
One thing history has consistently taught us is that paradigms shift and new eras are born in a repeating cycle that’s as old as hills. One thing history has also taught us is that some shifts are far more epochal than others; some have the capacity to distort the pathway of history and others not. […]
A recent article by Nathan Brown in the FP (Americans, put away your quills), eloquently argues against the advocacy and promotion of “American constitutional ideas” (and ideals) in Arab countries currently in transition due to the Arab Spring. Although the history of U.S. constitutional transplantation is mixed at best (failed in Latin America in the […]
Until the Arab spring movement and its legion of revolutionaries came to clash with President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime, demanding an end to decades of autocracy and repression, the Americans considered Yemen’s autocrat a “bulwark” against terrorism, a strategic ally in the region in the fight against al-Qaeda, the well-known Islamic organization. When it became […]