In The News

South America and Venezuela: Foreign Affairs

Oliver Stuenkel March 3, 2019
Since the wave of democratization in the 1980s swept the continent, South America has strengthened intraregional connections in an effort to reject foreign intervention, especially from the United States and the West. Brazil led the charge in ensuring that its neighboring countries would not resort to authoritarian governance. For some time, multinational organizations, created to bring about...

Maturity and De-escalation: Asian Age

KC Singh March 2, 2019
India-Pakistan relations are at a crisis point after a terrorist car-bomb attack on a bus in Pulwama that left 40 dead. India responded with an air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp near the Line of Control separating the two nations. “India had reliable intelligence that terrorists and suicide bombers there were training to attack India; India had no desire to target the Pakistani military or...

US-NK Summit Fails: Korea Herald

Choi He-suk February 28, 2019
A summit, with the aim of curtailing North Korea’s nuclear-weapons ambitions, ended early with no agreement. The Korea Herald reports that North Korea had offered to denuclearize partially if the United States lifted sanctions, and Donald Trump refused. Other reports suggest North Korean officials do not agree with that description. A draft agreement went unsigned. That draft declared an end to...

Saudi Nuclear Bomb Ambitions: New Europe

February 21, 2019
US Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette assured European allies at the Munich Security Conference that the US does not support development of a nuclear bomb by Saudi Arabia. “Saudi Arabia has refused to rule out weapons-grade uranium enrichment, saying the Kingdom may need to consider its own nuclear weapons programme in order to counter its arch-enemy, Iran’s, perceived nuclear ambitions...

Another Cuban Missile Crisis: Reuters

Andrew Osborn February 21, 2019
The United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and Russia soon followed. Both nations claim the other violated terms. Russia opposes deployment of such missiles in Europe, and Vladimir Putin claims that Russia holds the edge when it comes to first-strike capability, reports Reuters. Putin referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which “erupted in 1962 when Moscow...

Impending US Pullout: Times of India

Nayan Chanda February 20, 2019
The United States invaded Afghanistan soon after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, DC. After more than 17 years of war, Donald Trump signals that the war’s end is near. The “timing appears to be based on electoral calculations rather than the security situation on the ground, but New Delhi need not panic,” explains Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal’s founding editor, in his column for...

Putin vs. US Intelligence: Daily Beast

February 19, 2019
The US budget devotes more than $80 billion on intelligence-gathering, representing more than 10 percent of the US defense budget, with many expenditures and details classified. Yet the US president has suggested that he does not hold much stock in US intelligence assessments. Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe offered a new example as shared by a colleague, during an interview on the...