A Strategy to Defeat the Islamic State

The United States must escalate its military campaign against ISIS proportionate to the group’s increasing capabilities, but that a full-scale intervention is neither advisable nor the most effective US strategy.

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The Relevance of NATO in the Modern World

The eventual collapse of the Soviet Union deprived NATO of its common purpose: no longer was there an imminent, existential threat to the capitalist countries of Western Europe. Many would argue that NATO, with its original rationale for existence made inapplicable years ago, is irrelevant in the modern era.

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Statehood and the Kurds

This piece seeks to address the feasibility of an establishment of a Kurdish state in the Middle East. The conclusions reached are that (1) the prospects for the creation of a Kurdistan are rather bleak and (2) the present state of the Kurdish population varies significantly from country to country.

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East Asia versus Latin America: The Literature in Review

I intend to focus on the comparative economic developments in these two regions. Significant academic discussion has been devoted to understanding how East Asia was able to sustain its economic growth throughout the twentieth century while Latin America showed clear signs of mitigated progress and stagnation.

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Iranian Energy Potential

The conclusions reached are that (1) Iran’s massive natural gas reserves and tremendous oil resources make it a top energy player and (2) the lifting of sanctions would catalyze a dramatic increase in Iran’s energy output, thus bolstering Iran’s future energy prospects. Iran was chosen because international sanctions have devastated Iran’s energy sector, and repealing sanctions will considerably improve the Iranian economy and energy production.

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Privilege and Power in Colonized North Africa

Providing certain groups with privileges and power in a colonized state may serve to control in the immediate sense, but playing favorites only serves to create tensions in an oppressed society that will return to ultimately hurt the imperial force.

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THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

Today, the nature of U.S.-Russian relations is recognized as precarious by both policymakers and business leaders. What are the political and financial consequences of America’s current sanctions on Russia? Who will gain from this policy? And, more importantly, who will lose?

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Corruption and Income Disparity Plague Investors in China

China has grown to the second largest economy in the world and the seventh largest retail market. With brisk economic development and an expanding middle class eager to spend its newfound wealth, Wal-Mart and other retailers perceive great potential in expanding their companies into China.

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On the Brink of Collapse: Fiscal Policy in Post-Revolution Iran

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a large-scale nationalist and religious movement. It resulted from various political and economic factors, including the Shah’s questionably close ties to the United States, rampant corruption throughout the Iranian government, and the inequitable distribution of wealth in Iran.[ii] Although the Revolution was widely embraced by a sizable segment of the Iranian population, it caused irreparable economic damage that is still being felt throughout the country to this day.

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In Search of Territoriale Integriteit and the Société Distincte: A Comparative Study of Separatism in Belgium and Canada and Recommendations for the Exportation of Institutions

Geographically incomparable – insomuch that one occupies 30,528 square kilometers and the other constitutes the second largest country in the world by total area – yet politically and culturally analogous to the extent that both contain significant French-speaking minorities, the federal parliamentary constitutional monarchies of Belgium and Canada present ideal cases for comparison.

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Prolongation of Violence and the Realities of Darfur

Beginning in February of 2003, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice of Equality Movement (JEM) joined forces in the Darfur region of western Sudan to lead an armed rebellion against the country’s central government. What resulted was years of violent conflict that has been said to have left hundreds of thousands of people dead, and millions more displaced from their homes.

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Making the World Safe for Democracy: Wilsonianism Revisited

In declaring war on Germany in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson defined the central goal of his vision for American foreign policy by asserting that “the world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”[i]Wilson ingrained this philosophy, known as Liberal Internationalism, into the psyche of the American public by advocating for the promotion of democracy, economic openness, well-structured multilateral institutions, and American leadership. 

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Back to Babylonia? A Look at Contemporary Barter

Barter, commonly associated with ancient times and micro-level transactions, summons to the mind images of rustic trade routes spanning across Asia, as merchants from the East and traders from the West journey to exchange exotic spices for commodities and metals. What many fail to realize, however, is that barter is far from a phenomenon isolated to the history books

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