Andrew Lambert— In the late 1880s, American strategist and historian Alfred Thayer Mahan coined the term “sea power” by purposefully splitting the word “seapower,” a direct translation of the Greek thalassokratia, to sustain his agenda. The Greek word had been used by Herodotus and Thucydides to describe states which were
Isabel Sawhill— The midterm elections are over, and the Democrats have taken back the House. They now need an agenda that signals to the electorate what they are for, not just what they are against. It’s unlikely that much will get done between now and 2020, but if the next
Michelle Baddeley— How did Donald Trump manage to become president? If we look to psychology for an explanation, we can understand Trump as the populist leader of a modern-day tribe of voters. These voters define themselves according to a specific set of attitudes. On social media, they have a level
Thomas Grillot— The mobilization against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in the winter of 2016-2017 has made headlines throughout the world. In the first days of September 2016, the challenge raised by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to the unbridled exploitation of natural resources in their region and
A look at the history of intelligence and espionage from Biblical times to social media misinformation. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Soundcloud
T.V. Paul- With the arrival of populist leaders in the US and in Europe, the question is often raised regarding the future of international institutions, one of the three key pillars of the liberal international order, the other two being democracy and economic interdependence. A key function of international institutions
Many who declare that Americans in 2018 should stick to the original words of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1788, fail to acknowledge that in reality the nation has been ruled by a substantially different Constitution for the past 150 years. The Union victory in 1865, and the amendments
Loka Ashwood— Rural Americans do, indeed, have more guns than their urban counterparts. According to the General Social Survey, the highest rates of gun ownership can be found in the most rural areas of the southeast United States. In those wide-open fields and forests, rural residents—black and white—are more likely to
Stephen D. King— Our ideas and institutions shift with alarming regularity. Spanish conquistadors of the early sixteenth century—bounty-hunters hell bent on extracting silver from the New World, regardless of the human cost—would have been surprised to discover that Spain, at one point Europe’s superpower, is now one of the poorer
David Francis Taylor— In 2004 Morten Morland published a cartoon in the Times that took aim at Anglo-American attempts to broker peace between Israel and Palestine. He did so by adapting a much older image: James Gillray’s “Sin, Death, and the Devil” of 1792. Gillray’s caricature responded to the sacking