The world can be a confusing place. The goal of "The 101" is to breakdown some of the complex issues in international affairs, to give you the background and context you need to better understand them, to raise some questions that the purveyors of conventional wisdom are missing, and to do it all in a way that you won’t need a PhD in International Affairs to understand.
Author Ed Hancox has a Masters Degree in International Affairs from The New School in New York City; for the past four years he has written and published the International Affairs-focused blog, A World View. Previously he worked as a journalist in both the print and broadcast media; currently he works for a global risk management research organization.
A Copper Bullet For American Democracy?
Earlier this week, the team from Zambia won the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament. The Zambian side, known as the Chipolopolo, or Copper Bullets, were an underdog in the 16 team field. Their victory over the heavily-favored Cote d'Ivoire side was a thrilling enough outcome, but that it happened in Libreville, Gabon, where a generation earlier Zambia's entire national team had been wiped out in an airplane crash proved to be nothing short of a national catharsis.
Harry S Obama
The rhetoric coming out of the Republican presidential primary candidates would have you believe that President Barack Obama is actively engaged in a foreign policy whose sole purpose is to weaken America's standing on the global stage. This is, of course, nonsense. But it also hides the fact that Obama has been rather consistently engaged in a foreign policy strategy followed by the hero of the Republican Right, Ronald Reagan, who himself was following a policy originally laid down by Pres. Harry S Truman.
A Neo-Con Job
Former Bush Administration official Elliott Abrams has taken to the pages of Foreign Policy to offer a defense of the Neoconservative policies that were a hallmark of the Bush-era world view, and to link them with the ongoing Arab Spring movement (note: author/pundit Niall Ferguson was also pushing this argument on Sunday's episode of “Fareed Zakaria GPS”). It is an odd defense on the part of Abrams, since he basically boils neoconservativism down to a couple of pro-de
Stumbling Towards War: Iran Edition
Ultima Ratio Regum Latin for “[War,] the last argument of kings,” this quote summed up the classical approach to warfare, that it was the method of achieving a specific strategic goal of the realm when other methods had failed. In modern times though, it seems that war is often the result of a chain of political miscalculations by heads of state. Such is the situation with Iran and the United States, where armed conflict seems more and more likely the eventual outcome of our current diplomatic standoff.
2012's Unknown Unknowns
Like baseball great Yogi Berra, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had his own struggles with the English language, one of his best malapropisms was the coining of the term “unknown unknowns.” Rumsfeld was trying to make a valid point about the uncertain security situation at the time in Iraq – that there were unexpected contingencies that simply could not be prepared for; unfortunately for him (but perhaps fortunately for us), that thought came out as “unknown unknowns.”
The Next Great War of Africa?
The Second Congo War, which gripped the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the turn of the new millennium (1998-2003), is sometimes also called the Great African War or Africa's World War. The reason is simple, at the height of the hostilities, the armies of no less than eight nations were directly involved in combat, along with two dozen foreign-backed militias, ranging from independence-minded ethnic movements to the nihilistic death cult, the Lord's Resistance Army. As one would expect from such a multi-faceted conflict, the reasons behind the war are both numerous and complex, but for some of the belligerents, the Great War of Africa allowed f
A Sunday Test For Russian Democracy
Imagine for a moment a country a few days away from national elections, a place where the once all-powerful ruling party is fading in the eyes of the citizens, thanks to an economy burdened by low wages and rising unemployment, where even the prime minister – who has carefully cultivated an image equal parts action hero and everyman – is looking increasingly small; it all seems like a recipe for an electoral drubbing. But the country is Russia, and elections, like the one scheduled for this Sunday, really aren't suppose to bring about change, especially in the era of Vladi
Margin Call: A Lesson For Occupy Wall Street?
I watched the new movie Margin Call over the weekend. Margin Call is set at a major financial institution on the day that the firm realizes that their vast holdings in subprime mortgages are essentially worthless (for a good primer on the subprime debacle and its role in creating the Great Recession, read Michael Lewis' book, The Big Short).
India's Nano, A Cold War Casualty?
According to a report in Foreign Policy, sales of the Nano automobile in India have been disappointing. Launched with great fanfare just two years ago and billed as the “world's cheapest car”, the Nano has been equal parts savvy marketing campaign and act of social responsibility on the part of its creator, Tata Motors. A marked transition has been underway in Indian society as the population becomes more affluent and more urban. Unfortunately, the infrastructure of most Indian cities has not been able to keep up;
The Two Gadhafis
With control of his nation reduced to a handful of loyalist redoubts, there is a palpable sense of joy in Western capitals - and an equal sense of relief at NATO headquarters in Brussels that the seemingly moribund alliance was actually able to achieve something - over the impending end of the Moammar Gadhafi era in Libya. Countries around the world have been quick to recognize the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) as the “legitimate” government of Libya. Countries around the world, that is, except for the continent of Africa, where leaders have been far less willing to embrace the rebels or to toss aside Gadhafi.
