Category: News
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America’s Closest Ally in South America Faces Possible Change with Next President
On Sunday, Colombian voters again go to the polls to elect the country’s next president in a runoff election. The first round of the election – held on May 29 – led to the runoff as frontrunner Gustavo Petro won 40% of the votes while the runner up, Rodolfo Hernandez, came in with 28%. Since […]
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Did Biden Just Change America’s Taiwan Policy?
During his first stop on his first trip to Asia, U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in Japan. With nearly a dozen other countries involved in the new framework, Mr. Biden intends to counter China’s regional dominance through economic means. However, Taiwan, a key U.S. partner, was notably absent. Despite the democratic […]
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The Solomon Islands Caught in Great Power Politics
It’s not very often that the Solomon Islands finds itself at the center of U.S. foreign policy. This week, however, the Solomon Islands – located in a strategic and politically volatile part of the world best known on for the first land battles between the United States and its allies and Imperial Japan in the […]
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Scandal Dominates the Politics of America’s Closest Ally
Scandal has erupted within the government of America’s closest ally. Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, became the first prime minister to be found to have broken the law while in office last week when the Metropolitan Police fined him, along with his wife and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, for attending his […]
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Why Does Ukraine Matter to the United States?
Nearly two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, much of the news reports center on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s endgame. In an interview with Ian Bremmer on his podcast, the former Finnish Prime Minister, Alexander Stubb, succinctly summarized Putin’s objectives: “You have to remember that Mr. Putin has three aims at the moment. Number one – […]
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The United States Needs a Democratic India as a Partner
On April 11, U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a virtual summit that kicked off the 2+2 Dialogue, during which Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted their Indian counterparts. Started in 2018 as part of an effort to deepen ties between the U.S. and India, […]
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AUKUS Goes Hyper(sonic)
The leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – dubbed AUKUS last fall – held a check in last week, reaffirming their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” as a result of China’s growing regional military ambitions and Russia’s worsening war in Ukraine. How were they going to do this? The […]
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How the Suez Canal Crisis Changed the World
Most will remember a recent crisis in the Suez Canal. A little over a year ago, a container ship traversing the Suez Canal was grounded, blocking one of the world’s busiest trade routes. The halt cost billions of dollars a day in commerce while ships continued to back up in the canal before finally being […]
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Welcome to Allies and Adversaries!
The idea for this blog came to me one day about a year ago. I was reading through an issue of Foreign Affairs (am I the only one who nerds out when I get the most recent issue in the mail?), and I was thinking back to one of my favorite classes in college. In the fall […]
Allies and Adversaries 