Global Politics

The United States has recently taken an aggressive approach to evening-out what US President Donald Trump sees as a major trade imbalance. At the risk of a possible trade war, the President has implemented tariffs against the EU and China on major goods such as steel and automobiles. But retaliatory tariffs are planned in response. […]

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Over 10,000 people have died in the war in Yemen, which has entered its fourth year, and about 80 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian aid. Despite the gravity of the situation, Yemen’s conflict, which has been described as the “forgotten war” by Amnesty International, receives very little media coverage. Western news […]

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The withdrawal of the Trump Administration from the Iran nuclear deal was a long time coming. Concluded in 2015 after months of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries (United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia, China and Germany), the agreement seemingly provided a win-win outcome both in terms of the international community’s desire to rein […]

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University of Nottingham (Ningbo Campus) Assistant Professor Nicholas Ross Smith argues that while arming Ukraine may be the right thing to do, it naively underestimates the geopolitical reality of Eastern Europe and could result in a far worse outcome for both Ukraine and Europe. Donald Trump’s recent decision to approve the sale of more lethal arms […]

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Mass media and politicians often describe terrorism as one of the greatest security threats to international society. These bold claims have contributed towards an unquestioned belief that terrorism has become a grave threat to our everyday lives. The sporadic and murderous nature of terrorism has been a powerful influence on public threat perception. However, the […]

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US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the country out of the Paris climate agreement may eventually end in a U-turn. After all, unpredictability has by far been Trump’s favourite foreign policy strategy. Yet should this one promise be kept its implications for global cooperation on climate change would be catastrophic. In the long term, […]

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Truth and Democracy have always had a troubled relationship, but perhaps never as troubled as now. From Plato’s Noble Lie to Kellyanne Conway’s Alternative Facts, there has always been a tension between the presentation of an objective truth and the exercise of political power. Michael Ignatieff, himself an academic turned not particularly successful politician, mused […]

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By Eugen Iladi It’s no secret that Russia is using military means and disinformation to try to reassemble its Soviet Union footprint. Ukraine has drawn the most headlines in this effort. But the Kremlin has long been working its land-grab plan in Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan. Russia’s economic failure and social challenges in the 21st […]

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By Daniel Shaw and Claire Elliott Political polls are making a fast comeback after failing to correctly predict either Brexit or the election of Donald Trump.  Following the highpoint of Nate Silver’s flawless prediction of Obama’s 2008 victory, these embarrassing failures blew up in the face of both polling companies and liberal orthodoxy.  These failures were […]

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With an overwhelming majority of 408 votes against 254, the European Parliament recently approved the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada. This came only three weeks after Donald Trump’s formal withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – a deal involving 12 nations around the Pacific Ocean. As trade is silently shaking world politics […]

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Most children learn early on the art of connecting the dots. Draw a line from one dot to another in a logical pattern and an image begins to emerge. The art of foreign policy has similar characteristics. Policy makers try to connect the dots, attempting to imagine the ways their decision will effect the larger […]

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  Brexit, Donald Trump and the growing nationalism wave sweeping across the Western world represent a new political backlash against globalisation, which might seriously threaten the world liberal economic order and global security. In her much-anticipated speech on 17 January, UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced her plans for a “Hard Brexit”, which will end […]

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Donald Trump is correct: The American intelligence community misled us about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. So that means it’s also mistaken about Russian cyberattacks on the United States. Right? Wrong. On New Year’s Eve, Trump called the Central Intelligence Agency’s claims about WMD a “disaster”—his signature slur—and implied that the agency was fibbing […]

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My seventeen-year-old brother doesn’t remember 9/11 – but it’s a day my country can’t forget. Nor should it. Many “millennials,” myself included, will only have vague memories of the day itself and the outpouring of patriotism that followed. Every year, we are reminded of the men and women that died so needlessly and so courageously […]

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Last March, the African-American website Grio ran a tongue-in-cheek article listing the five best places for black Americans to move if Donald J. Trump won the presidency. First on the list was Ghana, which the article identified as “one of the more stable democracies” in Africa. That’s true. But as Ghana prepares for its own presidential elections […]

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In trying to puzzle through the populism animating the right and left after the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2015 European migrant crisis, we can draw a worrying parallel between the UK referenda and social and economic populism in the US. As in the US presidential race, the UK’s Remain/Leave debate is complex: it […]

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There are few people who can lay claim to having shaped how the world’s only superpower uses modern technology, but Alec Ross is one of those few. Having played a critical role in developing then Senator Barack Obama’s technology and innovation plan during the 2008 presidential campaign, Ross went on to serve as senior innovation advisor to […]

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As a very active supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, I have for the past nine months lived in fear of the day when the strong economy, and the Democratic Party machine’s systematic opposition would finally see off our campaign. The fear was never so much that we wouldn’t get Mr. Sanders, although I am a […]

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I sat down with the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.K., Minister Elizabeth Dibble, to discuss the Obama visit, the Middle East and the complex Iran-Saudi relationship. The Obama Visit to the U.K. D.M.: You touched on President Obama’s visit in your talk and what he said about the EU referendum. What for […]

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The Atlantic explores President Obama’s decision not to bomb Syria after Bashar al-Assad’s army killed more than 1,400 people with sarin gas. It offers a new and insightful evaluation of Obama and his legacy.

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