Section: Institute for Policy Studies (USA)
The Trouble With Taiwan
Taiwan is a country, but not many other states recognize it as such. Only 13 countries maintain diplomatic relations with the island nation. These are small or poor or both, like Haiti, Paraguay, and Tuvalu. Honduras switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing just one month ago. Taiwan doesn’t have a seat at the United...
The U.S. Government’s Greatest Enemy
If you take a poll of American pundits and policymakers about the greatest threat facing the U.S. government, they’d probably put China at the top of the list. Maybe a handful would opt for Russia. A few holdouts from the War on Terrorism era might point to Islamic extremism. But the greatest threat to the U.S. government is actually Junior...
The U.S. Still Spends More on Its Military Than Over 144 Nations Combined
World military spending has reached a new record high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). That’s up 3.7% since the previous year, including the steepest increase among European nations since the end of the Cold War over 30 years ago. The United States...
REPORT: Sending Arms or Twisting Arms: The U.S. Role in the Ukraine War
Sending Arms or Twisting Arms: The U.S. Role in the Ukraine War John Feffer Summary: In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has backed the government in Kyiv with military hardware and economic assistance. The Biden administration has also done its best to constrain Russia’s ability to wage war...
Colombia Adopts an Unprecedented Energy Policy—but Needs Help to Pull It Off
Gustavo Petro doesn’t just want to transform his own country; he wants to change the world. The new leader of Colombia, who took office last August, is targeting what he calls his nation’s “economy of death.” That means pivoting away from oil, natural gas, coal, and narcotics toward more sustainable economic activities. Given that oil...
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The prospect of a nuclear holocaust has always been terrifying. But in the last years of the Cold War and the three decades that followed its end, the existential challenge of nuclear weapons became less of a clear and present danger. Sure, in the post-1991 era, nuclear war could still happen by mistake. It could break out between two actively...
Ukraine and the Lessons of the Iraq War
Leaving aside the manufactured justifications, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to reassert U.S. power in the Middle East and reduce the influence of Iran. It wasn’t terrorism or yellow cake or even Saddam Hussein’s appalling human rights abuses that motivated one of the most tragic of U.S. foreign policy blunders. It was...
Russian War Crimes in Ukraine 20 Years After US Criminal Invasion of Iraq
This week marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The war left at least 800,000 to 1.1 million Iraqis dead, and certainly many more injured, maimed, and permanently displaced. The invasion and subsequent military occupation destroyed Iraq’s once-modern infrastructure and much of its environment while...
One of the Highest Military Budgets in History
Last week, the White House released President Biden’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2024, which begins October 1 of 2023. As usual, the biggest portion of the discretionary budget request – 52 percent – was for military spending. While that’s usual, what’s not usual is the sheer level of that military spending. The Biden...
Can the World Save the World?
The United Nations has convened 27 conferences on climate change. For nearly three decades, the international community has come together at a different location every year to pool its collective wisdom, resources, and resolve to address this global threat. These Conferences of Parties (COPs) have produced important agreements, such as the Paris...
