international relations 
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/3/2020
Brian Urquhart, a Foundational Leader at the United Nations, Dies at 101
"In the mid-1950s, as the lone official in Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold’s inner circle with military experience, Mr. Urquhart helped invent the practice of U.N. peacekeeping through the establishment of the U.N. Emergency Force."
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SOURCE: The Guardian
12/22/2020
Biden Wants to Convene an International 'Summit for Democracy'. He Shouldn't
by David Adler and Stephen Wertheim
Joe Biden has proposed a summit of democratic nations; this would be an unfortunate exercise in dividing the world into camps of nations following the US and those opposed, without strict regard for whether those nations actually practice democracy. Instead, the authors argue, the US must lead by example: close tax shelters, put the wealthy under the rule of law, and help other nations to control their oligarchs.
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12/20/2020
Peace is Good. But are More Peace Deals Necessarily Better?
by Catherine Baylin Duryea
The recent normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco extends longstanding covert cooperation between the two nations, but troublingly reflects Mideast politics that are increasingly aimed at isolating Iran. It also includes concessions that contribute to the marginalization of the people of Western Sahara.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
12/15/2020
The World’s Most Important Body of Water
by Daniel Yergin
The author of a book on the dispute over control of the South China sea examines four critical decisionmakers whose actions shaped the present conflict.
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SOURCE: Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
12/5/2020
Wrestling With Woodrow Wilson’s Complicated Legacy
A longtime Virginia political observer suggests that there is more to learn by considering Woodrow Wilson's complex social views and political legacy than by taking his clear racism as reason to hide him from sight.
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SOURCE: National History Center and Woodrow Wilson Center
12/3/2020
Washington History Seminar: Mira Siegelberg on "Statelessness: A Modern History" (Monday, Dec. 7)
The Washington History Seminar and the Woodrow Wilson Center host Mira Siegelberg for a discussion of her book "Statelessness: A Modern History" on Monday, Dec. 7 at 4:00 PM.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
11/18/2020
The World Is Never Going Back to Normal
by Anne Applebaum
American allies can read the newspapers, and have adjusted their expectations of American leadership accordingly in the last four years. It's unlikely a Biden administration can restore American leadership.
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SOURCE: American Conservative
11/11/2020
The Origins Of U.S. Global Dominance
by Daniel Larison
A conservative historian reviews a new book on the history of American interventionism and advocates for reorganizing foreign policy without the imperative to dominate the world.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
11/4/2020
The President Confirms the World’s Fears
Donald Trump's open questioning of the legitimacy of the yet-undecided election has provoked a global crisis of confidence in American leadership.
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SOURCE: London Review of Books
11/1/2020
Warfare State (Review Essay)
by Thomas Meaney
Two new books articulate a critique from a conservative perspective of American military intervention abroad.
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SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
9/28/2020
The forgotten alliance between Black activists and China
by Chang Che
Black activists have long leveraged American desires for international legitimacy to forge antiracist alliances with China. Today, the Black Lives Matter movement has received support from Beijing, but must consider the costs of an alliance with a regime with its own human rights issues.
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9/13/2020
Richard Haass on the Need for Historically Informed Policy in a Changing World
by David O'Connor
"A democracy requires that its citizens be informed, and it was evident far too many citizens in the United States and other countries could not be described as globally literate."
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SOURCE: Perspectives on History
8/20/2020
Between Africa and America: Recalibrating Black Americans' Relationship to the Diaspora
by Nemata Blyden and Jeannette Eileen Jones
Black people in the United States have maintained their own relationships with Africa—dating back to the 17th century—despite official US policy regarding the continent.
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SOURCE: Salon
8/17/2020
Trump's Dodgy Israel-UAE "Peace Deal" Smells like the Work of Henry Kissinger
by Jim Sleeper
Is the Israel-UAE agreement to open diplomatic relations an effort to marginalize the Palestinian Authority? Jim Sleeper argues it's the sort of thing Henry Kissinger would do.
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SOURCE: Z Blogs
8/4/2020
China and the United States Could Avoid an Unnecessary War
by Lawrence Wittner
Both the Chinese and U.S. governments are engaging in reckless behavior that could lead to disaster.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
7/3/2020
To the World, We’re Now America the Racist and Pitiful
The United States, long the bedrock of the Western alliance, is less inspirational today—and perhaps will be even less so tomorrow.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
6/10/2020
How the US Government Sold the Peace Corps to the American Public
by Wendy Melillo
Given the growing counterculture movement in the early 1960s, the government feared that few young Americans would be motivated to join the Peace Corps by a message that they’d be volunteering to help to fight communism.
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SOURCE: Council on Foreign Relations
6/5/2020
How America’s Credibility Gap Hurts the Defense of Rights Abroad
The U.S. government’s response to anti-racism protests risks causing lasting damage to American credibility and influence in protecting minorities and oppressed groups worldwide.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
6/7/2020
Yes, America Is in a Cold War With China
"For too long the U.S. has looked the other way as the Chinese Communist Party has waged a new cold war against the American order," writes Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher.
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SOURCE: New York Times
6/4/2020
The Damage Trump Has Done This Week Extends Far Beyond America’s Borders
by Mary L. Dudziak
Concern that Orval Faubus's defiant stand for school segregation in Arkansas would sully America's reputation abroad pushed Dwight Eisenower to deploy the National Guard in the interest of both racial justice and American leadership. Calls to deploy the military today must consider this context.
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