international relations 
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SOURCE: Jacobin
3/20/2023
Iraq Discredited Liberal Interventionists. Why are they Still in Charge?
by Daniel Bessner
"War for oil" explains only part of the push to invade Iraq in 2003; the ideological belief that American militarism serves a noble and righteous cause appealed to many liberals. That general belief has been frustratingly immune to 20 years of exposure of facts about the falsehoods that sold the war.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
3/7/2023
Ignoring International Relations Scholars is Leading the US to Mistakes on Ukraine
by Max Abrahms
Punditry on the Ukraine-Russia war ignores a host of scholarship on international relations that suggests Russian apprehension about NATO is a legitimate influence on Putin's actions, and not just an excuse for aggression.
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3/5/2023
Whose "Red Lines"?
by Lawrence Wittner
Far from promoting clarity and stability, when powerful nations declare "red lines" in their dealings with the world they declare their intentions to impose their will on others. Peace-promoting red lines must be drawn by more robust international cooperation.
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SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
2/28/2023
America Remains Trapped by the Dream of Global Hegemony
by Andrew Bacevich
American victory in World War II remains a source of dangerous myths and delusions about global supremacy. Both popular culture and foreign policy need to adopt the Iraq War as a less affirming, but more realistic, touchstone.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
2/14/2023
Review: Can Robert Kagan Reboot Interventionism?
by Samuel Moyn
"All along, not much ever separated neocons such as Kagan from a nationalist such as Trump, except the pretense that what is good for the United States, including all its war-making, is good for the world." But does the public buy it?
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2/6/2023
Can the Ukraine Crisis Push the UN To the Reforms it Needs to Remain Relevant?
by Gary B. Ostrower
The United Nations' power to prevent war has long been subordinated to the protection of traditional national sovereignty. Will instability push the powerful nations on the Security Council to accept change?
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1/29/2023
On Ukraine, International Law is Against Russia—But to What Consequence?
by Lawrence Wittner
If the United Nations can define the rules of international relations, but sufficiently powerful nations can flout them without consequence, it's time for a change in global governance.
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1/22/2023
Do Sanctions on Russia Portend a Return to the Interwar Order of Trade Blocs?
by Carl J. Strikwerda
The economic response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised the specter of a new Cold War. But a better—and scarier—analogy might be the drastic contraction of global trade and the rise of colonial and imperial trade blocs between the World Wars.
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SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
1/3/2023
The Ghosts of Kennan and Lessons of the Cold War
by Frederik Logevall
George Kennan was instrumental in defining the doctrine of containment, but later objected to the bellicosity undertaken in its name. Key parts of his intellectual journey have remained obscure; a new book tries to examine them and draw lessons for foreign policy today.
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SOURCE: Catalyst
12/20/2022
The Redistributive Agenda of the New International Economic Order, and How the IMF Thwarted It
by Sarah Babb
Henry Kissinger responded diplomatically to demands from Third World nations for changes in trade and investment rules to alleviate inequality with a pragmatic approach that recognized inequality as a major issue, but prevented poor nations from forming a united front or organizing around their more radical demands.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/7/2022
Gaddis Smith, 89: Legacy of Teaching and Modernizing at Yale
"Dr. Smith was a Yale institution. He arrived on campus as a freshman in 1950, received his doctorate from the university in 1961, and, aside from a short teaching stint at Duke, never left."
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12/4/2022
What's New About Putin's Nuclear Threats? Just that the US is on the Receiving End
by David P. Barash
From the American perspective, the seeming danger of Putin's nuclear saber-rattling is partly due to the novelty of being on the receiving end.
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12/4/2022
Can the World Stop Imperialist War?
by Lawrence Wittner
It's past time to finish the halting progress made a century ago to rally international cooperation against imperial aggression. The stakes are too high to leave peace in the hands of individual nations.
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SOURCE: The Nation
11/21/2022
The US-China Relationship: Why It Collapsed, How it Can Be Fixed
by Jake Werner
The split between the US and China precedes the leadership of Biden, Trump, and Xi, as politicians in both countries have increasingly come to see the others' prosperity as a threat. Solving the split requires looking to the problems of global market capitalism that exacerbated the rift.
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SOURCE: Public Books
10/27/2022
Small Nations, Big Feelings: America's Favored European Nations Before Ukraine
by Madelyn Lugli
"Feeling patriotism for a foreign country is, when you think about it, odd."
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SOURCE: Foreign Policy
10/15/2022
Ukraine Isn't Munich, Berlin, or Vietnam: The Limits and Dangers of Historical Analogies
by Christopher David LaRoche
Analogies are vital cognitive shortcuts that enable us to comprehend complexity. But their usefulness means we risk transposing biases and fallacies about the past onto how we understand the present.
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10/16/2022
Bye Bye, World: Will Humanity Continue to Tolerate the Risk of Nuclear War?
by Lawrence Wittner
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, broad-based disarmament movements have demanded a world without the threat of nuclear annihilation. Will the governments of powerful nations lead the way to realizing that goal?
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SOURCE: TomDispatch
10/11/2022
Don't Forget about the Nuclear Danger over Taiwan
by Michael Klare
Ukraine isn't the only potential nuclear flashpoint. The United States and China need to begin negotiations to limit the risk around the conflict over Taiwan's status.
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10/9/2022
There Are Alternatives to War
by Lawrence Wittner
The Ukraine war points to the urgent need to reform the United Nations so it can serve as a true global organization with the power to ensure peace.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
9/21/2022
Biden's Taiwan Rhetoric Risks Antagonizing China For No Gain
by Stephen Wertheim
The United States' "One China" policy is ambivalent, awkward and dissatisfying. But it's served to prevent a destructive war for decades. Biden's recent comments threaten to destabilize the arrangement.
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