Lindsey Graham is running for president, so it’s time for another candidate evaluation. I’ll be evaluating Graham’s background, policy history, and explicit statements to determine whether or not he would make a good president. I won’t be paying attention to electability or likeability, as is often common elsewhere on the web. Continue reading “Candidate Evaluations: Lindsey Graham”
Category: International Relations
Concerning the relations of states to each other and to the wider world in general.
No, We Should Not Arm Ukraine
In a recent report titled Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do, the Brookings Institution in conjunction with the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs advise NATO to drastically increase its arms commitment to Ukraine. The report has fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the conflict in Ukraine and has consequently given governments advice that is both irrelevant and terrible. Here’s why.
American Sniper: Was Chris Kyle Defending Our Freedom?
Seth Rogen and Michael Moore recently made snarky comments about American Sniper, Clint Eastwood’s Iraq War movie loosely based on the life of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL with 160 confirmed kills. This has angered a lot of people on the right, who scold the snarksters for their lack of appreciation for the men and women who, they say, defend our freedom. The “they defend our freedom” line gets thrown around a lot when discussing military policy, but when is it really the case that soldiers defend our freedom? Is this an automatic, intrinsic feature of being a soldier, or does it depend on additional factors? Let’s think about this.
Continue reading “American Sniper: Was Chris Kyle Defending Our Freedom?”
Cuba: Why Obama Made the Right Call
US President Barack Obama has decided to normalize relations with Cuba. Since 1960, the United States has attempted to isolate, weaken, and ultimately destroy the Castro regime by cutting off diplomatic ties, imposing a trade embargo, and preventing American tourists from visiting Cuba. Given that the US has been following this strategy for 54 years but the Castros remain in power, it’s reasonable to question the efficacy of that policy. So let’s look into it.
The Interview: How We Should Respond to Terrorist Nonsense
American funnymen James Franco and Seth Rogen made a comedy called The Interview for Sony in which their characters attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea. Someone really didn’t like this movie and really didn’t want Sony to release it–a mysterious organization known as “Guardians of Peace” hacked and leaked a series of Sony e-mails and threatened a 9/11 style terrorist attack if the film were released as planned. No one is certain, but the US government suspects that the Kim regime is behind the threats. It is, at the very least, supportive of them. North Korea’s National Defense Commission says:
The hacking into the Sony Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the [North] in response to its appeal.
Amazingly, Sony and the major American movie theater chains capitulated, cancelling the release. Was this the right thing to do?
Continue reading “The Interview: How We Should Respond to Terrorist Nonsense”
Benjamin Studebaker 