Security Challenges in the 21st Century Global Commons
By Tara Murphy
National defense is no longer ensured only through maintaining the sanctity of one’s borders, but is also highly dependent upon the ability to navigate safely through the global commons. These commons—sea, air, space, and cyberspace—enable militaries to protect national territory and interests, as well as facilitate the passage of goods, people, communication, and data upon which every member of the international community depends. Yet, a number of emerging trends are threatening this freedom of action.
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Blackwater’s Rise and the Draft’s Demise
By Joseph Paul Vasquez, III, PhD
While our scholarly understanding of security-related issues is evolving, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that American leaders stand alongside other historical counterparts who benefitted from mechanisms that kept their publics from fully recognizing the human cost of military action.
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Rape is Not Inevitable in War
By Elisabeth Jean Wood, PhD
Sexual violence has marked the landscape of several of the most gruesome conflicts in recent history.
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Why U.S. Power Does Not Deter Challenges
By Nuno P. Monteiro, PhD
Well into the Obama presidency, the broadest foreign policy challenge facing the United States remains unmentioned.
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The Transformed Global Threat Environment
By John Gannon, PhD
In the past quarter century, the United States has experienced a significant expansion of its national threat assessment as a result of two revolutionary changes in the world.
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Balancing Threat: The United States and the Middle East
An Interview with Stephen M. Walt
Walt discusses his balance-of-threat theory, the Obama Administration’s policies in the Middle East, and top security threats to the United States.
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The Mexican Energy Sector’s Bumpy Road
An Interview with Vicente Fox, Former President of Mexico
In March 2010, Yale postgraduate fellow Matthew Blomerth studying in Mexico sat down with former Mexican head-of-state, President Vicente Fox, at his presidential library to discuss challenges that Mexico faces due to its high reliance on oil sale revenues at a time of rapidly diminishing production.
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The Puzzle of Iraqi Mortality: Surges, Civilian Deaths and Alternative Meanings
By Christian Davenport and Molly Inman
By the end of 2006, it had become clear to most observers that the U.S. strategy in Iraq was rapidly deteriorating. During that year, Iraqi civilian fatalities began to approach 4,000 per month, and sectarian violence and al-Qaeda activity was spreading and intensifying. What was the source of the physical threat?
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On How to Help the Bottom Billion
An Interview with Paul Collier
YJIA: Your work focuses on the “Bottom Billion,” people in small, impoverished, post-colonial countries that you say are structurally unable to provide certain crucial public goods, most notably security and accountability.
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Smart Aid and the Unchaining of Africa
An Interview with George Ayittey
Foreign aid has become an increasingly hot topic, particularly among students and in academia. Aid arguments often fall into one of two camps: that the aid industry is inefficient and ineffective, and should therefore be drastically reformed and even reduced; or that aid can effectively fight poverty, especially if scaled-up.
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Avoiding the Cardinal Sins of Foreign Aid
An Interview with Nancy Birdsall
YJIA: Foreign aid has become an increasingly hot topic, particularly among students and in academia. Aid arguments often fall into one of two camps: that the aid industry is inefficient and ineffective, and should therefore be drastically reformed and even reduced; or that aid can effectively fight poverty, especially if scaled-up.
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Un-Planning Development
An Interview with William Easterly on the aid landscape and non-governmental organizations.
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