It has become common in the last few years to hear discussion of, or even hope for, a second American civil war. The European Cold War demonstrates that civil wars can not only be fought with armies and generals on great historic battlefields, but with sporadic bombings, riots and assassinations.
With Europe on the brink of war, concerns have been raised over the role of atomic weapons in a modern, great power conflict. Russia holds the largest known nuclear arsenal, with about 1,456 deployed nuclear weapons. With a well-developed nuclear triad, Russia’s nuclear policy consists of deterrence and ‘escalate to de-escalate’, a controversial yet potentially […]
French President Emmanuel Macron recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine has been under real threat of invasion for a few months, and recently U.S. intelligence suggests attempts at fabricating a casus belli (an ‘acceptable’ reason to attack). But when asked regarding his meetings with Putin, […]
Since World War II, no nuclear powers have engaged each other directly, relying on proxy wars to sort their differences. Though these wars tend to shoulder the burden of conflict on third-party nations, they prevent the very real possibility of nuclear exchanges between superpowers capable of eradicating civilization as we know it. It is estimated […]
In 1939, disguised Germans perpetrated the Gleiwitz incident, a purported attack on German soil that served as a pretext for the German invasion of Poland. Of course, the event was widely derided as a ploy to contemporary and modern historians. It was absurd to consider that Germany was anything but the aggressor, and the Gleiwitz […]
The 21st century has seen the rise of an authoritarian successor state to the Soviet Union, Putin’s Russia. Using a mixture of military force and intensive political scheming, Putin has managed to secure a chokehold on worldwide democracy, undermining elections as important as the U.S. presidency. Putin has a lot going for him; his agents […]
A significant military and diplomatic escalation, months after Putin’s stationing of troops near the border, is currently underway in Ukraine. U.S. intel, released in the declassified document below, refers to 175,000 Russian forces amassing in and around Ukraine. Worryingly, several pieces of artillery within Crimea have been identified. Russia’s military in the region is organized […]
During the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit, acting U.S. officials warned that al Qaeda could reform its capabilities to attack the United States homeland within 1-2 years. Reports of high-ranking al Qaeda leaders returning to Afghanistan have already surfaced, while the Taliban’s promises for a cooperative, stable government have rapidly crumbled. The rapid collapse […]
In the past week, tensions have flared between Israel and Palestine as a result of rocket fire from Hamas into Israel in retaliation for storming the Al-Aqsa mosque during the final prayers of Ramadan. In the following days, violence would surge as more rockets were fired and protestors clashed with police in settlements facing evictions. […]
The UK Foreign Office has made clear its stance regarding Russian misconduct over the past two years. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office has summoned the current Russian Ambassador, Andrey Kelin, over concern from the UK Government regarding a “pattern of malign activity,” which includes cyber intrusions, the ongoing hostility at the Ukrainian border, […]
Twenty years after the September 11th attacks, the American war in Afghanistan will come to an end. The intervention in Afghanistan has spanned 20 long years, during which the Taliban waged war against the U.S.-backed Afghani government. The U.S. involved several powerful nations in this intervention, invoking NATO’s collective defense clause for the first and […]
World Affairs International 