The SAIS Review of International Affairs
Review of: Neil Shenai, Escaping the Governance Trap:Economic Reform in the Northern Triangle, (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Pivot, 2022). Escaping the Governance Trap by Neil Shenai arrives at a perfect time to enrich a renewed wave of scholarly interest about development issues in the Northern Triangle countries of Latin America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras). While […]
Burkina Faso’s rich history has been marked by violent fluctuations between military juntas and pushback from civil society, resulting in a state that lies somewhere in between. Modern Burkina Faso’s leadership nominally supports civil liberties and political freedoms but has repeatedly attempted to undermine civil society organizations’ (CSOs) political activities. The growing role of the […]
Review of: Aid imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia by Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. University of Michigan Press, 2021. How does foreign aid affect recipient nations’ human rights conditions? What determines whether foreign aid will strengthen or undermine civil liberties? In his book Aid imperium: United States […]
Introduction In April of 2022, a Colombian general and ten other servicemembers admitted that they had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.[1] It was the first time that senior Colombian military officials admitted to wrongdoing since the systemic killing of innocents began almost two decades prior in what became known as the “false positives” […]
During his maiden trip to Asia as president in late May 2022, Joe Biden implied that the United States would take stronger military action to defend Taiwan against China than his administration has taken to support Ukraine to fight against Russia.[1] While meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Tokyo, Biden’s robust declaration evidently […]
Of all the myths and fabrications that exist in political discourse, few are more stubbornly persistent than the scarcity of resources and the policies supposedly needed to control them. Today, that discourse has converged around one definitive commodity: oil. The omnipresence of oil in the modern economy is eclipsed only by the persistent belief in […]
Key Judgments Growing ties between Moscow and Beijing threaten US national security. American strategic planners should consider undermining these ties as a strategic imperative. This goal remains achievable if pursued with vigor because Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has exposed differences in worldviews between Moscow and Beijing. While these differences are not necessarily chasmic, […]
Introduction In the weapons world––loaded with the likes of Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and SCUDs––an emerging global weapon is Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). The current ESG target is Russia, and the payload is an economic siege designed to isolate and strangle the Russian economy. Driving that siege are global […]
The negative economic effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are being felt around the world. Here in the United States, Americans face rising gas and food prices, with more trickle-down consequences on the way. The majority of Americans have been supportive of the Biden administration’s response to the Ukraine crisis.[1] The latest Russian invasion has […]