In light of our end of the semester discussion about how our studies are relevant today, I’ve been thinking about sharing a podcast I really enjoy. Tell Them, I Am is hosted by Misha Euceph and is about “the small moments that define who we are and who we are not.” The stories are about …
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US Spent $6.4 Trillion on Wars in Middle East and Asia since 2001
According to a new report released by Brown University the US has spent over $6.4 trillion through fiscal year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post 9/11 wars. This breaks down into an estimated $5.4 trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 trillion for total US …
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The Chinese Blacklist that pays Companies $2500 an Hour to Avoid
The China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC) recently completed a coal carrying railroad line from inner Mongolia to the Jiangxi Province. For scale this railroad is about the same length as NYC to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL and cost about $28 billion. The CRCC and Chinese state media lauded the project as an exemplar …
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Iraq in Search for New Prime Minister
Iraq is in search for a new prime minister after Adel Abdul Mahdi’s resignation became official on December 1. Although it seems that nobody wants to fill his vacant position. Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of Iraq’s largest parliamentary bloc, stated that he does not want to nominate a candidate. The establishment figures which were mused …
China Offers to Waive Tariff Hikes on US Soybeans and Pork
China’s ministry of finance announced on December 6 that they were waiving tariffs on US soybeans and pork. The announcement was made in an effort to help tariff negotiations improve, giving a little bit of leverage to President Trump. Beijing had originally promised to lift the tariffs in September, although that lift did not come …
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Where Middle East Countries Get Their Names From
There is a common theory that almost every country gets its name from one of four things: a feature of the local landscape, the native people, an important person/leader, or a directional description of the country. While this holds true more or less on a global scale, it’s a different story in the Middle East. …
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Managing China is NATO’s Biggest Problem Yet
China has now emerged as the biggest challenge to ever face NATO. In the news this past week (although under reported) NATO, for the first time defined China as a strategic challenge. NATO allies have been trying to figure out whether Beijing is more of an economic opportunity than fundamental problem. A statement to come …
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US Considers Sending Thousands More Troops to Middle East
As I talked about in a previous article, Iran has been moving short range ballistic missiles into Iraq. This has created heightened sense of urgency within the US to mobilize more troops into the Middle East. Some estimates are up to 14,000 additional troops, albeit a more realistic number would be somewhere in the 4,000 …
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Beijing’s “Atrocious Actions” Ignored by International Court
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) just recently deemed China free of allegations made by the Philippines over China’s “atrocious actions” in the South China Sea. The court ruled that the ICC itself had no jurisdiction over the matter since Beijing is not a party to the Rome Statute (treaty that forms the international …
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Iran Stockpiling Missiles in Iraq
US military officials claim that Iran is secretly moving missiles across the border into Iraq in an attempt to intimated neighboring countries in the Middle East and help strengthen their power base. The report came out due to the increased US military presence in the area, with more than 14,000 extra troops sent to the …