Have humans always gone to war?
The question of whether warfare is encoded in our genes, or appeared as a result of civilisation, has long fascinated anyone trying to get to grips with human society. Might a willingness to fight neighbouring groups have provided our ancestors with an evolutionary advantage? With conflicts raging a…
Brazil’s Impending Hangover
After months of suspense, President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment looks set to proceed in a floor vote in the Chamber of Deputies on Sunday, April 17. At present, impeachment seems more likely than not: Vice President Michel Temer and his allies have overcome many of the political hurdles to impeachm…
Natural Capital: What Is the True Cost of Food?
A kilogram of new potatoes this week costs just €1.29 in some German supermarkets. But is that the whole story? Not by a long shot. Environmental costs are almost always completely ignored. Some, though, are trying to change that. One-and-a-half kilograms of new potatoes for just €1.29 ($1.47), lett…
Charting the Course for Nuclear Security: An Indian Perspective
The immense potential of nuclear power is both seductive and scary. In the early years of the nuclear age, the scary aspect led the scientific community to raise the banner of nuclear disarmament, but the seductive component proved too strong for political leaders to ignore. With the age of bipolari…
The Islamic State
The self-proclaimed Islamic State is a militant movement that has conquered territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria, where it has made a bid to establish a state in territories that encompass some six and a half million residents. Though spawned by al-Qaeda’s Iraq franchise, it split with Osama …
The Future of Securing Global Cities
The task of securing global cities is becoming a crucial challenge of our day. Already, half the world’s population lives in urban areas; by 2050, the UN predicts over two-thirds of the world’s population will do so. These cities face threats not only from Al Qaeda, ISIL, the Taliban and like groups…
Why Belgium is Europe’s front line in the war on terror
Brussels: It’s a quaint but bustling city, famed for its picture postcard squares, its chocolate and its beer. But it is rapidly becoming infamous, too, as a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi fighters. According to police, the carnage of the Paris attacks was plotted here, and it was in these str…
U.S.-Cuba Relations
On April 11, 2015, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro shook hands at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, marking the first meeting between a U.S. and Cuban head of state since the two countries severed their ties in 1961. The meeting came four months after the presidents announced their count…
5 Ways to View Putin’s Syrian Surprise
How are we to make sense of Vladimir Putin’s announcement that the bulk of the Russian expeditionary force in Syria is to be withdrawn over an as-of-yet undefined period in the coming weeks and months? Is this a Kremlin victory lap, or a way to extricate Russia from what might prove to be a dangerou…
What is a brokered convention, and are we going to have one in 2016?
There are very few Americans alive today who can remember the last time that the secretary at a national convention called the roll and no one won on the first ballot. It happened to the Republicans in 1948 when they took three ballots to nominate Thomas Dewey (who lost to President Harry Truman) an…