Reexamining America’s foreign policy priorities in Ukraine in light of other security and economic threats. The White House has warned it may be unable to continue aid to Ukraine if Congress cannot reach a compromise before the end of the year, with Republicans blocking a new foreign aid package that would secure further military assistance to Kiev. With this recent setback, serious questions around America’s geopolitical priorities are being asked. The forestallment of further aid to Ukraine is hardly surprising and underscores a rolling theme in America’s current political landscape: the reevaluation and realignment of global security priorities. The global…

In the early decades of the 21st century, China has emerged as a serious contender for shaping the globe. America currently faces its biggest threat since the USSR, as rapid economic growth and technological innovation have catapulted China into a position of power. But great nations bear a responsibility to protect individual freedoms and democracy, not to export autocracy around the globe. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained a tight grip on power over the years, ruthlessly silencing dissent and opposition wherever it appears. The authoritarian tendencies of the Chinese government are antithetical to the concept of liberty and stand in…

China: a country once disregarded as agrarian and poor. That’s changed. China’s meteoric rise has captured international attention. The country now stands in direct competition with the United States for economic and political supremacy on the global stage. How did such a rural and impoverished country undergo such a rapid transformation? Contemporary Chinese attitudes are best viewed through a historical lens. Throughout the 19th and mid-20th centuries, China suffered economic exploitation and military defeats by numerous foreign powers. This series of conflicts ushered in what is referred to by the Chinese as the “century of humiliation.” It represents a turning point…

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have remained at a standstill following the signing of the armistice agreement between the North and the South in 1953. As the decades passed, the Peninsula became a hotbed for Soviet-American proxy conflict, with the Soviets reinforcing the communist regime headed by Kim Il Sung in the North, while the U.S. supported the development of the capitalist South. Today, much remains unchanged since the separation of the two. The nepotism of the Kim dynasty in the North has led to widespread bureaucratic corruption, incompetency and violent nuclear saber-rattling directed toward America and its regional allies.…

America should maintain a hardline stance on North Korea. That doesn’t mean a belligerent one. If the policies of the Kim dynasty over the decades make one thing clear, it’s that the survival and health of the regime always take precedence: survival at the expense of nearly 26 million North Korean citizens, who have been the victims of primordial, Stalinist style oppression for seventy-five years. The Kim dynasty cements its ignominious reputation by continually destabilizing the political landscape in Asia and doing so in a fashion many would liken to blackmail. The U.S. must respond appropriately to the extent of the…

Big Picture Funding American public schools is more complex than it might seem on the surface. It differs from state to state, city to city and district to district. Dollars are not always distributed equally. At the core of American democracy lies the principle that every child deserves a comprehensive education, regardless of whether they’re from Compton or Beverly Hills. Many schools in America are underfunded at the expense of disadvantaged students, while others receive disproportionately large sums of money to the benefit of students in affluent neighborhoods. The issue of lopsided funding directly contributes to educational inequities in America.…

The Yugoslav wars in the 90s resulted in widespread, ethnic bloodshed, particularly among Serbs and Bosniak Muslims. The aftermath of the wars has left tensions simmering on high in the former Yugoslavia, with Serbs especially feeling hard done by what they view as the partitioning of the Serbian state by America and its Western allies. Kosovo’s debut as an independent nation in 2008 has separated Serbia’s previously southernmost province with a hard border. While creating a separate state for Serbia’s Albanian minority, the forcible redrawing of borders on the European continent has induced lasting consequences for the region. Before the Yugoslav wars,…

The Democratic Party used to be much closer to the center. But the party of John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman exists today only in name. Historically moderate, today’s Democratic Party lies in extremes, rendering it almost unrecognizable to those who supported it a few decades ago. The modern left has ordained itself the oracle of progress, a bulwark against a new-age class struggle between white, middle-class America and minority groups who exist within a skewed power structure. Recognizing and addressing inequities is a cause to be applauded. However, it is important to take a measured approach blind to political showmanship. Instead, we’re seeing frequent calls…

Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, The Eagles, Van Halen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Whitney Houston—what do they all have in common? The answer: they were part and parcel of America’s cultural golden age, a time when our music reflected a healthy and intact culture. These musicians bestowed their genius upon the American people across decades, imbuing each song with the richness of thought and decency that defined American cultural identity. That identity has been systematically dismantled through the introduction of decadence and moral depravity as the new golden standard for American pop culture. The music industry has followed suit to…

American foreign policy since 9/11 has been adventurous, to say the least. Many wars have been fought, American lives lost and unspeakable amounts of taxpayer dollars spent. The question is, what for? This is perhaps the most important question if we are to understand each era of U.S. foreign policy, the reasoning and whether it can be justified. The foreign policy of the Cold War was a product of its time. America sought to project its power as a means of countering the world’s joint superpower, the Soviet Union, in its attempt to create a worldwide anti-American socialist bloc; and…