The Death of the Right The American right has collapsed. Despite immense political energy emanating from those disenchanted with the status quo, there is no outlet for it to flow through. This is because the Republican Party is not a generator of ideas, it is a parking brake for progressivism. In 1856 the Republican party was the leftmost party on Earth. It advocated for the abolition of slavery, deeming it a legalized evil that plagued the land. The morally driven abolitionist position soon led to the deadliest war in American history and the destruction of the American South, which the…

Background Iran has a network of organizations and paramilitaries it calls the Axis of Resistance. Hamas as well as the Houthi movement in Yemen are members of this axis. Tensions between Iran and Israel have existed for decades but current hostilities date back to 2013 when Iranian soldiers were stationed in Syria to support the Government forces in the Civil War. Since then tensions have fluctuated, but they have reached new heights during the current war in Gaza which immediately followed the unprecedented talks between Israel and Iranian rival Saudi Arabia. Since then, Iranian-backed forces in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and…

The United States is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. It is a nation built on the concept of universal political equality above all else. Abraham Lincoln once described it as a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Currently, however, the people’s faith in the U.S. government is at an all-time low. Much of the decline in trust can be attributed to the overall political divisiveness. U.S. citizens regard the state of politics and certain policies pursued during the last 60 years to be non-representative of public opinion or hazardous to the health of the nation. Furthermore,…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has lasted nearly two years. After $100 billion in Western military aid has been given to Ukraine, the war of attrition has become a slow-moving stalemate. The coming reduction in Western aid may turn the tide in Russia’s favor. In the days leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, experts in Washington projected its resistance to last a few weeks at best. The Russian military possesses superior manpower and organizational capacity and is backed by a GDP of around 2.2 trillion dollars. Yet, Ukraine’s armed forces have defied such expectations. In a striking defense, they…

Big Picture The largest European war since World War II is raging on between Russia, a great power, and Ukraine, the most impoverished nation in Europe. Russia invaded Ukraine, looking to annex territory, which is illegal under international law. The discrepancy between the two warring economies and militaries leaves Ukraine at an extreme disadvantage. To prevent a disastrous defeat, many Western nations have sent billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. The United States in particular has sent around 74 billion in aid to Ukraine in the past two years. That is more than the military aid sent to the…

NATO is an acronym for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is a military alliance that was formed in 1949 at the start of the Cold War, with the intent of guaranteeing the freedom and security of its members. The alliance is composed of 30 European nations as well as the U.S. and Canada. NATO also has partners which it closely cooperates with, each on an individual basis. The most important of these partnerships include Japan, Australia and South Korea. Originally NATO was formed to oppose the Soviet Union, which had gained control over Central and Eastern Europe after the…

Armenia and Azerbaijan are two nations in the Caucasus that have long had territorial disputes. Nagorno-Karabakh is the centrally contested region between the nations. In 2020 and again in 2023 war broke out. Nagorno-Karabakh–previously known as the Republic of Artsakh– is an unrecognized Armenian enclave within Azerbaijani territory that was forcibly annexed by the Azeris. Historically the region was grounds for a contest between the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Eventually, both nations came under Russian and then Soviet control. However, by the end of the 1980s, the decline of the USSR was imminent, despite its full-blown collapse being unpredictable. Both…

The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for two years now. The conflict has greatly evolved throughout its duration. New tactics reveal the nature of modern war: it is not in Ukraine’s favor and never has been. Most recent conflicts have been asymmetrical, a developed military power fighting a grass-roots paramilitary insurgency or improvised rebellions. The offensive forces use small-scale maneuver warfare tailored to incapacitate or demoralize the smaller force. Ukraine is no such case, however. It is the largest country in Europe. It has a sizable standing army with a diverse arsenal of Western and Soviet-era weapons, albeit a…

The Nord Stream is a multi-billion dollar project composed of undersea natural gas pipelines. The project is a joint effort between Russia and Europe that aims to stimulate both economies and provide cheaper energy to Europe. It is 51% owned by Gazprom, a state-owned Russian company, and the rest is owned by a combination of German, Dutch and French corporations. Work on Nord Stream 1 began in 2011 and became operational in 2012. The project was beneficial for both Western Europe and Russia. Europe has historically been lacking in natural resources, especially energy.  The Nord Stream pipeline provided a diversification…

200 years ago, European armies marched in lines wearing colorful coats, inaccurately firing spheres of scalding lead at enemies a few hundred yards away in an open field. Then in 1914, what we consider modern war began.World War I was not understood to be a modern war immediately. The vast technological developments made during the Industrial Revolution left Europe–which had not had great power conflict in 99 years–unaware of what was to come. Soon they found what horrors modern technology possessed when turned against flesh. They dug trenches and held their ground, hiding from peril, moving only hundreds of yards per year on some fronts. Artillery…