This week on Dialectica: Host James Tanner and Producer C. P. Smith present several issues regarding the U.S. military. This wide-ranging show explores new research about the demographics of the U.S. military, the differences between the branches of military, recent news of President Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, and an update on previous Dialectica shows on […]
Category: Global Policy Studies & International Security
This week on Dialectica: Host/Co-Producer Sanjeet Deka and Co-Producer C. P. Smith examine the ramifications of the closing of the detention facilities at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. Interview subjects include Prof. Bobby Chesney, expert in national security law and a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the show […]
Recent news headlines like these have led American politicians to worry about the stability of a Pakistan equipped with nuclear arms: Squandering US$10 billion from precious reserves in less than 10 months, the country goes begging for $10 billion more… Standard and Poors downgrades the country’s credit rating to junk… Double digit inflation shoots by […]
As the United States forms a new government in the coming days, developing nations anticipate a change in the approach to international development. Can President-elect Obama increase the impact of foreign assistance? During the campaign, Obama said he would double the amount of U.S. foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012. Yet, the question is […]
Diplomacy should be our nation’s first line of defense. Engaging foreign leaders and attempting to prevent misunderstandings between nations is a true preventative approach to international conflict. Diplomacy is valuable even when incapable of resolving conflicts on its own. The Bush Doctrine attempts to prevent war with war and rejects the inherent value of discourse. […]
As 2008 draws to a close, we may witness the completion of 670 miles of border fence between the United States and Mexico as authorized by the U.S. Congress. Advocates in the Department of Homeland Security and within Congress may consider this venture to be a success and merely a phase of a larger scale […]
Walking in a desert, concentrating on the mirage, the wanderer looses sight of what he had set out to do. He walks away from his destination lured by the mirage, embracing fiction than fact. Like the wanderer, the focus of United States foreign policies seemed to have drifted from the path to the mirage. […]
This week’s host/co-producer Sanjeet Deka and co-producer C.P. Smith examine the ongoing debate facing defense acquisition and procurement. Guests interviewed for the show include: Admiral Bobby Inman, Lyndon B. Johnson Centennial Chair in National Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Former Deputy Director of the CIA; Kenneth Flamm, Professor of Economics and […]
Before sunrise on November 7, 2005, I joined members of the Observatorio Ciudadano de Servicios Públicos as we erected a blue tent in front of the Palacio de Justicia in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Volunteers readied vote deposit boxes, paper ballots, and signature pages in anticipation of the crowds of people to come. Over the next two […]
“My mother always said democracy is the best revenge,” remarked Bilawal Bhutto Zardari after reading his mother’s will, which declared him Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Like her son, Benazir Bhutto was also appointed chairman of the PPP without elections. It is somehow ironic that these strong advocates of “democracy” were not themselves […]