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A desolate landscape and frozen ocean seems like an unlikely place for the scene of major world events and geopolitical confrontation. But as climate change accelerates the thawing of the Arctic polar caps, it welcomes an abundance of natural resources, fisheries, and commercial sea routes. The countries bordering the Arctic Ocean, including the United States […]
In 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a historic peace agreement committing to diplomatic and commercial ties. Peace seemed imminent for these two countries in conflict, but one issue remained in place for the next three years––the Sinai peninsula. The matters of contention revolved around a settlement that was then occupied by Israeli and American extremists, […]
In 1895, the United States intervened in a long-standing border dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela, forcing its resolution—and forcing Great Britain to implicitly recognize the Monroe Doctrine’s legitimacy. In doing so, the United States inaugurated a more interventionist foreign policy in Latin America, one characterized by Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick.” Throughout the twentieth century, […]
In a Hawaiian hotel room sat a U.S. ambassador and officials from Palau, peering over details of a treaty to define the tiny Pacific nation’s relations with the United States. The clock was ticking—if the two delegations were unable to reach an agreement by the end of that year, 1980, the results of the American […]
Defining the border between Mexico and the United States has not always been in the hands of politicians; at one point, a shift in the Rio Grande River created a new boundary and generated a diplomatic dispute. In February 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and designated the Rio Grande the boundary […]
Due to rising concern about radioactive fallout from increasingly big nuclear tests underwater, in space, in the atmosphere and underground, as well as concern over the burgeoning arms race between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, the US, UK, and USSR decided to negotiate a test-ban treaty. These concerns became more pronounced after the United States […]
During the 1990s, several African countries, namely Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia were plunged into chaos and embroiled in devastating civil wars. Thanks to economic and political insecurity and contentious inter-ethnic relations, rebel groups such as the Patriotic National Front of Liberia under the leadership of Guy […]
When the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) became independent from Belgium in June 1960, the new country immediately descended into a political chaos known as the “Congo Crisis.” The arbitrary boundaries drawn by Colonial powers combined with leftover racial tensions and general uncertainty led to violence along racial lines […]
While today the mention of Somalia may conjure up images of a destitute nation run by warlords, such was not always the case. When it gained independence and the territories of British Somaliland and Italian Somalia were unified to create what we know today as Somalia, there was great optimism about the country’s political future. […]
“Cuba ought to be free and independent, and the government should be turned over to the Cuban people.” That in many ways summarizes decades of U.S. policy towards its island neighbor. However, the quote is not by John F. Kennedy or George W. Bush, but rather by President William McKinley — which demonstrates rather clearly that […]
