Backgrounders
Backgrounder
The United States’ intervention in Africa is driven by America’s desire to secure valuable natural resources and political influence that will ensure the longevity of America’s capitalist system, military industrial complex, and global economic superiority – achieved through the financial and physical control of raw material exports.
Backgrounder
US policy toward Venezuela has taken many tactical turns, but the objective has been the same: to oust President Chavez, reverse the nationalization of big businesses, abolish the mass community and worker based councils and revert the country into a client-state.
Backgrounder
HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is a little-known, yet critically important U.S. military defense program which has generated quite a bit of controversy over the years in certain circles.
Backgrounder
Will the current crisis in Kyrgyzstan lead to greater instability, and perhaps an expansion of the current conflict in Central Asia? There are good reasons to be concerned. Deep forces, not adequately understood, are at work there; and these forces have repeatedly led to major warfare in the past.
Backgrounder
The future of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), the arms control agreement that has served as the foundation of military confidence and transparency on the European continent since the end of the Cold War, is in doubt due to a long-standing impasse among the States Parties to the Treaty. The impasse stands in contrast to the progress on nuclear arms, most notably the US-Russia negotiations that led to the signing of a new Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty at Prague in April, 2010.
Backgrounder
While many western observers would point to violent secessionism in Kashmir as the direst threat to Indian national security, the government of India has identified the Maoist-inspired Naxalite insurgency as its most significant security challenge
Backgrounder
This backgrounder will examine the international nuclear nonproliferation regime; specifically the origins, benefits, and drawbacks of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). Increasingly obvious loopholes and a looming NPT review conference in May are coming together to make 2010 a watershed year for the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
Backgrounder
American decline has once again become a fashionable prophecy in academic and media circles. This time, BRIC countries like China and India have replaced the specter of a rising Japan, the country that was often cited by ‘declinists’ as a challenger to American hegemony during the 1980s. This backgrounder will examine both sides of the debate and provide an objective analysis of the causes and possible effects of American decline.
Backgrounder
With the exception of an uptick in protests during Ashura, Mir Hossein Mousavi’s challenge to the Iranian political establishment has faded from the international spotlight since the open dissidence of last June. However, Iran remains a society divided. This backgrounder covers the people and events that are shaping Iran’s reform movement.
Backgrounder
In the words of the U.S Overseas Basing Commission, U.S. military bases are, “the skeleton upon which the flesh and muscle of operational capability [can be] molded [1].”
