As I browsed bookstores last December for holiday gifts (and a few gifts for myself), one book repeatedly caught my eye – The Return of History: Conflict, Migration, and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century, by Canadian international relations scholar Jennifer Welsh. I noticed it for three reasons: (1) the title was a clear rhetorical response to one of…
Happy New Year to PineTreeRepublic readers! As we enter 2017 and approach our second anniversary, it seems like a good moment to continue an emerging annual tradition: the top 10 list of our favourite news articles from the past year. If nothing else, the twists and turns of 2016 demonstrated the importance of high-quality journalism in order to…
Presidential primaries unlike any other. Renewed promise for action on climate change. A refugee crisis that nobody seems to have an answer for. Increasingly brazen acts of terrorism around the world. A vote that may forever change Europe’s course. Through the first half of 2016, the world seemed to spin at an increasingly dizzying pace of change…
In a previous post, I examined three trends in global terrorism statistics that should give pause to policymakers proposing the typical policy package in response to terrorist incidents, including more bombing of terrorist groups, restricted immigration, and increased government surveillance. Specifically, these statistics demonstrated that (1) terrorist incidents in Western countries have actually declined since the…
The Nov. 13 attacks in Paris have prompted world leaders to focus on defeating the Islamic State, or Daesh (referred to in this post as ISIS), to a level of determination rarely seen on global issues. The Group of 20 (G20) summit held in Turkey just a week after the events, in which leaders from 20…
The Story Stock market indices across the world plunged on Monday, August 24, in response to recent signs that China’s explosive growth was hitting the brakes. In the United States, the Dow Jones Index dropped nearly 600 points on the latest version of “Black Monday”, marking the eighth-worst point drop in the index’s history. Meanwhile,…
The Story As Major League Baseball reached its annual deadline for trading players last week, exchanges with much more far-reaching consequences were taking place in the Greater Middle East. On July 23, the United States signed an agreement with Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbour, to use the Turkish air base of Incirlik to launch air strikes against Islamic…
The Story On Sunday, June 7, Turks voted in a general parliamentary election whose results will likely ripple across the greater Middle East. Surprisingly, Turkish President (and longtime Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s centre-right Justice and Development Party (AKP) was dealt a relative defeat in winning far fewer seats than expected. While the party retained the highest number of…
The Story On Thursday, May 14, President Barack Obama hosted a one-day summit at his Camp David retreat for U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf. Drawing senior government officials from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, the summit was organized against the backdrop of a looming deal between the United…
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