Dissecting Russian Organized Crime and the State
The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia by Mark Galeotti Yale University Press, 2018 The discovery of more than 850 pounds of cocaine on the grounds of the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 2018 arrests of multiple people involved...
A Response to Germany’s Austerity
The European Union (EU) is at a crossroads, with increased economic inequality across the member states having the potential to further break apart the EU. Germany has a unique opportunity to step up, and fight this fracturing....
Economic Policy Challenges for the Next Italian Government
With low growth, crippling public debt, and chronic unemployment, Italy checks all the boxes for a major financial crisis. However, with the right economic policies, the next coalition government can turn Italy around and make...
Critically Assessing the “Smart City”
The phrase “smart city” is on the lips of urban planners and policy makers everywhere in recent months. Cities from London and Barcelona to Hangzhou and Rio de Janeiro are being hailed as “smart,” “wired,” and “networked” with...
NATO’s New Cold War: A Nuclear Arms Race in US-Russian relations
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the world’s most effective collective defense alliance, playing a fundamental role in the structure of transatlantic security. For the United States, NATO ultimately proved...
Securing an Olympic Legacy
Pyeongchang, a rural county in one of the poorest regions in South Korea, recently hosted 60,000 security forces, alongside an influx of security infrastructure that included such state-of-the-art military technology as...
A Powerful Message Delivered With Nerve Toxins
Polonium-laced tea. An ice axe to the head. A ricin-pill fired from an umbrella. Defectors and dissidents have long met their demise uniquely at the hands of Soviet- and Russian-linked security services. Two people were found...
Moving Forward After Pittella
Italians have taken to polls this weekend to vote in what many are considering to be a test not only the for their country, but also for the future of Europe. This election has proven to be a test not only for the ruling...
Legal Migration in an Anxious Europe
Migration has been at the center of debates regarding reforming the European Union ever since a ‘refugee crisis’ hit the continent more than three years ago. Reforming the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has been on both the...
Cyanide in the Courtroom: International Opinion on Serbia’s Role in the Balkan Conflicts
Last November, twenty two years after he ordered mass killings of Muslim Bosnians, The Hague sentenced Ratko Mladic, aka the Butcher of Bosnia, to life in prison. A week later, Slobodan Praljak took a deadly dose of cyanide...