By Boris Ryvkin on December 6, 2007
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has resurrected a highly menacing accord and sent it to the floor for ratification. The treaty, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), was first drafted in 1982 and rejected by the Reagan administration. The two components most objectionable were Parts XI and XIII, which forbade [...]
Posted in National | Tagged December 2007, Volume VI Number III
By Boris Ryvkin on October 26, 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s explosive speech at Columbia was the quintessential media circus. The setup could not have been more perfect, the lights could not have been brighter, and the public relations victory for Iran’s regime could not have been sweeter. There was Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger, who berated Ahmadinejad for exhibiting “all the [...]
Posted in National | Tagged October 2007, Parents’ Weekend, Volume VI Number II
By Boris Ryvkin on September 9, 2007
America lies prostrated between two flawed extremes in its conflict with Radical Islam. The first, viewing the threat as largely organizational, holds the neutralization of individual Islamist groups as the most effective way to check the ideology’s expansion. While advantageous in limiting the scope of attack, this approach ignores the cultural and political circumstances that [...]
Posted in International | Tagged September 2007, Volume VI Number I
By Boris Ryvkin on May 1, 2007
For all of the idealism and movements toward integration that have been guiding modern states, national interest must remain preeminent. Unless states can attain their strategic objectives, both economic and military, in the world’s most geopolitically relevant regions, the rhetoric of idealism will remain meaningless. The end of the Cold War presented the United States [...]
Posted in International | Tagged May 2007, Volume V Number VII
By Boris Ryvkin on February 1, 2007
American labor unions have a turbulent history. Fighting for tangible benefits with little to no federal assistance, early union activities were highly romanticized and encouraged important reforms to a nearly unchecked capitalism. Union influence throughout the early part of the last century was driven by a manufacturing-based economy, domestic industries protected by high tariffs, and [...]
Posted in National | Tagged February 2007, Volume V Number V
By Boris Ryvkin on February 1, 2007
Something to consider when assessing the Communist experience is whether thievery exists in gradations. We generally identify thieves as petty, common criminals, seeking material wealth and a quick improvement in their social lot. Modern society has seen the term “robber baron” enter its lexicon, where a corporate executive and his majority shareholders manipulate international markets [...]
Posted in International | Tagged February 2007, Volume V Number V
By Boris Ryvkin on February 1, 2007
The State of Israel is in an incredibly tenuous position. The debate surrounding Israel’s interests has shifted more in the last decade than perhaps at any other time in its history, with horrific consequences. A breakdown in Israeli leadership has gone hand in hand with a mismanagement of the military and a compromise on [...]
Posted in International | Tagged February 2007, Volume V Number V
By Boris Ryvkin on November 16, 2006
Few things are more uniformly detested than nationalism. The term sparks images of Swastikas parading across Nuremberg, demagogues on three continents, and millions of dead in the name of common hatred and resentment. Tragic how perhaps the most basic and fundamental components of social organization is so quickly condemned by looking at its extreme manifestations. [...]
Posted in National | Tagged November 2006, Thanksgiving, Volume V Number IV
By Boris Ryvkin on November 16, 2006
On April 10, 1947, a group of economists and business leaders gathered at the Mont Pelerin Resort in the Swiss Alps for a conference organized by Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek. Hayek had invited international scorn with the publishing of his landmark Road to Serfdom. He advanced the argument that Socialism and Nazism had a common [...]
Posted in International | Tagged November 2006, Thanksgiving, Volume V Number IV
By Boris Ryvkin on October 20, 2006
Providence, with its massive downtown redevelopment, has been a centerpiece of the Rhode Island renaissance. During one of the city’s first Waterfire events, a group of Brown student activists and allies from HOPE (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) dropped a massive sign over the river, lambasting the city’s performance on homeless and affordable housing policy. [...]
Posted in National | Tagged October 2006, Parents’ Weekend, Volume V Number III
