The following three works are my selections that I felt were the most impactful and challenging for me in the ISS program at the University of Arizona. They reflect my understanding and perspectives of the issue at hand and is presented pragmatically with careful thought. If the reader finds similar views, I hope that they can find reinforcing ideas that they can come away with and new information to help them to better understand each issue. On the other hand, dissenting readers may not find some or all of the ideas in alignment with their own views but it is my hope that the reader can come away with another perspective that they can strengthen their own argument or come away with a better appreciation of another view. To read the works, click on the images.
Vladimir Putin: Illogical Madman or Rational Decision Maker? |
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Using the foundation of Rational Choice Theory to build my work, I seek to explain Russian President Vladimir Putin's rationales and reasoning on his invasion of Ukraine based on not only his past experiences and witnessing the demise of the Soviet Union, but also on a 1,300-year history of the Russian people facing external threats, real or perceived, that were considered existential at the time.
This work was part of my writing requirements for POL 551 - Russian Foreign and Security Policy facilitated by Dr. John P. (Pat) Willerton in the Fall of 2022 during the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am most proud of this work because of the response Dr. Willerton provided as feedback to the piece. I was not only humbled by his remarks, but it also provided me with even more confidence in knowing that my views and ideas were impactful in generating such a response that future works and analysis written by me can have similar results whether in agreement or not which is what makes the art of rhetoric the generator of lively debate and allows for the reinforcement of your argument to withstand scrutiny. I hope that after reading this work readers can come away with a new perspective in developing strategies to steer U.S. policy, diplomacy, and statecraft to effectively counter a rising Russia led by Vladimir Putin
This work was part of my writing requirements for POL 551 - Russian Foreign and Security Policy facilitated by Dr. John P. (Pat) Willerton in the Fall of 2022 during the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am most proud of this work because of the response Dr. Willerton provided as feedback to the piece. I was not only humbled by his remarks, but it also provided me with even more confidence in knowing that my views and ideas were impactful in generating such a response that future works and analysis written by me can have similar results whether in agreement or not which is what makes the art of rhetoric the generator of lively debate and allows for the reinforcement of your argument to withstand scrutiny. I hope that after reading this work readers can come away with a new perspective in developing strategies to steer U.S. policy, diplomacy, and statecraft to effectively counter a rising Russia led by Vladimir Putin
Gaining Ground(s): The Argument to Include Survivors of Domestic Violence and Individuals Escaping Gang Recruitment in the Northern Triangle countries of Latin America |
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Immigration may be one of our most contentious domestic/foreign policy issues that hits, literally, closest to home. While Republicans and Democrats, debate over the status of our southern border, there remains in the middle those whose fates are hanging in the balance while these two sides fight it out. Written in the Spring of 2022, before the lifting of Title 42 that kept those seeking legal entry into the United States at bay and before many media entities were reporting that a crisis was unfolding at the southern border, this work focuses on two vulnerable groups that have been excluded from asylum consideration due to the lack of grounds from which to stake such a claim - survivors of domestic violence and vulnerable individuals who may be involuntarily forced to join criminal gangs in the Northern Triangle countries of Latin America. While immigrants have undoubtedly been an integral and important part of the American experience, we have come at a crossroads today as to how to handle immigration, especially asylum seekers, going forward.
The essay was written as a submission requirement for POL 523A - Immigration and Border Security facilitated by Dr. Lisa Sanchez. This course was the most challenging as I had to put aside many feelings on my own views on illegal immigration and focus on perspective and build pragmatic arguments for all three paper submissions. Surprisingly all three submissions were not wholly liberal or conservative and could have been written for both sides of the aisle depending on the topic written. In addition, I passed this work along to Julia Preston, a writer for The Marshall Project and former New York Times editor, who wrote a recent article in the July/August 2023 issue of Foreign Affairs about the same topic. I received a positive response that like Dr. Willerton's above, provided me with a sense of accomplishment in my efforts to understand U.S. domestic and foreign policy in which I aspire to build upon.
The essay was written as a submission requirement for POL 523A - Immigration and Border Security facilitated by Dr. Lisa Sanchez. This course was the most challenging as I had to put aside many feelings on my own views on illegal immigration and focus on perspective and build pragmatic arguments for all three paper submissions. Surprisingly all three submissions were not wholly liberal or conservative and could have been written for both sides of the aisle depending on the topic written. In addition, I passed this work along to Julia Preston, a writer for The Marshall Project and former New York Times editor, who wrote a recent article in the July/August 2023 issue of Foreign Affairs about the same topic. I received a positive response that like Dr. Willerton's above, provided me with a sense of accomplishment in my efforts to understand U.S. domestic and foreign policy in which I aspire to build upon.
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Stuck in Neutral :The Failure of U.S. Energy Policy in Eurasia
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Despite the fortunes that the Shale Revolution has provided for energy production in the United States (accounting for 36% of US oil production) and making it a leading global oil and gas producer and exporter, the United States still cannot claim to be energy independent. We must be careful in our own energy reserves as to not overconsume and sooner deplete them where we would move further toward energy dependency from other nations while we await for advances and innovations to more efficient alternative and renewable energy systems. One region of the globe - Central Asia - may have the answers the U.S. needs to answer some of its energy concerns. Thought to hold at least both ten percent of the world's proven oil reserves and more than 30 percent of the globe's proven natural gas reserves, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan are still fairly new on the world stage yet has caught the attention of major global players for their reserves. With the United States, China, Russia and even the European Union courting these independent states, Central Asia has now become an active part of the global game board in directing energy reserves from the region toward these major players' borders.
This work was produced as a requirement for POL 588A - Politics of Energy Security in the Spring of 2023 facilitated by Dr. Mikhail Beznosov. This work seeks to briefly identify the strengths and weaknesses that these power players currently have in their approach of energy policy toward the region, how it affects the other players' approach and a more in depth approach at American policy recommendations in Central Asia through a fundamental reimagining of Eurasia. What was uncovered was that geopolitical issues amongst these players strongly affected their policy approach to the region and that successful influence in Central Asia was more than just handshakes and promises but entails real statecraft and soft power diplomacy in order to avoid a Gordian knot solution.
This work was produced as a requirement for POL 588A - Politics of Energy Security in the Spring of 2023 facilitated by Dr. Mikhail Beznosov. This work seeks to briefly identify the strengths and weaknesses that these power players currently have in their approach of energy policy toward the region, how it affects the other players' approach and a more in depth approach at American policy recommendations in Central Asia through a fundamental reimagining of Eurasia. What was uncovered was that geopolitical issues amongst these players strongly affected their policy approach to the region and that successful influence in Central Asia was more than just handshakes and promises but entails real statecraft and soft power diplomacy in order to avoid a Gordian knot solution.
Additional Works
While the Professional Colloquium requires only three works for my portfolio requirements, I had some difficulty in trying to choose the third work from among other works I had the enjoyment of researching and constructing throughout my time in the ISS program. Below are a few additional works I added if you are interested in other topics I written about. My own hope is that these are not my final works and that I can continue to contribute even in a small way to confronting challenges that face the United States and our allies in both the present and future.
Frozen Peace to Warm Relations:
Re-thinking the purpose of the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Written for POL 569A - Armed Conflict in the Spring of 2022 facilitated by Dr. Christina Sciabarra this work focused on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the contested Nargorno-Karabakh region that lies between these two countries. While a short eight week war between the two in 2020 resulted in a Azeri victory, a successful resolution to the longer-standing conflict has not been found and tensions are again erupting between the two countries over the region again. I argue that a probable path to a solution is not through armed conflict but through negotiations from the OSCE Minsk Group with the U.S. taking lead with the addition of new non-biased members to draft a resolution for the consideration of a self-determination vote for the people of Nargorno-Karabakh.
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Deference or Deterrence: Crafting New Russian Policy Responses Through a NATO Perspective
The NATO alliance was created to ensure the freedom of Western European member states would not fall prey to an aggressive Soviet Union that was building its own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, is NATO even relevant? NATO's purpose still is relevant as a revanchist Russia has raised the specter of instability once again in Eastern Europe where former Soviet republics and satellite states are now NATO members and whose borders now about Russia's which is seen as an existential threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. foreign policy on Russia is often transmitted through a NATO perspective when it comes to the security of Europe and this work seeks to identify new approaches to Russian actions and ambitions in its near-abroad, particularly in Eastern and Western Europe. Written for POL 551 - Russian Foreign and Security Policy facilitated by Dr. John P. (Pat) Willerton in the Fall of 2022, this is my most analytic work to date.
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Arming the Sentry: The Argument for Maintaining Arms Transfers to Saudi Arabia
Having a 90-plus year diplomatic relationship with another country often conjures up strong ties, similar perspectives, and values. The U.S.-Saudi relationship is anything but. Diverging views and mistrust has often tarnished the special relationship that is often seen as energy driven but Saudi Arabia also is a major geopolitical and security player in the Middle East that wields much influence - and acts as a counter to Iran. While recent Saudi-Iranian detente has surprised many observers and generated questions about the potential of a stronger relationship between the two, the United States still has major interests in the region which Saudi Arabia plays a large role in. Security-wise, to stop arming Saudi Arabia with U.S. armaments and defense platforms is to place the greater security of the Middle East at risk and could involve the U.S. military to play a greater role in the region to secure its interests. This work, created for POL 589A - Arming the State argues for the United States to continue to arm Saudi Arabia (with conditions) to stabilize the security in the Middle East and to secure U.S. interests in the region.
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Pipeline Politics or Pipeline Dreams?
Understanding the Unique Dynamics that Affect Eurasian Energy Transport to Global Markets. Despite gaining their independence from the Soviet Union over 30 years ago Central Asian states and their energy exports are still influenced by Russia due to Soviet era pipeline routes that formerly moved energy from this region north into the Russian Republic proper and continues to primarily do so today due to a lack of alternative petroleum transit infrastructure. Additionally, conflict with any transit state in which these Soviet-era pipelines from Russia traverse through, such as Ukraine, has threatened the energy security of recipient consumer states in the EU and has raised the question if alternative routes are viable to transit Central Asian energy to their intended destinations. Written for POL 588A - Politics of Energy Security, this work argues that such a solution to reroute exists but will be heavily influenced by the geopolitics in the region and who comes out on top will determine the directional flow from the region.
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Controlling the Asylum Tsunami at the Southern Border.
Reconsidering the Trump Administration’s Interim Final Rule on Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal. United States Customs and Border Protection during FY 2022 and 2023 has seen a staggering 4.85 million migrant encounters on the Southwest land border. The lifting of Title 42 and reversals of President Trump's efforts to control the wave of migrants seeking entry into the United States from Latin America has generated debate on how to better handle an immigration issue that is now revealing the unsightly blemishes in U.S. immigration policy and the need to fix it.
This work argues that though it is the right of every human to migrate to find a better life or flee persecution for their own safety, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees also points out that “international refugee law does not confer upon refugees the right to choose their country of asylum (nor) authorize their irregular movement between successive countries solely in order to benefit from more favourable conditions." A contentious work written for POL 523A - Immigration and Border Security, I argue that "third" countries from which migrant states traverse through to reach their desired (but not guaranteed) destination can offer asylum to these individuals and enter into burden-sharing agreements with the U.S. to help ease the strain on U.S. immigration and provide migrants with security and opportunity. |
Reimagining Angell’s Great Illusion:
Why Globalization is Not Rendering the Concepts of Geopolitics and Great Power Competition Obsolete Challenged with the question of whether geopolitics and great power competition has been rendered obsolete due to globalization and the intricate economic interdependencies between states, I contend that geopolitics and great power competition is very much alive and well in today's world. While COVID-19 exposed the fragility of globalized networks, geopolitical tensions are rising due to a belligerent Russia and a Chinese state that wants to create its own rules for a new global order in its own vision. Written for POL 588A - Politics of Energy Security in the Spring of 2023 facilitated by Dr. Mikhail Beznosov, I point out that the lynchpin of geopolitics today is energy security that literally fuels competition between great power states and that we may see more regionalized or smaller network interdependencies of like-minded states a la NATO in the near term to protect vital resources like energy to stay ahead of the global competition.
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Sufi Islam of Senegal
A Model of Secular Islam in West Africa |
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The West African nation of Senegal has a long, rich, and unique history of Islam as part of its identity as compared to other Muslim majority nations throughout the world in that it is one of the few examples of a secular state that shares its identity alongside Islam, long thought to be an incompatible marriage in religious-political relations. Yet Sufi Islam in Senegal has not been without its challenges. A new generation of Senegalese armed with new ideas and perspectives on a more intensive and pure application of Islam is seeking to upend a long-established and relatively peaceful status quo between the religious faithful and the state. The work is a counterbalance of previous submissions of the Politics of Islamism course (which can be found in a series on my blog page) that shows that the presence of Islamic tenets in governance of Muslim-majority states can be compatible with democracies, yet the marriage can be a fragile one.
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