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Freedom to Question

I have taught a course on globalization and urbanization at San Francisco State for ten years. Each semester, I have to revise my syllabus substantially because global conditions have been changing dramatically since 2012. In August of 2019, New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project. I immediately incorporated it into the course that I

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How to Reward Aggression

A month ago I speculated that Finland and Sweden might join NATO, a strategic backfire against what Putin had intended. Apparently both countries have already decided to join NATO and will file formal applications this summer. What else might happen as a cost to Russia? Finland, Estonia, and Latvia might recover the territories the USSR

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My favorite Republican

I did not vote for Arnold Schwartzenegger when he ran for Governor of California during the recall of Gray Davis. I find the recall-process in California to be very broken, as shown by the latest cynical attempt to recall Gavin Newsom. However, Schwartzenegger was a good governor, especially in his endorsement of Senate Bill 375,

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Ukraine: Military Lessons Thus Far

Over the last few days Volodomyr Zelenskyy has asked repeatedly for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Poland has asked the US to take their aging MiG-29s, remove the NATO electronics, and transfer them to Ukraine–in exchange for receiving new fixed-wing fighter aircraft. Vladimir Putin has countered that either of these decisions would

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How to De-Escalate Now?

This morning Fareed Zakaria noted that Vladimir Putin is not only more isolated in his solo control of Russia, but also more emotionally volatile. This complicates a geo-strategic problem: he may have set in motion a series of political disasters from which he cannot gracefully exit. Despite very impressive Ukrainian resistance, it is very likely

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Russia and NATO

One of the objectives of Putin is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, out of concern that Russia would have a direct border with a NATO country. Too late: Russia already borders on Estonia and Latvia, which are both members of NATO now: In 1955, the USSR created the Warsaw Pact in reaction to West

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The treason of January 6, 2021

Today the Republican National Committee formally declared that the attack on the U. S. Congress on January 6, 2021 was “legitimate political discourse” and censured Republican representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in the investigation of this attack. I have kept my silence for a year, because my concern is not about a

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