Environment & Climate Change

Steven E. Miller provides an analysis of what the Russian invasion of Ukraine means for the security dynamics of the Arctic and Northern Europe.

Stephen Walt enumerates the challenges the U.S. president should prepare for in 2021.

At one point in human history, water’s importance in war went beyond bearing convoys, hiding submarines, and slaking soldiers’ thirst. Water was often itself a weapon. In areas where it was scarce, armies took action to make it scarcer to force besieged enemy cities to capitulate, and in areas where it was abundant, combatants destroyed dams and watched the resulting floods carry their adversaries away. Today, however, most combatants recoil at the use of water as a weapon, and only the most depraved deploy it.

Since the end of World War II, nation-states in international conflict have made concerted efforts to restrain the weaponization of water. Distinct from realist and rationalist explanations, the historical record reveals the rise of an international normative inhibition—a “water taboo”—on using water as a weapon.

The study of existential risk — the risk of human extinction or the collapse of human civilization — has only recently emerged as an integrated field of research, and yet an overwhelming volume of relevant research has already been published. To provide an evidence base for policy and risk analysis, this research should be systematically reviewed. In a systematic review, one of many time-consuming tasks is to read the titles and abstracts of research publications, to see if they meet the inclusion criteria. The authors show how this task can be shared between multiple people (using crowdsourcing) and partially automated (using machine learning), as methods of handling an overwhelming volume of research.

Stephen Walt writes that the United States' unusual historical experience, geographic isolation, large domestic market, and general ignorance have weakened its ability to make viable foreign-policy strategies.

Stephen Walt writes that several important events occurred in 2019, but few did anything to significantly alter global trends.

Stephen Walt's Top 10 Reasons to Give Thanks This Thanksgiving includes Greta Thunberg, Emmanuel Macron—and the fact that things aren't as bad as they could be.