Blog Group 0302

  International Relations: Final Readings on Columbus In our last class on International Relations, our class was tasked with discussing the book “The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other” by Tzvetan Todorov. The book talks about the conquest and colonization of the native people of the Americas by the Spaniards soon after they found the Americas. The beginning chapters of the book discuss the initial findings of the Spanish when they first came upon the Americas. The Spanish immediately noticed how rich America was with resources, stating that gold and silver were found in abundance. In addition to this, the Spanish noticed the rich and different landscape of the Americas with high mountains and beautiful valleys. Lastly, the Spanish noticed the difference among the native people of the land who had different cultures, features, traditions, and languages. As the book begins to progress, the chapters then begin to get into the psychology and thinking of the Spanish while ...

  Roe v Wade: The History and Looming Future of Our Nation Passed in 1973, the monumental decision of Roe v. Wade ruled that the Constitution of the United States would protect the liberty of a women’s decision to have an abortion during the first trimester of her pregnancy, permitting minimal to no governmental imposition. In doing so, the ruling struck down a multitude of in tack U.S. laws on both federal and state levels, igniting the infamous debate between pro-choice and pro-life parties. The case of Roe v Wade was first instigated after Jane Roe, a pseudonym for 22 year old Norma McCorvey, sought to have an abortion in Texas in 1969 after falling pregnant for the third time whilst unmarried and unemployed. However, Roe’s plight was rejected by the in place Texas law which ruled abortions to be illegal with the exception to save the life of the mother. Texas’ law further denied Roe the right to travel to a neighboring state in order to receive an abortion to which point Roe ...

Implications of Diplomatic Risk Game  The Diplomatic Risk Game provided valuable insight as to how international political decisions are executed, morevor what leaders place emphasis on when choosing their political strategies. In a fictional game, the chosen leaders and diplomats were not concerned with the true implicit and explicit costs of war, rather, the focus was on total dominance in resources. Similarly, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to progress it can be seen that leaders like Vladimir Putin operate under those same principles.  In principle, war should operate as it did throughout the Risk Game: two nations that cannot reach an agreement go to war and the dominant nation will emerge victorious. The Risk Game allows its players to focus solely on the international dynamics and their corresponding power changes emerging post-war. In order to settle a conflict,  “both the defender and the attacker roll X dice, where X is the amount of units they ...

With the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, the notion of great power conflict has once again become extremely relevant and real. This invasion shocked many Western viewers, who had become accustomed to seeing warfare through the lens of the Global War on Terror. In this campaign, the West found itself fighting in mostly low intensity conflicts against insurgencies and terrorist groups, rather than professional militaries. While the war in Ukraine is “the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II '' (Rand), there is another great power conflict that, if it were to break out, would potentially lead to greater consequences for the United States than the war in Ukraine. This potential future conflict would be between the United States and China over control of Taiwan. This is for many different reasons, to include, military, economic, and political. For one, Taiwan is a part of an important island chain that the US can use to box the Chinese navy in and cut China off f...