Natural Resources
Why Does Donald Trump Want to Buy Greenland, Anyway?
The dispatch of First Son Donald Trump Jr. to Greenland has revitalized speculation that the incoming President Trump will attempt to purchase the world’s largest island. President Trump, during his...
Mongolia Is Critical to Europe’s Energy Transition
Mongolia’s exports are 90 per cent dependent on natural resource extraction. In October 2023, during a state visit to France, Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh signed a landmark agreement that paved...
America Can’t Turn Away From Counterinsurgency in Africa
Terrorism is once again increasing, with Islamic extremists inching ever closer to their goal of establishing a caliphate in Africa. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon analysis institute,...
On Energy Policy, All-of-the-Above Is the Only Sensible Choice
President Joe Biden needs to rethink his energy-climate-prosperity paradigm. His current thinking holds that the U.S. fossil fuel industry needs to be restrained because its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are...
The Taliban’s Triumph Has Been Afghanistan’s Tragedy
Afghanistan has long been a rentier state dependent on international aid. Aid has had a mixed impact on the long-run performance of the Afghan economy. From 2001 to 2021, the...
Stronger Than Steel: Why the U.S. Military Runs on Beryllium
Imagine an airplane that weighs half as much as current jets, rocket fuel with the highest specific impulse, and springs that can sustain up to twenty billion load cycles, making...
The West Can’t Afford to Be Dependent on Petrostates
Europe sweats under record-high summer temperatures as it simultaneously braces for the cold months coming. Last week, the Russian gas company Gazprom announced a drastic cut—down to about 20 percent...
The Graphene Revolution Arrives in India
A symbol of education is the humble pencil—a simple column of graphite enclosed in wood. Today, graphite holds the key to many problems we face today related to graphene. Recent...
Drying Up: Unrest in Rural Iran Over Water Scarcity
Iranian police arrested several demonstrators over the weekend at protests near Lake Urmia, a former tourist hotspot that has dried up significantly since the mid-1990s, following changes to the Iranian...
How the Air Force Is Slowly Going Green
Last September, the U.S. Air Force announced plans to put forward “a concerted effort to reduce contamination of air, soil, and water by eliminating pollution at its source.” The occasion...
Nord Stream 2 Sanctions Defeated In Senate
In a floor vote on Thursday, the U.S. Senate failed to adopt Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bill to impose sanctions against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 undersea natural gas pipeline. Fifty-five...
Water Politics Will Drive Kazakhstan’s Relations With China
The recent unrest in Kazakhstan quickly led to an intervention by the Collective Security Treaty Organization and triggered the appointment of a new prime minister. While events in Kazakhstan will...