In an op-ed for the Austin-American Statesman, Strauss Center Associate Michael Mosser discusses the connections between conflict and climate change in Africa.  He outlines strategies used in a course he designed for Southwestern University students using the CCAPS project ideas and preliminary findings.

In a March 9, 2010 opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times,  Strauss Center Director Frank Gavin contends that the threat of nuclear proliferation has been overstated.  While there is cause for concern, he says, many common claims leading to worry are open to scrutiny.

Ninety percent of Persian Gulf oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz each day. Given the narrow nature of the official designated shipping channel, many experts worry that an attack on tankers could "close the strait," disrupting oil prices and making waves through the entire global economy. In a Foreign Policy article, Strauss Center Senior Fellow Eugene Gholz lays out reasons why the conventional wisdom may be wrong.

Now that India and the world are over the initial shock of the terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai, efforts to understand what happened and prevent future calamities are being hampered in ways familiar to Israelis like myself, who have lived through far too many such events: pointless efforts to place blame, and a failure to put the attacks in the proper historical context.

Strauss Center Senior Fellow Philip Bobbitt poses twelve complex national security questions to the presidential candidates. Without understanding how each candidate approaches and analyzes problems, and without understanding how those approaches differ, Bobbitt cautions that, whoever wins the election, the mandate for leading the country will be fragile at best.

In a New York Times op-ed, Strauss Senior Fellow Eugene Gholz cautions against excessive concern over disruptions to world oil flows. Despite the volatility of the market and unrest in oil-producing countries, world oil reserves are not as vulnerable as they might seem.

The recent Russia-Georgia conflict has all the hallmarks of a typical energy war, according to Strauss Fellow Michael Webber in an Austin American-Statesman opinion piece on August 17. Russia's emergence as an energy-producing powerhouse has put America and the European Union in a difficult position with regards to this current conflict.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Americas witnessed what looked like an overseas humanitarian-relief operation. The storm provided a visual image of the severity of extreme weather that could be brought about by climate change in the future. The heavily populated coastal areas of the United States are vulnerable to these kinds of extreme weather events, suggesting that homeland security will require readiness against climate change. Strauss Fellow Joshua Busby suggests changes in three main areas in the Washington Post .

In an op-ed published by the Austin American-Statesman, Strauss Center Governing Board member Jim Langdon discusses the significance of the Strauss Center’s partnership with the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The partnership aims to deepen cooperation, innovation and exchange of ideas in higher education and advanced research on global affairs.

The greatest challenge facing the next president will be bringing the nation’s foreign policy back into balance with its political will. For most of the last 50 years, bipartisanship at home steadied U.S. statecraft abroad. But today, Congress is bitterly divided over the Iraq war, as is the public. Even after Gen. David H. Petraeus testified to Congress that the “surge” was working, a Rasmussen poll revealed that 82% of Democrats want the forces home within a year, while 71% of Republicans believe that the troops should remain in Iraq until the mission is complete.

Neither President Bush's surge of troops, nor the withdrawal deadline Congress is expected to send to him after the Easter recess, has any hope of stabilizing Iraq. So it is time to contemplate a more radical option: Switch our allegiance from that country's Shiite-controlled government to its moderate Sunni minority, on condition they help us wipe out Sunni extremists in Iraq, including al-Qaeda.

The Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the United States withdraw its combat forces from Iraq reflects a growing national consensus that our military cannot quell the violence there and may even be making matters worse. Although many are hailing this recommendation as a bold new course, it is not bold enough. America will best serve its interests in the Persian Gulf by withdrawing its ground-based military forces not only from Iraq, but from the entire region.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Assistant Professor Alan Kuperman argues that the key to rescuing Darfur is to reverse recent incentives.