Journal on World Affairs, UCLA
By May of 2020, at least six class-action lawsuits had been filed against the Chinese government in federal U.S. courts. However, early on in the wave of lawsuits, legal experts were already responding to the discourse around this possible route of action and informing the public that such suits would be symbolic at best.
In the midst of the noise of America’s electoral drama, tensions have risen once again between the United States and Iran. In the past weeks of the Trump administration, the executive policy of ‘maximum pressure’ has escalated interactions with Iran.
Despite being called the “number-one threat” and the “single greatest problem [of] the world,” according to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, respectively, on-air time for discussing nuclear weapons culminated in a whopping twelve minutes.
In the third week of September, the relationship between Iran and the United States has reached the headlines again. It began on September 14th, when President Trump tweeted about an alleged assasination attempt plotted by Iran. He went on to explain that any attack from Iran will be met with strong retaliation from the United States.
As many as 300,000 people that once lived in the capital are now homeless or injured and are being forced to take shelter in homes of strangers or nearby hospitals, which are barely being held up. Considering the increasing rate of COVID-19 infections, Lebanese first responders worry of the compounding impact of devastation, which is expected to cost around $15 billion in repairs.
Though America’s nuclear arsenal and second strike capabilities are arguably the most powerful in the world, recent actions by China have left Washington worried. The Pentagon’s report on China’s growing military power, which now surpasses the United States in the fields of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, is a somber reminder that the world has entered into a second nuclear age.
America is considering a defense pivot in Europe, which President Donald Trump claims to be in accordance to Russian threats and Germany’s failures to meet their NATO financial obligations. In January, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said America will begin this shift by withdrawing about twelve thousand of the thirty-six thousand American troops from Germany.
Perhaps that tilt towards deeper and broader hostilities has arrived: it is reported that India recently deployed a warship in the highly contested South China Sea – a rare move for the South Asian nation. The decision highlights a widening battleground between India and China beyond their Himilayan border as the United States and regional actors grow increasingly wary of China’s rise.
Outer space has been called the “new frontier” since the 1960s, but today is being named the “new arena” for an arms race. With the United States, Russia, and China coming to a head in space weaponry and lacking cooperation on arms control treaties, the destruction of the “new frontier” amidst an arms race is increasingly likely
After the dismantlement of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly-formed state of Ukraine was “born nuclear” by inheriting about 4,000 of Moscow’s nuclear weapons, granting it the third largest arsenal in the world. Yet, in 1994, Ukraine committed to full disarmament.
Journal on World Affairs, UCLA