By Thank you for reading the Observer. Our first articles of the academic year capture an uneasy world of emerging threats and destabilizing alliances.
Developments in Australia and Taiwan have yanked the center of global conflict toward the Eastern Hemisphere. Angus Soderberg ’22 breaks down the implications of the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., while Aaron Meuser ’22 follows escalating Chinese encroachment on Taiwan‘s airspace and what options the U.S. has to respond.
Turning to Europe, Hayden Toftner ’22 explores a spat between Poland and the E.U. which tests the boundaries of the legal domains claimed by the latter. James Butler ’23 ponders the parallels (and intersections, and perhaps perpendicularities) between American and British executive politics, considering electoral implications for Labour’s PM candidate Keir Starmer.
As President Joe Biden flounders at COP26, Evan Wagner ’22 points to an American political culture increasingly driven by resentment and backlash in which a few legislators seek to kneecap the national government for electoral gain. Finally, after the U.S. made a debacle of its Afghanistan withdrawal over the summer, Alex Mormorunni ’25 dissects the prevailing counterinsurgency method of “hearts and minds,” highlighting its ineffectiveness throughout its history.
If you enjoy these articles, consider sharing them with others who would appreciate them. And stay tuned for a second batch, along with a print edition including all the semester’s articles, in December.
Sincerely,
Evan Wagner and Skylar Bennett, co-editors
The Kenyon Observer 