Elena Harriss-Bauer

Russia-Ukraine Clash Marks Beginning of Second Cold War, Consolidating Political Regimes and Regional-Economic Alliances

The claim to being the largest European conflict since World War II has major consequences for the Russia-Ukraine clash on the level of territory distributions, trade relations, and regional alliances. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 must be analyzed in the context of ongoing global transformation processes. If the

Elena Harriss-Bauer July 3, 2022

Russia and China Form Mutual Alignment, Challenging NATO Supremacy

Amidst continuing global contestations, regional alliances have produced new revelations in their historied role as axes of power. “Moscow and Beijing have declared their opposition to further enlargement of NATO and to the formation of other regional security alliances,” notes a caption under an image of Xi Jinping and Vladimir

Elena Harriss-Bauer June 30, 2022

Energy Strategy as a Tool of Biden’s Diplomacy

At the beginning of the week, Biden’s administration released an op-ed penned by the president addressing his strategy for tackling wartime inflation. Specific concerns Biden addressed included ruptured supply chains and the heightened price of goods, from food to gas. The president opened with his own summation of the issues:

Elena Harriss-Bauer June 24, 2022

Information Wars And Thick Media Overlays Establish Russia’s Propaganda Strategy

In the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the narrative gap emerging between portrayals of the war in Western and Russian news organizations has consistently widened. In a new analytical report by the New York Times, they explored Russian media footage and noted mass inconsistencies in the depiction and explanation of

Elena Harriss-Bauer May 23, 2022

Kremlin Draws On Diverse Tactics To Sanction Russian Escalation

Ten weeks into the conflict in Ukraine, a question for responsive defense policy reasserts itself: what constitutes escalation? In a war that has disrupted the global economy and established enormous stakes for the geopolitical distribution of resources, supply chain management is a primary tool of engagement. Both Russia and the

Elena Harriss-Bauer May 19, 2022

Russia’s nuclear threats hasten the decay of global security infrastructures

In the final year of the U.S.S.R.’s existence, Mikhail Gorbachev pronounced that “The risk of a global nuclear war has practically disappeared,” writes Robin Wright of The New Yorker. This statement was delivered in the speech Gorbachev made accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize was apportioned, according to a

Elena Harriss-Bauer April 30, 2022

Propaganda Program Proves Integral to Russian War Machine

In the second month of the war unfolding in Ukraine, the narrative gap widens as Russia promulgates disinformation. Information about how the war began, the scale of the conflict, the arrow of causation, and the war’s justifications varies widely according to different sources. Proof of this disparity is apparent in

Elena Harriss-Bauer April 30, 2022

Europeans Hop Queues While Central Americans Wait: Systemic Fissures In U.S. Refugee Policy

At the end of March, immigration advocates in Tijuana saw an influx of Ukrainian refugees seeking entry to the United States via the U.S.-Mexico border. The ports of entry between the countries, already embattled, have been inundated with asylum seekers from Northern Triangle countries likewise fleeing conditions of violence. Border

Elena Harriss-Bauer April 20, 2022

Ukraine’s EU Bid Poses Question Of Wartime Exceptionalism For EU Bureaucracy

As the war in Ukraine continues, the embattled country’s envoy to the EU formally handed over a request for membership last week, The Guardian reports. And while the European and broader global communities have expressed sympathy and support for Ukraine’s bid, the process of admittance to the EU is long

Elena Harriss-Bauer March 28, 2022

Russia’s First Resort? The Nuclear Option

Today marks the tenth day of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, following power struggles and economic games of cat-and-mouse between Russia and the West. What was initially an exercise in statism and diplomatic bargaining crossed the threshold into action when Putin, facing an impasse, deployed troops over the border into the

Elena Harriss-Bauer March 28, 2022

Author: Elena Harriss-Bauer