In your first post, please discuss one or more questions from the Political Geography list, and one ore more questions from the Development list.
Political Geography:
- NATO has taken part in many operations since the Cold War ended, including Kosovo, against pirates in Somalia, helping after Hurricane Katrina, the no-fly zone over Libya, policing air space over Ukraine from Russia, and the war in Afghanistan. Friday (4/13/18), NATO started bombing of chemical weapon facilities in Syria. What do you think NATO’s role in the world should be? Should it still exist now that the cold war has ended? What do you think about the current bombing in Syria? Please back up any opinions about these ideas with facts and sources. Thanks!
- Do you think the United Nations violates sovereignty when it sends peacekeeping forces into a country? If so, does the UN have the right to violate this sovereignty when a country is violating the human rights of its own people?
- Do you think there should a global government? Why or why not? If so, what form do you think it should take? What should they control, and what should they not control? Who should be in charge?
Development:
- Do you think loans help developing countries? What about the World Bank? Microloans? Why or why not?
- What do you think of multinational corporations having factories in places like China and Bangladesh? What are some advantages and disadvantages? Do you think this is something that should continue? Why or why not?
- The Trump administration has been increasing tariffs on out trading partners around the world. This had been very controversial, both for what he is doing, and how he is doing it. What do you think of free trade? Do you think this is a helpful or harmful strategy (or both)? Please explain with specific examples.
- What do you think should be done to help development? Should anything be done? Explain with specific examples.
This really is the time to talk about these issues in the news! The US is making major changes in how we interact with fellow NATO countries, with out relationship with different UN agencies (the US just left the UN human rights counsel), and how we trade. But you don’t need to stick to the US! Brexit, and tons of international issues make this a week to dive into a lot of what is going on in the world.
Each of you will need to find a recent article (2017 or sooner) in the news connected to the topic of the unit. For this discussion, you will need to do the following:
First Post
- Write one paragraph summarizing the article
- Write one paragraph responding to the article with your own reaction/opinion/insight. This reaction should be about the topic of the article, and not the writing of the article in most instances.
- Include a full citation in MLA or another format, not just the link to the website