March 15, 2016: Today, the ‘17s turned their attention from the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq to its Libya branch. In recent months, much of the IS high command has moved from its traditional home in Raqqa, Syria, to Sirte, Libya. They are taking advantage of the lawlessness in Libya that still exists after the death of longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Since his death in 2011, Libya has been split into two main warring factions: Operation Dawn in the west, and Operation Dignity in the east. The constant fighting between these two groups has allowed IS to quietly thrive in Sirte. All of the fellows agreed that the United States should not largely intervene against IS in Libya and our only unilateral action should be continued air strikes on targets in Libya. Supporting one faction over another may cause political backlash and only create more divisiveness between groups in Libya when we need them to unite to defeat IS. Additionally, too much U.S. intervention in the United Nations-brokered unity government, which is internationally recognized, would merely portray that government as a puppet of the west, therefore hindering it illegitimate in the eyes of Libyans. The United States should only support a faction if it is supportive of the unity government and is willing to put its military under their control. Once this is established, the United States should provide as much logistical and intelligence help as possible, and maybe even position advisers alongside the unity force, to eventually destroy the ISIS threat. In order for this plan to be successful, Libyans must first understand that ISIS is a problem. To this point, Dawn and Dignity have been more focused on fighting each other and have ignored the insurgency of IS. Libyans must be willing to compromise to regain control of their country.

Article 1: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2016-02-07/next-front-against-isis

Article 2: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35486158

Luke Cromwell

The ’17s met last Thursday (3/31/16) to discuss summer travel leadership assignments and the current state of affairs between Putin and Ukraine. As far as the Baltic Trip discussion goes, each of the ’17s was given a country (either Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Stockholm, or general leadership activities) and the month of April to become a subject matter expert of his or her respective country and develop an itinerary for the time spent in that country, as well as travel between one country and the next destination.

Following the general run-down of the Baltic trip, we had a productive discussion about the potential for further Kremlin action in Ukraine, and whether Russia in Afghanistan and Syria recently could be considered an indicator for future military conquests re: the cover article of the most recent issue of the Economist: “Hollow Superpower: Putin, Syria and the Propaganda Machine.” Ukraine is currently very reliant on Russia for economic reasons, and due to massive amount corruption and extremely inefficient bureaucracy in the Ukrainian government Ukraine finds itself unable to achieve its goal of military expansion in order to provide sufficiently formidable resistance against Russian forces. The ’17s reached the consensus that, although the Russian economy is currently experiencing a bout of depression, to Putin, military action is an end in itself rather than a means. Therefore, now that his involvement in propping up Assad in Syria has been terminated, and was for the most part successful– at least temporarily– Putin needs another military outlet in order to increase his approval ratings among the Russian people, Ukraine being the obvious candidate. Is aggression on the part of Putin dangerously imminent? The ’17s say, due to the current state of Russian affairs, not necessarily. However, it might not be a bad idea for NATO to focus its attention more heavily on that area should conflict arise.

On Thursday 4 Feb, at our seasonal CCGL Leadership dinner, the Fellows met to listen to Dr. Christine Mahoney, a professor at the Frank Batten School in the University of Virginia. Dr. Mahoney taught us about social entrepreneurship and provided various examples of successful companies that employ social entrepreneurship. We learned about nonprofits and for-profits, and how the two types of organizations often act similarly to help the community around them. In addition, at the end of the presentation Dr. Mahoney gave us several valuable business models for establishing nonprofits. While learning about these important business models, we were also inspired by Dr. Mahoney to find our calling and commit to it, whatever it may be. Her talk left lasting impressions on us to generously serve our community as social entrepreneurs through developing successful nonprofit organizations and fundraising.  Thanks to Dr. Mahoney’s inspirational talk, we will carry these lessons with us as we grow and begin to assess our career options.

~ Jimmy Peccie ’18

Last week, we went further in depth on a African issues looking specifically at Nigeria. We read an article from Foreign Affairs entitled “Reforming Nigeria” which examined the growth of Nigeria’s government and economy. The major topics we discussed were the roles of women in Nigerian politics along with Nigeria’s plan for diversifying their economy in the future. The topic of oil again re-entered the conversation as oil prices continue to drop and countries reliant on the commodity continue to suffer. We concluded that Nigeria still has a long way to go, but it is on the right path to continue its growth and sustain its economy despite the current turbulence of oil prices.

~Arman Shekarriz ’19

February 1st, 2016: Today, another exciting admissions process began for the IRFs and CCGL as a whole. Chase Yager ’18 organized the presentation for the IRFs. He spoke to the current 8th graders about how awesome the International Relations Fellows program is and how they should all apply. He also called upon Jessica Williams ’16 who talked about her experience as a Fellow, Jaden Baum ’17 discussed about the symposium process, Jimmy Peccie ’18 shared his experiences with international travel, and Daniel Moscoso ’19 concluded with the day-in- the-life of a Fellow.  They all did a fantastic great job and we couldn’t be prouder of them and their student led presentation. Best of luck to the 8th graders in their applications!

In our meeting last Friday, the ’19s began discussing articles from the Economist involving current news about Africa. One was about the tension between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, concerning the use and misuse of hydroelectric power generated by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Another was about the decrease in both the supply and demand of diamonds in Botswana, forcing the democratic country to find other ways to “spark” the economy. Eventually, the discussion flipped to the topic of the United States’ nuclear deal with Iran, which had placed sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program and international trade. This is where it got heated. We disputed over why the Iranians sent their uranium to the Russians of all people, which caused us to question Russia’s intent in the Middle East. By backing the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and being friendly to Iran, Russia may have successfully gained more influence in Middle Eastern than the U.S. This observation caused us to think deeply about U.S. foreign policy, which brought us to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. By this point, we were all acting like true politicians. We questions whether or not the United States should value American lives more than those from foreign countries or how, if at all, we should allow Syrians fleeing their country into the United States. At the moment, these questions are still up for debate, but we’ll save them for another time.

~Alexander Burkett

This past Friday, the ‘19s read “Africa’s Economic Boom: Why the Pessimists and the Optimists Are Both Right”, by Shantayanan Devarajan and Wolfgang Fengler in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs.  This article discussed Africa’s economic state and encouraged us to think about Africa’s trajectory for the future. We discussed  Africa’s success and challenges, such as corruption.  We pondered how the people and nations could break the trend of corruption and harness their success.  We discussed the role of foreign investors, their influence and the dependency on oil and commodities.  We concluding that Africa’s upward trends do not come from commodities alone and a balanced mix in the future will potential signal positive results. We discussed the background and job of the author to thus put the entire article and inclusion in Foreign Affairs into context.  

~Brammy Rajakumar