American Empire : Past, Present, and Future

This essay examines the past, present, and future of the American Empire. America is an empire, and its actions during the last half century have been indicative of such. Like all great empires, America seems set to decline due to a multitude of factors. I will find the reasons for this decline by examing the course of events from the end of World War II up until the present day. By taking these factors into account, I will make predictions as to what the possible future of the American Empire might be. The thesis is divided up into three separate but inter-connected sections that focus on American foreign policy. The first part focuses on the past of the American empire, and takes a critical stance toward American expansionism during the Cold War period until the arrival of the Bush administration. The second section examines the present of the American Empire, and explains such phenomenon as the Bush doctrine, the Iraq War, and the War on Terror. The last section of the thesis makes predictions as to what the future of the American empire might be, building its diagnosis upon the foundations set by the previous two sections

Hilbert-Burch virtual resolutions for points in P1×P1\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1

Building off of work of Harada, Nowroozi, and Van Tuyl which provided particular length two virtual resolutions for finite sets of points in $\mathbb{P}^1\times\mathbb{P}^1$, we prove that the vast majority of virtual resolutions of a pair for minimal elements of the multigraded regularity in this setting are of Hilbert-Burch type. We give explicit descriptions of these short virtual resolutions that depend only on the number of points. Moreover, despite initial evidence, we show that these virtual resolutions are not always short, and we give sufficient conditions for when they are length three.Comment: 21 pages, comments welcome

The ESDP: Its Impact on the EU as an Actor in International Security

This paper is an examination of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) and its impact on the EU as an actor in international security. The ESDP, far from being irrelevant, allows the EU to assume a meaningful role in the areas of civilian and military crisis management, albeit on a smaller-scale. In the multipolar, post-Cold War world, it is increasingly important for the EU to be able to assume a security role, something it has been sorely lacking since its inception. The body of this paper is divided into 3 sections. The first section explains both how and why the ESDP came into being, and also discusses the European Security Strategy (ESS). The second section examines the role of the ESDP in the contemporary international security world, and explores the EU/ESDP and US/NATO relationship, the ESDP and Russia relationship, and how the ESDP fits into the five key threats of the ESS (terrorism, WMDs, regional conflicts, failed states, and organized crime). This is not a theory-driven essay. The materials used to write the paper were gathered through a wide range of sources, with almost all of the articles available for download on the internet

Waking Up in Dharamsala : An Inquiry into the Stories of Young Westerners Who Have Sought Buddhist Wisdom in Northern India

This is a brief inquiry into the stories of young Westerners who have chosen to travel to Dharamsala India and participate in activities related to self-inquiry and spirituality, as presented through a Buddhist context. The main question to be researched in this thesis is WHY would a diverse group of international young and middle-aged adults choose to spend time, money and comfort traveling to a Buddhist retreat center in northern India? There are several motivations for taking such a "spiritual vacation", and all are interdependently related to living in today's complex Post Modern, Global environment. Presented is a brief discussion of these motivating factors and other elements related to the topic at large. Next is a description of the actual setting of my research as a "selfreflexive anthropologist" in the retreat centers and eclectic international crossroads known as Dharamsala India. In order to empirically research an "insiders view" of the Buddhist retreat experience and those encountered there, I participated in several activities related to Buddhist philosophy and inquiry. The diversity of those encountered and their own interpretations of their experience illustrate an increasing global occurrence related to many: increasing spiritual exploration through exotic means

Case Study of Voces de la Frontera and Immigration Policy in Walker\u27s Wisconsin

Immigration has had a long history in Wisconsin and since the 1600s, the push and pull factors have remained essentially the same. Today, the immigrant population in Wisconsin is largely Hispanic and there are Latino communities in every county. The Latino communities, in both rural and urban areas, continue to be relied on as a workforce in the dairy and agriculture sectors and in the processing and manufacturing sectors. In 2011, after the Republican takeover of the legislature and newly elected Governor Walker introduced his contested “Budget Repair Bill,” State Representative Donald Pridemore took advantage of the polarizing political climate and tried to gain support for anti-immigration legislation in Wisconsin. Voces de la Frontera (VDLF) is a Milwaukee area organization dedicated to educating workers on their rights and protecting and improving the quality of life for low-wage and immigrant workers in Wisconsin. The case study format of this Capstone provides the recent political context of immigration policy in Wisconsin, describes VDLF’s campaign to stop the proposed anti-immigration legislation, evaluates the efficacy of the campaign, and provides guiding principles that can be applied to future policy advocacy work

Intelligence and Responsibility

The paper deals with the problems of responsibility in modern intelligence agencies. The paper deals with the problem by briefly addressing modern intelligence activities and types of agencies, followed by a central chapter of identifying the challenges of conducting intelligence inside the democracies, and how to legitimize such activities. To identify whether such legitimization is found in today's intelligence organization, three case studies are investigated. The cases are the United States, the United Kingdom and Denmark