The Global Telescope

National Unity in Times of Crisis, Part 1: World War 2 By Vikrant Sharma Founder-Editor, The Global Telescope The United Kingdom in 1940 was standing at the gates of defeat and German occupation. On May 11, Neville Chamberlain was forced to resign, and Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was chosen to lead a coalition government that was stitched together to survive the war. In the month of May 1940, Germany successfully invaded Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium. France fell the following month. USA had not yet entered the war and wouldn’t do so for another year and a half. Germany was at Britain’s doorstep. Britain was alone, and Germany looked unstoppable. One of the last frontiers in France was the seaside town of Dunkirk, where British and French troops had been pushed back. The land had ended, and with Germany advancing, they had no where to go. It was a disaster. More than 400,000 Allied men were stuck in Dunkirk, with nowhere to go. Lying between Dunkirk and Engl...

International Arms-Oil Relationship in the World and Beyond An analysis on the arms-oil relationship as two variables- will it change the world order or is it only a matter of self-interest and power struggle explained By Sampurna Mukherjee At a time when the world is reeling from the impact of Covid-19, a transnational virus declared Pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO)- it should, and has, sent nations scurrying for emergency ventilators, hydroxychloroquine and a need to arrange protective equipment for the healthcare professionals. However, seemingly unrelated foreign policy developments, prima facie, hold a positive existential strain contemplated in a world order post the extermination of the Pandemic, as opposed to an equally realist reality- the Conflict Paradigm, or the constant struggle for power due to inequalities of resources to bid security, in the absence of a supranational authority. International Trade and Military Defense are important deter...

U.S Sanctions on Iran at the Time of Corona By Siddhanth Sharma Background The fallout of the Iran nuclear deal, marred the prospect of any signs of regional co-operation in the Middle East. The tensions reached an acme, in January 2020 this year, with the assassination  of Iranian general, General Soleimani, ordered by the U.S President, Donald Trump. In the midst of these power dynamics between various actors, a new non-state actor, far more lethal than the existing   actors ,  has held the region hostage – Covid – 19 . Iran has become the hotbed of the novel coronavirus, with 47,593 confirmed cases and 3,000+ deaths . While, the Iranian leadership claims to have successfully  receded the proliferation of the virus, the fight against the pandemic, seems to be far from over. Iran, continues to grapple with the crises, with an added burden of the international sanctions arising out of the fallout of the nuclear deal, which the Trump administration has refu...

The Coronavirus Outbreak and JS Mill’s Essay ‘On Liberty’ By Ashwin Vardarajan Introduction ‘Quarantine’, which means the “ imposition of isolation ”, originates from the Italian words “ quaranta giorni ” meaning ‘40 days’. Although it is not construed literally in English, quarantining has held substantial importance to humanity in the times of a pandemic or an epidemic, like during the time of plagues in Europe. In quarantine, a person is not expected to come out on the streets and everyone is expected to maintain a certain level of distance from each other in order to avoid the multiplication of the prevalent disease. Evidently, quarantining contributes to a limitation on a person’s liberty. So is fate that we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic called Coronavirus . For political science students’ minds, this situation reiterates John Stuart Mill’s understanding of liberty in a famous essay of his. This article aims to correlate this pandemic with Mill’s understa...

Welcome to The Global Telescope By Vikrant Sharma,  Founder-Editor, The Global Telescope The world is going through a time of rapid change. No, not because I have launched this blog, even though I would like to imagine so. It’s because of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic. Streets are empty, stores are shut, and a majority of the people have no option but to sit at home. At the onset, it’s important that I mention this isn’t a quarantine hobby. It is not even a pastime, neither is it a fancy way to prove to Instagram that I write. It is an endeavor to foster ideas from people I know. Often, I find myself sitting with a friend and discussing matters of global importance, and even though I am looking at news virtually every waking minute according to my friends who are annoyed of it, I am regularly surprised at the different perspectives I get. People seem to have so much to say and so much to analyze. However, in the myriad practicalities of human existence, we rarely find ti...