War: A Breakdown in the Bargaining Model
This essay examines the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war through the lens of a commitment problem from the bargaining model of war, arguing that the conflict stems from a fundamental breakdown in bargaining over Ukraine's future. It analyzes Russia's decision to invade as a strategic miscalculation and argues that the war's outcome hinges on a shifting balance of power and a new framework for state-to-state relations.
Russia’s Shifting Power Structures
This essay traces the evolution of power networks in post-Soviet Russia, from the criminal underworld of the 1990s to the consolidation of elite influence under Putin. It argues that the figures who emerged after 1991 no longer fit the traditional definition of oligarchs as their power is now contingent on Kremlin approval rather than independent political standing.
Beyond Signaling: Reforming U.S. Sanctions Strategy
Essays
With over 28,000 designations, the current sanctions regime has failed to alter the Kremlin's political calculus or meaningfully degrade its war effort. This memo analyzes how Russia has leveraged its status as a commodity superpower to sustain trade with China, India, and Türkiye, and offers recommendations for shifting toward supply chain targeting as a more effective instrument of pressure.
When Universities Fight Back
The Ethics of Targeted Killings in Forever Wars
My forthcoming thesis asks the question: when a government moves against a university, why do some schools fight back and survive, while others bend or break? I trace three cases - European University at St. Petersburg in Russia, Boğaziçi University in Türkiye, and Central European University in Hungary - to show that a school's ties to outside institutions shape not just whether it can resist, but what kind of resistance is even open to it.
This essay argues that US drone strikes clear the legal bar for war but fail the ethical one. Drawing on Walzer's just war framework, it traces how the Bush and Obama administrations used legal ambiguity to make targeted killing defensible on paper while evading real scrutiny — and argues that removing risk from drone operators has helped produce a war with no borders and no end.