Alfred W. McCoy

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who specializes in Southeast Asia. He has written about, and testified before Congress on, Philippine political history, opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle, underworld crime syndicates, and international political surveillance. He is the author of In the Shadows of the American Century (Dispatch Books) and A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Metropolitan Books).

Drugs

Was ‘the War on Drugs’ always a White Nationalist Project?

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Fifty years ago, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon stood before the White House press corps, staffers at his side, to announce “a new, all-out offensive” against drug abuse, which he denounced as “America’s public enemy number one.” He called on Congress to contribute $350 million for a worldwide attack […]

Afghanistan

Can Biden’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan escape the Shadow of Saigon?

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com) – Many of us have had a recurring nightmare. You know the one. In a fog between sleeping and waking, you’re trying desperately to escape from something awful, some looming threat, but you feel paralyzed. Then, with great relief, you suddenly wake up, covered in sweat. The next night, or the next week, […]

China

Washington’s Delusion of Endless World Dominion: China and the U.S. Struggle over Eurasia, the Epicenter of World Power

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com) – Empires live and die by their illusions. Visions of empowerment can inspire nations to scale the heights of global hegemony. Similarly, however, illusions of omnipotence can send fading empires crashing into oblivion. So it was with Great Britain in the 1950s and so it may be with the United States today. By […]

China

That Time when America was a Superpower before Trump surrendered to China

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – After four years of Donald Trump’s fitful tenure, America is awakening from a long, troubled sleep to discover, like the fictional character Rip Van Winkle, that the world it once knew has changed beyond all recognition. In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless […]

Drugs

Decriminalizing the Drug War: The Damage done by a Century of Drug Prohibition

Alfred W. McCoy

Medical professionals across Portugal adopted harm-reduction measures that would provide a striking record of proven success

Climate Change

Could the Climate Crisis End America’s Global Dominion?

Alfred W. McCoy

Humanity has just 12 years left to cut carbon emissions by a striking 45% or the world’s temperature would rise by at least 1.5 degrees Celsius

Plutocracy

Trump’s Trade Czar, The Latest Architect of Imperial Disaster

Alfred W. McCoy

Trump’s Trade Czar, The Latest Architect of Imperial Disaster Five Academics Who Unleashed the “Demon” of Geopolitical Power By Alfred W. McCoy ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As Washington’s leadership fades more quickly than anyone could have imagined and a new global order struggles to take shape, a generation of leaders has crowded onto the world […]

China

As Trump dismantles American Power, China bids to Become Sole Superpower

Alfred W. McCoy

(Tomdispatch.com) – As the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency and sixth of Xi Jinping’s draws to a close, the world seems to be witnessing one of those epochal clashes that can change the contours of global power. Just as conflicts between American President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Lloyd George produced a failed […]

Donald Trump

Will biggest victim of Trump Golden Shower Diplomacy be global Rule of Law?

Alfred W. McCoy

Trump has set a dark precedent for international diplomacy