Rajan Menon

Rajan Menon is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author, most recently, of The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention.

Epidemics

America’s Plague of Inequality and Homelessness meets the Coronavirus Plague

Rajan Menon

(Tomdispatch.com ) – The novel SARS-CoV-2 has roared through the American landscape leaving physical, emotional, and economic devastation in its wake. By early July, known infections in this country exceeded three million, while deaths topped 135,000. Home to just over 4% of the global population, the United States accounts for more than a quarter of […]

Donald Trump

The Ultimate Stress Test: America as revealed by the Coronavirus Pandemic

Rajan Menon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) virus, which causes Covid-19, seemed to emerge from deepest history, from the Black Death of the 14th century and the “Spanish Flu” of 1918. In just months, it has infected more than 1.5 million people and claimed more than 88,000 lives. The virus continues to […]

Children

The Shame of Child Poverty in the Age of Trump: Billionaires Are Soaring, Poor Kids Are Losing More

Rajan Menon

By Rajan Menon | – (Tomdispatch.com ) – The plight of impoverished children anywhere should evoke sympathy, exemplifying as it does the suffering of the innocent and defenseless. Poverty among children in a wealthy country like the United States, however, should summon shame and outrage as well. Unlike poor countries (sometimes run by leaders more […]

Arms Sales

Forget Nukes: Now for the Hypersonic Weapons Race

Rajan Menon

( Tomdispatch.com) – Hypersonic weapons close in on their targets at a minimum speed of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound or 3,836.4 miles an hour. They are among the latest entrants in an arms competition that has embroiled the United States for generations, first with the Soviet Union, today with China and […]

Epidemics

America’s Suicide Epidemic is Hitting Trump’s Base Hard

Rajan Menon

(Tomdispatch.com) – We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade die by their own hand. Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines. That’s odd given the magnitude of the problem. In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves. In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly seven times […]

Plutocracy

Our New Gilded Age and the Scandal of Constant Money Scandals

Rajan Menon

Then there are the dark money groups, which can receive financial contributions from any source, American or foreign.

Drugs

Not at the Border: The Real Nat’l Emergency is People Dying of Opioids

Rajan Menon

Since 1999, 400,000 Americans have died from overdoses of opioids, including legally prescribed ones

Donald Trump

Shattering Europe? The Debris of Trump’s Paris Fiasco

Rajan Menon

Even before Air Force One touched down in Paris, Trump took aim on Twitter at his host, French President Emmanuel Macron

Yemen

Yemen’s Descent into Hell: A Saudi-American War of Terror

Rajan Menon

(Tomdispatch.com) – It’s the war from hell, the savage one that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with seven other Middle Eastern and North African states, have been waging in Yemen since March 2015, with fulsome support from the Pentagon and American weapons galore. It’s got everything. Dead children in the dozens, a […]