A Touch of Crude: How the Pursuit of Oil Is Propping Up the West African Dictatorship of Teodoro Obiang.

Mother Jones
January 2005

The red dirt of the jungle meets a paved road on the outskirts of Ebebiyin, where a national celebration is about to begin. Women are singing and swaying in an African rhythm that is hard to resist, even though their lyrics are not of a can’t-stop-dancing variety: “We ...  (Read more)

The Triumph of the Quiet Tycoon: Vagit Alekperov Has Figured Out How to Beat the System — You Just Play by Putin’s Rules

The New York Times Magazine
August 2, 2004

Pity, if you can, the richest man in Russia. With a fortune estimated at $15 billion, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is on trial for fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion and faces a 10-year jail term. His oil company, Yukos, has been hit with a tax bill of $3.4 billion, ...  (Read more)

The Counterinsurgent: Could Major John Nagl Make His Ideas Work on the Ground in Iraq?

The New York Times Magazine
January 11, 2004

Maj. John Nagl approaches war pragmatically and philosophically, as a soldier and a scholar. He graduated close to the top of his West Point class in 1988 and was selected as a Rhodes scholar. He studied international relations at Oxford for two years, then ...  (Read more)