Before she began her March 3 lecture, University of Wisconsin Madison political science professor Yoshiko Herrera opened with a qualifier: “I know I’ve started past classes with saying ‘This is the worst it’ll get,’ but….”
Herrera, who has taught a class on the Russo-Ukrainian War since the fall of 2022, was talking about a contentious Oval Office meeting a few days before, where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting many said signaled a reversal of U.S. support for Ukraine.
Herrera said despite massive casualties, the fronts of the war have hardly changed since late 2022. But since Trump took office, the diplomatic side has shifted massively.
Rapid changes aren’t just happening with the war, but in much of Trump’s actions. On March 4, Trump announced 25% tariffs on all Mexican and Canadian imports. Then, on March 6, he delayed many of them.
At UW-Madison, political science professors are quick to bring current events to their classrooms. Still, even they are finding themselves surprised.
Herrera’s class uses the war as a backdrop for students to learn more about international relations and comparative politics. Current events used to be briefly covered in class, but lately they have occupied much more class time.
For Herrera, the news has been all over.
Recently, she’s found the articles she assigned quickly became old news. Last week, she assigned her students several articles outlining how the U.S. can use trade and sanctions as leverage against Russia. Even though one is from December 2024, Herrera found herself “heartbroken” the U.S. abandoned the strategy so quickly.
“None of the authors even have the slightest hint [that] another thing that might happen is the U.S. might switch sides,” Herrera said. “It's just out of the range of possibilities.”
But it has been strange. After a shocking performance from Vance at the Munich Security Conference and the cutoff of U.S. aid to Ukraine, Herrera said the U.S. has flipped to side with Russia in the war.
“I think nobody anticipated this breakdown in US-European [relations,]” said Herrera. “This is just [a] mind blowing turnaround in U.S. foreign policy over the last 80 years.”
Professor Benjamin Marquez teaches a class on U.S.-Mexican policy. The class goes through the history of Mexican-American relations and puts current events in historical context. Mass deportation has been a primary feature of Trump’s brand since his first presidency, so Marquez is more prepared for Trump’s views, though his second term hasn’t come without shock.
“I was surprised by his use of Guantánamo [Bay] as a holding center for the undocumented,” Marquez said. “That was a little surprising, it didn't solve the problem that I knew he would have to deal with.”
Professor Mark Copelovitch, who teaches an Introduction to International Relations class, alluded to the whirlwind pace of Trump’s policies in a joke during an event at Memorial Union last month.
“In those 75 minutes when I'm not on my phone, which international institution might we have withdrawn from?” Copelovitch said, adding Trump’s policy reversals are creating a more unstable world.
Breakneck pace of policy decisions leave professors unsure what Trump will do next
Though Trump has ordered the military to the U.S.-Mexico border and increased raids, Biden actually deported more immigrants than Trump did during his first term, but Marquez hit on a point Herrera touched on as well — Trump’s “showmanship” and desire for attention.
“I think that Trump, personally, he's not super complex,” Herrera said. “Personally, he wants to say he made a deal and he ended the war.”
Herrera sees a proposed Ukraine mineral deal as a strange execution of Trump’s promise to end the war. Rare earth minerals are needed for electronics but are environmentally disastrous, though she expressed her view the deal’s intention could be hedging against China, who currently produces 69% of rare earth minerals.
Regardless, Herrera said the subsequent aid cut off from the White House following Zelensky’s refusal to sign the deal has boosted Russian aggression.
The mineral deal is another headline in a sea of many the Trump administration created, something that Marquez said is intentional.
“We can talk about the strategy of doing just that, of overloading the system, of keeping one's opponents off balance,” Marquez said.
The result is that social science researchers like Marquez and Herrera are always slightly behind current events, Marquez said. He said analysis of the 83 executive orders Trump signed during his first day in office couldn’t come until days or weeks later simply because no one knew what was in all of them.
The day after Trump’s inauguration was the first day of the spring semester. Despite not knowing the full details of the day prior, Marquez talked about what he could, like the outcome of the 2024 election.
“If this was not in a presidential election year, I would still do it. I would still talk about elections. I'd still talk about trends,” Marquez said. “ Because I think students expect that in a political science course, no matter how specialized it may be, they want to hear, well, what does this have to do with what's happening now?”
Marquez doesn’t pretend to be all-knowing, rather he speaks to what he knows. He wants to provide his students more analysis than what you would expect from a news article, and he expects the same from his students.
Herrera's top source for war updates is Ukraine: The Latest, a daily podcast which provides updates on the military and diplomatic efforts, as well as featuring interviews with a variety of people. She finds the hosts to be insightful and their British accents “charming.”
But despite the pace of changes, both Marquez and Herrera said classes like these are excellent at giving interested students deep insight into the world around them and developing their analytical skills.
“Even if [the war] ended, we would still have a lot to talk about,” Herrera said. “And even if it ended, I would still teach the class the next year because we’re covering these topics in comparative politics and international relations, but using the war as an example.”
