High Crimes and Low Stakes

The professors at the American University of the Southern Balkans,AUSB, have become lazy, complacent and resistant to change, sowhen a new reforming departmental chair is appointed with a brief toshake them up, they mount a witch hunt to have him fired. At the same time the US president is trying to push forward a plan toreplace all NATO airbases with stations of unmanned drones capableof carrying nuclear weapons. He decides to sell the plan secretly andthe first country to be approached is the small country in SoutheastEurope where AUSB is located. An election is due and the pro-westernprime minister must win if the plan is to succeed. The CIA agent whofixes the election is also the provost of the American university. Two political threads - the high crimes of government and the lowstakes bitter politics of the university common room - are interwovenin this satire of intrigue, double-dealing and political corruption.