MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: THE WAR IS WON
The death at US hands of bin Laden eliminates al Qaeda’s most important and recognizable symbol of defiance. With diminished forces, a dead leader, and little relevance to the several struggles engaging Islam globally, al Qaeda has lost its war. We should declare “Mission Accomplished” and return home.
Space Warfare: a 21st Century Battleground
The USA is not the only power with key interests in outer space, and will have to pander to other sensitivities in the future. Russia, China, the EU and commercial actors are prevalent in their discussions. We must ask the questions who are we defending from, and to whom are we going to deny the access of space?
The Limits and Pitfalls of the International Criminal Court in Africa
While we should scrutinise the ICC’s work in Africa, it is important to recognise that international justice is not the only possible response to atrocity. National and local processes are proving to be vital tools of justice, truth and reconciliation across Africa, more profound and lasting than the prosecution of suspects in The Hague.
Strategic Theory: What it is…and just as importantly, what it isn’t
Strategic theory offers an exact and coherent basis for investigating social phenomena. It is able to de-conflict the attempt to assess social activity designed to achieve goals from arbitrary moral valuations. It facilitates clarity of understanding, and is thereby, mind opening and intellectually liberating.
History Shows Us That Open Diplomacy Is Best
It is too early to evaluate the impact of WikiLeaks on world affairs. But more than ever in this changed and more porous world, Woodrow Wilson’s call for “open covenants, openly arrived at” remains a superior guide to foreign policy to Machiavelli’s recommendation that governments be strong like a lion but also clever like a fox. It may be that WikiLeaks goes too far, but enlightened policy makers should welcome publication of how good decisions—and bad—came about.
China, Information Technology, and the Arab World
The Chinese government has developed the world’s most extensive technical, organizational, and cultural systems for monitoring and filtering the Internet and other forms of communications such as SMS and voice calls. Many Middle Eastern and African countries have bought telecommunications equipment from China, and have tried to emulate its monitoring and filtering regime.
Why is political theory still relevant?
It can’t be that everyone once considered political theory relevant and now finds it irrelevant, based on mysterious facts about today’s world. Practical men and women have always favoured action over thought. Long ago, Aristotle said that political activists find philosophers contemptible. So these questions are hardly innocent: they put political theory on the defensive. How should political theorists respond?
Why is Iran Championing Messianism to the Arab Masses?
Iran is becoming the proverbial elephant in the room. The idea of a religious Armageddon lying around the corner is unusual in Twenty-First Century statecraft, and few national leaders vocalize such beliefs. Iran’s President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Khamenei are stark exceptions. Prudence dictates not discounting the possibility that Ahmadinejad and his cohorts do believe their rhetoric. Vigilance is necessary.
I am dazed and confused: American terrorists, Islam and Peter King
I started writing this blog in an angry retort to the bombastic voice of Peter King but what I have ended up with is more confusion than insight. The Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Peter King has previously made a number of comments towards Islam and Muslims that have […]
Precautionary intervention?
There is an understandable desire in international relations, as in so many other areas of life, to be able to see into the future, to know what it is that is coming down the track towards us and whether the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed the sunlight of a better future or just an indication that the tunnel is on fire. In recent weeks, in Ivory Coast and Libya, the tunnel has been well and truly alight. This troubled engagement between humanitarian action and the precautionary principle has been discernable since the practice leapt to prominence.
