OBAMA ALMOST MAKES THE RIGHT DECISION
A recent report indicated that President Obama had finally made a security policy related decision—not on his Afghanistan strategy which is yet to be announced– but rather on whether or not his administration would seek to have the US sign the treaty banning the production and use of anti-personnel land mines, a treaty that 156 other nations have already signed.
Clausewitz: War, Peace and Politics
With tactics from Vom Kriege used widely as military doctrine and foreign policy around the world based on Clausewitzian theories such as the paradoxical trinity and the center of gravity, it is apparent that Clausewitz’s lessons live on. Because of this continued application to the modern world, even over 150 years later, it is difficult to disagree with Clausewitz and the concepts of war, peace, and politics set forth in his work.
Location, Location, Location: Situating the European External Action Service
Whilst the European media is full of stories about the new President of the European Council and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, the third development of an EU Ministry of Foreign Affairs appears to have fallen off the radar, despite fierce turf wars erupting across Brussels as to its proper role.
When and Why did Opinion Shift Decisively from Favoring the Bretton Woods System to Floating Exchange Rates?
Shifts in opinion from favoring the fixed regime to favoring the floating regime illustrated that something fundamental changed in the 1960s and early 1970s. The fundamental change was that the international post-war economic system was on the verge of collapse.
Interim Deal?
The Copenhagen climate summit is now less than one month away and observers are not optimistic that states will agree to a deal cementing either specific greenhouse gas emission reductions or increased environmental assistance to the developing world so they can meet the standards without threatening growth vital to fighting poverty.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Elephants in the Room
Cutting through the friendly appearance and conciliatory rhetoric of the Obama administration does not detract from the reality that regarding the Middle East, nothing of substance has changed as the Iranian President asserts.
Sustainability and Water Resources in the Middle East
The Middle East is one of the most water-short regions in the world: almost all countries in the region (with the arguable exceptions of Iran and Turkey) have less (in most cases, significantly less) water available – through rainfall and other sources – than the 1,000 cubic metres per person, per year, which is traditionally taken to be a minimum human requirement.
What Middle East Policy to Expect from the New German Government? When promising ideas threaten to be buried in transatlantic waters
However big the political odds are, a rational-pragmatic input by the FDP could constructively impact the foreign policy discourse in Europe’s largest country
IR and the Global South: final confessions of a schizophrenic teacher
As I’ve hacked my way through the thicket of the Great Debates these thirty-odd years past, I’ve increasingly wondered what my students must have made of my passion for ideas which appear at odds with the lives they lead – even, indeed, the countries they have come to know.
A Critical Analysis of the ‘Great Debates’ That Structured Traditional International Relations Theory
The disciple of international relations, like all the social sciences, needs theories to make sense of the world it is trying to examine. The merits and faults of each school of thought have been contested in what are known as the ‘great debates’.
