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421. The political realism of Augustine and Morgenthau: Issues of Man, God, and just war

Author:
Bettina Dahl Soendergaard
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations
Institution:
Center for International Conflict Resolution at Yalova University
Abstract:
Augustine and Morgenthau are examples of classical political realists who base their arguments on the nature of man. Both believe that man is born evil but they differ on the question if man can improve. Augustine also believes that the statesman has a moral purpose while Morgenthau believes that the consequences of man's nature can only be counterbalanced. This difference is rooted in Morgenthau and Augustine's different views of the meaning of peace. To Morgenthau, peace is power balance and stability and a permanent peace cannot be achieved. Augustine, however, describes two kinds of peace, the earthly peace and God's peace. The article discusses these differences and how it impacts their views on moral and war. These different views have similarity with the different views that led to the Reformation in the 1500's and their difference is as great.
Topic:
War

422. In Search of the Right War

Author:
Roberto Menotti
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
Review of: Winning the right war : the path to security for America and the world, Philip H. Gordon, Times Books, 2007
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
America

423. Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions

Author:
Elan Journo
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The measure of success in the Iraq war has undergone a curious progression. Early on, the Bush administration held up the vision of a peaceful, prosperous, pro-Western Iraq as its benchmark. But the torture chambers of Saddam Hussein were replaced by the horrors of a sadistic sectarian war and a fierce insurgency that consumed thousands of American lives. And the post-invasion Iraqi regime, it turns out, is led by Islamist parties allied with religious militias and intimately tied to the belligerent Iranian regime. The benchmark, if we can call it that, then shrank to the somewhat lesser vision of an Iraqi government that can stand up on its own, so that America can stand down. But that did not materialize, either. So we heard that if only the fractious Sunni and Shiite factions in the Iraqi government could have breathing space to reconcile their differences, and if only we could do more to blunt the force of the insurgency, that would be progress. To that end, in early 2007, the administration ordered a "surge" of tens of thousands more American forces to rein in the chaos in Iraq. Today, we hear John McCain and legions of conservatives braying that we are, in fact, winning (some go so far as to say we have already won). Why? Because the "surge" has reduced the number of attacks on U.S. troops to the levels seen a few years ago (when the insurgency was raging wildly) and the number of Iraqis slaughtering their fellow countrymen has taken a momentary dip. Victory, apparently, requires only clearing out insurgents (for a while) from their perches in some neighborhoods, even though Teheran's influence in the country grows and Islamists carve out Taliban-like fiefdoms in Iraq. The goals in Iraq "have visibly been getting smaller," observes John Agresto, a once keen but now disillusioned supporter of the campaign (p. 172). Iraq, he argues contra his fellow conservatives, has been a fiasco. "If we call it 'success,' it's only because we've lowered the benchmark to near zero" (p. 191). . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Iraq and America

424. First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War by George Weller, edited and with an essay

Author:
John David Lewis
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
During World War II, the prime source of information for Americans about the war overseas was the dispatches of foreign correspondents-men who put their lives on the line in war zones to report the truth. George Weller was a giant among such men. Captured by the Nazis and traded for a German journalist, Weller watched the Belgian Congolese Army attack Italians in Ethiopia, saw the invasion of Crete, interviewed Charles de Gaulle in South Africa following an escape through Lisbon, and overcame malaria to report on the war in the Pacific. He was the first foreign correspondent trained as a paratrooper, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his report of an appendectomy on a submarine. He wrote the book Singapore is Silent in 1942 after seeing the city fall to the Japanese, and he advocated a global system of United States bases in his 1943 book Bases Overseas. After witnessing Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945, he broke General Douglas MacArthur's order against travel to Nagasaki by impersonating an American colonel and taking a train to the bombed-out city. In a period of six weeks, he sent typewritten dispatches totaling some fifty thousand words back to American newspapers through official channels of the military occupation. Under MacArthur's directives, they were censored and never made it into print. Weller died in 2002 thinking his dispatches had been lost. Months later his son, Anthony Weller, found a crate of moldy papers with the only surviving carbon copies. Anthony Weller edited the dispatches and included his own essay about his father, resulting in this priceless addition to our information about World War II in the Pacific, and the birth of the atomic age. The importance of the dispatches, however, extends far beyond the value of the information from Nagasaki. George Weller is a voice from a past generation, and the publication of his censored dispatches raises a series of deeply important issues and, in the process, reveals an immense cultural divide between his world and ours today. On September 8, 1945, two days after he arrived in Nagasaki, Weller wrote his third dispatch concerning Nagasaki itself. He described wounded Japanese in two of Nagasaki's undestroyed hospitals, and recorded the question posed by his official guide: Showing them to you, as the first American outsider to reach Nagasaki since the surrender, your propaganda-conscious official guide looks meaningfully in your face and wants to know: "What do you think?" What this question means is: Do you intend writing that America did something inhuman in loosing this weapon against Japan? That is what we want you to write (p. 37). What would many reporters today write if asked this question by bombed enemy civilians? . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Japan, America, Germany, and Nagasaki

425. Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890–2000

Author:
Gus Van Horn
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In August 1919, three white men brutally beat John R. Shillady in broad daylight outside his hotel. Shillady, also white, had come to Austin, Texas, as executive secretary of the NAACP to persuade state officials not to suppress its local branch. One of his attackers, a county judge, claimed that "it was my duty to stop him" because Shillady was there to "sow discontent among the Negroes" (pp. 105-106). In 1920, Shillady would resign from the NAACP, expressing despair for his cause: "I am less confident than heretofore . . . of the probability of overcoming, within a reasonable period, the forces opposed to Negro equality" (p. 109). And yet, not even a century later, the United States has elected its first black president-in an election in which race was hardly an issue. How did racial equality in America progress so far in so short a time? This is the remarkable story that Adam Fairclough relates in Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000. Fairclough succeeds in making his introduction to the struggle for black equality accessible to the general reader in two ways. First, he concentrates on events in the South, wherein particularly harsh forms of racial domination made it the logical focus of black efforts to achieve equality. Second, he follows the lead of fellow historian John W. Cell and classifies the approaches taken by various figures in his narrative as either "militant confrontation" (defiantly opposing racial oppression), "separatism" (working toward the creation of an all-black society here or abroad), or "accommodation" (gradually securing improvements from within the system of white supremacy) (pp. xi-xii). It is from this perspective that the book's chapters examine prominent individuals, organizations, events, and periods of the civil rights movement. Fairclough begins his narrative at a time when blacks were "more powerless than at any other time since the death of slavery" and had been "purged from the voting rolls" of the former Confederacy (pp. 15-17). He proceeds to examine the many different ways in which blacks fought against discrimination and oppression: from the intransigent, confrontational approach of Ida B. Wells, who campaigned against lynching in the 1890s; to the accommodation of Booker T. Washington, whose emphasis on black self-improvement over confrontation is characterized by Fairclough as "a tactical retreat in order to prepare the way for a strategic advance" (p. 63); to the separatism of Marcus Garvey, who proposed that blacks fight for an independent, united Africa (p. 126). Fairclough continues this kind of analysis throughout subsequent chapters, where we learn, among other things, about the involvement of the labor movement and the Communist party in the civil rights movement during the 1930s, the evolution of the NAACP's strategy to include legal challenges to discrimination in education after World War II and then mass civil disobedience after 1955, and the rise and fall of the "Black Power" movement. . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and America

426. Sun-tzu: Art of War, translated with an introduction and commentary by Ralph D. Sawyer

Author:
John David Lewis
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
War is one of man's most destructive activities (only dictatorship has ruined more lives), and it is not surprising that thousands of books have been written about it. Yet, paradoxically, books on war itself-books concerned with war as a phenomenon, rather than focused on strategy, tactics, or some particular war-have been relatively few. This is due in part to the focus by modern scholars on the minutiae of human affairs, and their reluctance to deal with broad generalizations; but the failure to come to grips with the abstract principles of war goes back to the dawn of historical writing. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides, a soaring intellect obsessed by the great war between Athens and Sparta, identified "honor, security and interest" as causally important principles that motivate men "for all time." But even Thucydides did not examine the philosophical foundations of these factors; he took them as given in human nature, which left the study of war mired in the vagaries of human desires and without philosophical grounding.1 As a result, important questions remained unanswered: What are the principles of war; what are their philosophical foundations, and what methods of waging war do they imply? In ancient China, a thriving culture of thinkers tried to answer such questions. They derived principles of warfare from ideas that were fundamental to their own philosophies and applied those principles to the practical needs of military commanders. The extant remains of these works have been compiled into the so-called seven Chinese military classics, the best preserved of which is Art of War by Sun-tzu, who lived sometime between 450 and 250 BC, about the time of classical Greece.2 This was approximately the "Warring States" period of Chinese history, when China was divided among military warlords, iron was first used in weapons, armies grew to more than one hundred thousand men, and commanders needed expert guidance to help them organize their huge forces. Ralph Sawyer has produced a lively translation, with a historical essay and explanatory notes, of Sun-tzu's classic work. Sawyer also includes new supplementary material, found in graves and carved on bamboo stalks, that adds to our knowledge of ancient Chinese thought. . . .
Topic:
War

427. Space Weaponization and Canada-U.S. Relations: Lessons from Australia

Author:
Steve Buchta
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
Institution:
School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
Abstract:
Since the end of World War II, Canadian security policy has maintained a highly adaptive quality. New circumstances and emerging threats have continually challenged the evolutionary capacity of the Canadian military. The repeated success of Canada's defense can be attributed to a sound capacity to anticipate security needs, generate appropriate approaches to combat and foster strategic partnerships with close allies. Now more than ever Canada must modernize its security policy. Major players in global politics have largely finished reshaping the post-Cold War geo-strategic environment. Most notably, the United States has taken an assertive role in the fight against terrorism. In this stasis of new global order, Canada has aligned itself with NATO members to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan and has been committed to implementing the Canada-U.S. 2001 Smart Border Declaration. Clearly, Canada has demonstrated a sovereign interest in building closer security relations with the United States.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Climate Change, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Canada, Taliban, and Australia

428. Japan-China Relations

Author:
James J. Przystup
Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The issue of contaminated frozen gyoza moved to the bilateral front burner during the quarter. In his meeting with President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the G8 summit at Lake Toya, Hokkaido and again during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Prime Minster Fukuda Yasuo emphasized the importance of making progress on the six-month old case. Hu promised to accelerate efforts to identify the source of the problem and in mid-September, Japanese media reported that Chinese authorities had detained nine suspects at the Tianyang factory. The commemoration of the end of World War II on Aug. 15 passed quietly with only three Cabinet ministers visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. Meanwhile, joint Japanese and Chinese public opinion polling data revealed markedly different perceptions on the state and future course of the bilateral relationship. In early September, Japan's Ministry of Defense released its Defense White Paper 2008, which again expressed concerns about China's military modernization and its lack of transparency. Later in the month, the Maritime Self-Defense Force sighted what was believed to be an unidentified submarine in Japanese territorial waters. Reacting to Japanese media speculation, China's Foreign Ministry denied that the submarine belonged to China's Navy.
Topic:
Development and War
Political Geography:
Japan, China, and Beijing

429. Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention

Author:
Adam Branch
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
With its 2003 ''Referral of the Situation Concerning the Lord's Resistance Army'' to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Ugandan government launched a legal process that, it claimed, would bring peace and justice to war-torn northern Uganda. The ICC prosecutor officially opened an investigation in response to the referral in July 2004, and in October 2005 the ICC unsealed arrest warrants, its historic first warrants in its historic first case, charging five of the top commanders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) with war crimes and crimes against humanity. For two decades, Uganda north of the Nile has been ravaged by a brutal civil war between the LRA and the Ugandan government, so any possibility of productive change is to be warmly welcomed. The sanguine predictions proffered by the Ugandan government and by the ICC's supporters, however, are called into question by doubts about the court's ability to achieve peace or justice in Uganda, doubts stemming from the specific way the ICC has pursued the Ugandan case, and because of more inherent problems with the ICC as a legal institution.
Topic:
Government and War
Political Geography:
Uganda

430. Liability and Just Cause

Author:
Thomas Hurka
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This paper is a response to Jeff McMahan's "Just Cause for War" (Ethics International Affairs, 19.3, 2005). McMahan holds, as many have, that there is a just cause for war against group X only if X have made themselves liable to military force by being responsible for some serious wrong. But he interprets this liability requirement in a very strict way. He insists (i) that one may use force against X for purpose Y only if they are responsible for a wrong specifically connected to Y; and (ii) that one may use force against an individual member of X only if he himself shares in the responsibility for the wrong. This paper defends a more permissive, and more traditional, view of just war liability against McMahan's claims. Against (i) it argues that certain 'conditional just causes' such as disarming an aggressor, deterring future aggression, and preventing lesser humanitarian crimes can be legitimate goals of war against X even if X have no specific liability connected to them. Against (ii) it argues that soldiers who have no responsibility for X's wrong may nonetheless be legitimately attacked because in becoming soldiers they freely surrendered their right not to be killed by enemy combatants in a war between their and another state, so killing them in such a war is not unjust. Though initially a criticism of McMahan, the paper makes positive proposals about conditional just causes and the moral justification for directing force at soldiers.
Topic:
War

431. Book Review: Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism by Michael Walzer

Author:
Stuart A. Cohen
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
This volume of collected essays, most of which have been published in earlier volumes in the Ethikon Series in Comparative Ethics, seeks to bring a more concentrated focus on specifically Jewish outlooks regarding three key themes: "Political Order and Civil Society"; "Territory, Sovereignty, and International Society"; and "War and Peace." According to Michael Walzer, "The point is to display a range of Jewish responses to some of the hardest questions posed by modern democratic politics"
Topic:
Politics, Sovereignty, War, and Law

432. Book Review: The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals--Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again by Peter Beinart

Author:
Marcus A. Roberts
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
Peter Beinart's new book offers the Democratic Party a "new liberalism," a vision he bases on the party's history of moral leadership and success in combating totalitarianism in the post–World War II era. Opposing those who demonize the "liberal" label, Beinart holds up liberalism as the theme by which America achieved national greatness in the past and the means by which it might do so once again—if only the Democratic Party would embrace it fully once more.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
America

433. The Rules of War

Author:
Brian Orend
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
These three books show how the enduring principles of just war theory can be applied insightfully and fruitfully to even the latest kinds of conflict, weaponry, and tactics; and they show how just war theory raises significant issues of the background political context, out of which all wars develop.
Topic:
War

434. Northern Iraq and its Neighbors: The regional dimension of the Kurdish question

Author:
Ole Frahm
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Northern Iraq has seen ethnic mobilization and violent political conflict since the creation of the current state system in the interwar period. Throughout this period, Iraq's Kurds have rejected attempts of various governments to assimilate and absorb them into their pan-Arab ideologies. The underlying fear on behalf of Turkey's government is that an independent Kurdistan would have an osmotic effect and automatically strengthen irredentist and pan-Kurdish segments and sentiments among Turkish Kurds and in a worst case scenario lead to a renewed intra-state conflict between separatists and the state on the scale of the early 1990s.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Turkey

435. Iraqi Partition and Turkey's War on Terror: A Wider Perspective

Author:
Bülent Aras
Publication Date:
07-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
In an age of war on terror, Turkey pursues its own war against the escalating PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) terror. The dynamics that led to a parliamentary motion for a cross border operation into Northern Iraq will have implications for Turkey's relations with Washington, Baghdad and other capitals in the region. The Expanded Meeting of the Neighboring Countries of Iraq held in Istanbul on 2-3 November 2007 coincided with Turkey's intensive regional diplomacy. There are serious challenges to ending PKK terrorism and finding a lasting solution to the Kurdish problem. The Erdogan Government must fight terrorism in a way that will not jeopardize the process of democratization and political reforms in Turkey.
Topic:
Terrorism and War
Political Geography:
Iraq and Turkey

436. On the Road to a German “Postnationalism”? Athletic Competition between the Two German States in the Era of Konrad Adenauer

Author:
Martin H. Geyer
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
German Politics and Society
Institution:
German Politics and Society Journal
Abstract:
Sports have always been used to promote the nation state and the invention of national traditions with national symbols such as flags and national hymns playing an important role. This article looks at the peculiar situation of the post-war period when two Germanys established themselves also in the field of sports, yet cooperated in some athletic disciplines, and, most important of all, at the Olympic Games until 1968. This raised a great number of delicate political questions, particularly the politics of the nonrecognition of the GDR which strove hard to establish itself internationally by way of the international sports movement. Konrad Adenauer and the German Sports Organization clashed on this issue which brought to the fore the question of a German and an emerging West-German identity. In order to describe this negotiation of the nation state in the realm of sports, this article tries to make fruitful use of the term postnationalism in order to understand the ambiguities of identity of Germans towards their nation state. It also takes a brief look at the Olympic Games of 1972, which epitomizes more than anything else the peculiar postnationalism of the Federal Republic.
Topic:
Politics and War
Political Geography:
Germany

437. The Policies of Ankara and Berlin toward the Bosnian War: A Comparative Analysis

Author:
Birgül Demirtas-Coskun
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Abstract:
This study analyses the foreign policies of Turkey and Germany toward the Bosnian War, that took place between 1992-1995, in a comparative perspective. Both states had to face an identity crisis in the wake of the phasing out of the bipolar system. Whilst Turkey, all of a sudden, lost its former status within the Western Bloc, Germany could be reunified in a relatively short period of time. The war in Bosnia took place at the very time when an important discussion was continuing about the new position of these aforementioned countries. In view of traditional International Relations theories Turkey, on the one hand, was expected to focus on its internal problems; Germany, on the other hand, was foreseen to pursue an active foreign policy thanks to the new dynamism acquired by reunification. However, what happened in the case of Bosnia was, in fact, the reverse. The main argument of this study is that one of the main factors shaping the foreign policies of Ankara and Berlin toward Bosnia was the ultimate intention to maintain their former state identities in the new era.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Turkey, and Germany

438. Full Issue - Volume 1, Issue 1

Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
THE COMBATING TERRORISM CENTER at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point is privileged to present the CTC Sentinel, a new monthly online journal devoted to understanding and confronting contemporary threats posed by terrorism, insurgency and other forms of political violence. The CTC Sentinel draws from the Center's network of scholars and practitioners dedicated to the study of terrorism and counter-terrorism to provide the most well-informed forum for the analysis of these most pressing security challenges facing the United States and its allies.
Topic:
Terrorism and War
Political Geography:
United States

439. Analytical Perspectives on the War in Lebanon

Author:
Volker Perthes
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The summer 2006 war in Lebanon can be perceived through at least five different frames of reference. The US administration saw the war in Lebanon as a local manifestation of the global war on terror. According to this framework, Hezbollah is an Al Qaeda-type enemy, not a national group with a local agenda and constituency; bargaining with Hezbollah is not possible. This point of view makes fighting global terror more difficult and jeopardises the search for stability and peace in the region. Many Israeli and European politicians saw the war as a confrontation between radical Islam and a modern Israeli state, a clash of cultures between Islamic fundamentalists and Western civilisation. This frame of reference, however, fails to recognise the fault line within the Muslim world itself, between those who want to integrate their societies into a globalised world and those who do not. The conflict in Lebanon can also be interpreted as a consequence of the weakening of a state, a framework which underlines the need to strengthen Arab institutions, or as an asymmetrical war between an armed nation state and a guerrilla movement. Finally, the war in Lebanon can be seen as a conflict over power, land, resources and sovereignty - the classic realist perspective. If the international community fails to work toward a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East, another framework will gain strength in the Arab world: one that interprets events according to a theory of non-negotiable conflicts between Western imperialism and radical Islamic resistance.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Arabia, and Lebanon

440. The combatants of “certain death”. The sense of sacrifice seen through the “Great War”

Author:
François Lagrange
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cultures & Conflits
Institution:
Cultures & Conflits
Abstract:
Testimonies and historical analyses often identify the experiences of the combatants of the “Great War” to sacrifices. Nothing links them, at first looks, to the defined features of voluntary death (kamikazes or suicide-bombings). However some elements allow, at the margins, for example in the frame of the French experiences of WWI, to see common traits between the discourses on self-sacrifice on the one hand, voluntary death on the other. An analysis of the conceptions of military authors before 1914 allows reconstructing their radical vision of self-sacrifice in war leading to a valorisation of “certain death”. A complementary investigation reveals, at the beginning of the “Great War”, some cases of “certain death”. Although limited in number, these borderline-cases are significant. They shall not be overlooked in the comparative approach of the different senses and practices of self-sacrifice.
Topic:
War and History
Political Geography:
Europe