Do states go to war due to resource competition? Or, do states seek settlements that reflect their long-term interests? Cross-tabulating data from the Issues Correlates of War dataset and Peter H. Gleick’s Event Intensity Scale shows that states seek negotiated settlements.
President Woodrow Wilson, the only person to be elected to the presidency with a PhD in Political Science, left an undeniable mark on US history and world affairs. War can shape the values of a nation. I believe the American Civil War war influenced President Wilson as a young boy to such an extent, that it changed world history.
The “Tunisian wind”, stirred by the popular uprising that swept President Ben Ali of Tunisia from power on 15 January 2011, is inspiring the Arab world from Bahrain to Morocco. Ordinary people in their hundreds of thousands have joined activists in street protests. They seek bread, housing, livelihoods, dignity, freedom and justice.
When the USA overthrew the Taliban in 2001 and Saddam Hussein in 2003, many hoped that America could repeat its great foreign policy successes of neutralizing Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan following World War II. Overthrowing the former permanently moved extraordinarily grave threats to international stability.
Despised by Bismarck as ’not worth the life of a single German solider’’ and described by Churchill as ‘having too much history to consume’’, the region of the Western Balkans is returning to the agenda. The EU and the USA must step in and show that they are up to this ultimate test of bringing the last remaining non-EU island into the orbit of the Union and NATO.
The present-day image of the EU can be defined as a political, economic, social and legal hybrid with a combination of federal, confederal, supranational and intergovernmental features. Whether it should proceed through the development of a U.S.E will remain a matter for deep reflection, for how it really works will never match one vision of how it should work.
With the cascading events in Tunisia, there has been much debate about whether or not this represents a real revolution. The question is clearly important. Much of the debate seems to focus on whether or not Tunisia will move out of an autocratic system of government and into a liberal democracy. But whatever the eventual political outcome, Tunisians have already experienced a real revolution.
Hamas, ‘Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya’ (The Islamic Resistance Movement), has evolved over time from its humble beginnings as a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, to an arguably legitimate political body, controlling much of the occupied Palestinian territories. This paper will reflect on the key factors in its development and features of the movement, and will conclude with a discussion of Hamas’ future as both an agent of armed struggle and a legitimate political body.
During the 1990s the political elites of liberal democratic states began to lean towards the norm which Kofi Annan, in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September, 1999, labeled as a norm to forcibly protect civilians who are at risk from genocide and mass killing. This undeniably raises the question: is it a good idea to intervene in humanitarian crises?
This essay will posit that the EU does have a strategic culture, but one still in infancy, beset by weaknesses and potentially insurmountable obstacles. To demonstrate this, we shall explore key diplomatic efforts to enhance European strategic integration, responses to world events and operational deployments, how these have progressively shaped a common strategic culture, and how numerous issues undermine it.
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