Warfare today is changing. The course of conflict in the 21st century, and the problems we in the West may continue to face in the coming decades are mutating, developing and adapting in ways that make their defeat – whilst not necessarily more difficult – an entirely different prospect to face.
The mushroom cloud has retrospectively obscured the context in which American leaders took the decision to build and use the atomic bomb. The principle rationale behind the intensification of the Manhattan Project in the first half of 1945 was the desire of the US bureaucracy to end the war in the Pacific before the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland in November 1945.
America’s great power and wealth tempts some to advocate its intervention when civil wars in weakly or ungoverned lands threaten to become humanitarian disasters or when tyrants refuse to surrender their thrones. Our aid for victims should be readily offered in these cases, but very rarely should our troops. America must avoid becoming the global policeman, self-designated or not
The shooting of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama’s latest foreign policy speech, and the looming drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan all point towards a welcome possibility: the sun may soon set on the War on Terror. And as Obama is acutely aware, America’s tomorrow is still to be written.
Both the enormous diversity within Sudan in combination with the lack of a substantial “Sudanese” identity accounts for the prevalence of conflict. This absence of a widely accepted and omnipresent state identity also explains how identity is formed in relation to hegemony.
The World Bank rose out of political and security necessity in the US sphere of influence to stabilize Europe. It has grown to adapt through time, both to the new challenges of the late 20th century, as well as to the politically correct speech the growing global civil society has been promoting in the ever globalizing public space.
The United States, France and Britain invaded Libya with cruise missiles, stealth bombers, fighter jets and attack jets. In addition, the United Nations and France have been bombing the Ivory Coast to protect civilians. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which is being used to legitimate these attacks, is a slippery slope that should be viewed with extreme caution.
Intervention to stabilize and reconstruct failed, failing, fragile, and even re-orient hostile countries may not be avoidable for the U.S. and also for its E.U. partners. But for intervention to be successful it must be undertaken cautiously, preemptively when possible, and swiftly, with coalitions of willing partners.
Gender is imperative to our understanding of issues surrounding refugees of war. The use of a gender lens to scrutinise the ways in which people are treated demonstrates the embeddedness of deeply held beliefs about men & women and the roles and responsibilities that they should be fulfilling, according to societal norms.
Modern Iran represents one of the biggest waiting games of the world today. A beautiful, civilised, and hospitable country containing one of the nicer peoples on earth, and with a distinguished history to boast, has become one of the world’s most rejected nations ruled by those with standards and practices more suitable to the middle ages than the 21st Century.
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