This essay argues that, due to the potential loss of human life and domestic and international implications and values, morals, as defined by the public, must continue as a guiding force in planning and conducting intelligence operations.
The study of political terrorism is one of the fastest growing areas of academic research in the English-speaking world, producing thousands of publications annually, as well as new study programmes, research projects, PhD theses, research institutes, think-tanks, conferences, seminars, and other academic activities. It was the events of 11 September 2001 that really galvanised the contemporary study of political terrorism and animated a whole new generation of scholars. However, as with any new field of research, it faces a number of problems and challenges.
My search for truth in Burma began in a sleepy embassy in Vientiane, Laos, where I sat sweating on a patent leather sofa in a crumpled silk shirt and tie, pulling phony business cards from my wallet and lying through my teeth. It was two months after the monk-led anti-government uprisings of last September, and I had already been rejected a tourist visa twice in Hong Kong and Bangkok. I decided to hit the diplomatic backwaters with a different tack.
On February 17, 2008, the parliament of Kosovo declared Kosovo’s independence from Serbia. This essay considers whether the declaration of independence and the recognition by various states of that declaration can be justified under existing international law.
Domestically, revolutions cause massive upheavals of the political structures within a state, which affect its relations with neighboring states. On an international level, revolutionaries may actively export their ideology abroad by means of propaganda, by supporting revolutionary movements, or by directly deploying military forces to confront neighboring states. Revolutions threaten the prevailing international order because neighboring states perceive revolutions as a threat to their state’s sovereignty, which may prompt non-revolutionary states to intervene.
Ever since the beginning of International Politics as a social science, there has been a perpetual discourse between “realists” and “liberals” about the nature of interstate relations. The two sides cannot agree on whether there is a possibility of progress in the relations between states. In the present essay, the liberal internationalists’ belief that international progress is indeed possible will be critically approached. It will be argued that “liberals” understand progress as a process of spreading a Western model of democracy.
With the end of the Cold War and the rise of global civil society, NGOs have played an increasingly prominent role in world politics. Yet due to the nature of their work, they often struggle to remain effective amid complex political, military and social dynamics. Specifically, NGOs face real problems when operating in ‘violent environments’.
“The neoconservative way . . . is to put an enormous emphasis on the importance of will in confronting and changing the world. America is currently in as unfavorable a position as it is because, more than anything, of a failure of will . . . [I]t can overcome adverse circumstances and prevail again by the mobilization and determined exercise of will.” –Owen Harries
This essay attempts to show how Waltz’s abandonment of the assumption of wicked human nature has led to the collapse of the Realist approach to international relations. In order to reveal this, a new concept of considerate/inconsiderate struggle for power is developed which enables us to understand the nature of power and relations of power in the theories of both Morgenthau and Waltz.
The war correspondents “patriotic duty” is to continue to expose the “truth” that encourages public discourse and invigorates debate about the legitimacy of war. If the first casualty of war is truth, it is the role of the war correspondent to find it and bring it back to life.
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