How ironic it would be if the most direct consequence of the “war on terror” was the overthrow of a government by Muslim extremists and the destabilization of a nuclear-armed country. With the Taliban gaining full control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan last February and advancing to within 60 miles of Islamabad just a few months ago – moving much faster and over a wider area than in any of their previous incursions – such a catastrophe seems to be looming just over the horizon.
Working within the traditional confines of I.R theory it is difficult to observe Islam in isolation, as states in the Middle East have, since their formation in the post-colonial era, acted with few exceptions in their own self interest. However, observing Islam as a theory of I.R. in its own right, as an al siyasi al Islami (Islamic political order) not as a factor which influences I.R, may well be a more intriguing quest.
Democracy promotion is a US foreign policy tool which synthesises its interests and values. Germany and Japan being turned into successful liberal democracies following WWII, supported the belief that the US could ‘successfully export liberal democracy at gunpoint’.
The responsibility to protect individuals from violations of their human rights around the world has been a movement increasing in intensity since the end of the Cold War. Since 9/11, the responsibility to protect has perished, and its corpse is now being used as a disguise for self-interest and self-security
This first introduces nuclear deterrence during the Cold War before considering nuclear proliferation and nuclear deterrence more broadly. It then examines state methods of responding to transnational terrorism, and finally explores further issues in contemporary international security challenging the centrality of deterrence in the Second Nuclear Age.
An analysis of Thomas Hobbes’ the ‘Leviathan’ will focus on introducing the importance of the state of nature as an image of life without government. By using contemporary examples, the aim is to illustrate how states behave in the international paradigm in terms of ensuring self-preservation.
On September 16, 2007, the issue of private military firms exploded out of the dry confines of academic debate and into the public consciousness as bright, bloody pictures blanketed the newspapers and television networks that had long ignored the subject. Seventeen Iraqis had been violently killed and more than twenty others wounded while they went about their business in Nisour Square, in the heart of Baghdad’s once fashionable Mansour District.
Junio Valerio Palomba provides an alternative insight on the nature of private military and security companies and their activities. Specifically, he demonstrates how recent changes in the organization and structure of the market for force – such as the disappearance of combat operations – can be interpreted and explained through the theoretical lens of legitimacy.
The question of what nationalism is, is as essential as what it is not. Nationalism is a multisided phenomenon, not an ideology which is always dangerously exclusionary.
The impossibility of peace without subjection, even though men understand the laws of nature which dictate peace, is due to both the conditions in the absence of a common power and the passions of men. A Commonwealth is vital to provide restraint and security, in order for men to willingly lay down their natural right in favour of the natural laws.
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