Overreaction in the West and the promotion of China as the next scary thing may seem like a relatively low risk option now that the end of the global war on terror is threatening defense/intelligence budgets and prestige. How China is integrated into the greater world system will define the coming century like no other single issue.
In the McCarthy era of the 1950s, anti-Communism created an atmosphere of fear which allowed political actors to accrue greater powers over the American population. This unusual situation was permitted as the public were manipulated by people with political interests into believing the USA had entered into a state of emergency in order to safeguard national security.
The issue with weapons of mass destruction is that they only have the potential to cause such damage, and historical precedents would suggest that it is a very complicated and difficult task to achieve such devastation, even if a group is able to procure such a weapon. Hence, to date, conventional methods have proven more effective.
The Ukrainian power elite have one point in common: the lack of public confidence in their leadership. If voters continue to be left disenfranchised, viewing the efforts of power elites as suspicious and self-motivated, then it stands to reason that more destructive expressions of political conflict will eventually manifest.
The most important aspect of Turkey’s potential to become a model for the rest of the region is her ability to uphold secularism while trying to become more democratic despite the fact that there is currently a conservative government ruling Turkey with its origins in Turkey’s Islamist tradition.
It seems that there is an inverse relationship between water and energy security, but is this scenario real or imagined? Although it is only one step, the incorporation of the water-energy nexus into the Rio+20 agenda would help to improve our understanding of sustainability.
Even while the prospects of reconciling Hamas and Fatah’s conflicting visions for the future are dim, Egypt has emerged as the only Middle East mediator trusted by both sides.These achievements represent the efforts of the transitional military regime to lift Egypt’s regional status out of the slump of the Mubarak era.
Because the scale and intensity of human rights violations remains high, the UN has already acknowledge the importance of investing in development projects that can create long-term change by educating future generations to be imaginative and thoughtful in their problem-solving capabilities. Ultimately, we must believe in the power of art to change lives.
The current focus by scholars and policymakers on the role of religion in international relations is a welcome development. It’s transnational power can serve as a force for both good or ill by challenging the exclusive authority of states over their citizens, and debates over religious issues cannot be understood without taking religious beliefs into account.
Marxism has been at the forefront of political thought ever since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Although principles of Marxism can still be seen in Western left-wing politics today, the theory of Marxism as set out by Karl Marx is dead.
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