Search Results for: nuclear arms

Picture a swarm of drones entering a village programmed to fly without a human operator with instructions to shoot or immobilize anyone it deems to be holding a weapon. While this might sound like a scene from Lana Wachowski’s latest Matrix film, the technology to build these killer robots is already here. Unless states act [...]

Abstract: Ideas of Natural Law were crucial in drafting the US Constitution. These seminal ideas were made known to document “framers” largely by way of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. The Commentaries represent the truest philosophic origins of America’s legal system. In these dissembling times of recurrent political manipulation, Blackstone’s work warrants [...]

“Nothing is real that is not eternal.” Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life (1921) Though inconspicuous and easily misunderstood, there is no conceivably greater power in world politics than power over death. On its face, this preeminent form of power is problematic (how, after all, can one human being ever offer eternal life to [...]

Abstract: For Israel, core issues surrounding Iran’s still-accelerating nuclear weapons program have been strategic and political, rather than legal. Nonetheless, if Israel should ever decide that it no longer has any reasonable alternative to launching a preemptive attack against certain Iranian military/industrial targets, this defensive first-strike would need to be justified under international law. In [...]

“History is an illustrious war against death.” – José Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis (1958) Afghanistan and “Palestine”: Newly Emerging Linkages At first glance, there are no obvious connections between the Taliban victory over the United States in Afghanistan and Palestinian terrorism against Israel. Upon closer inspection, however, the recent Taliban triumph reflects more [...]

Abstract: Following US withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s security focus will turn more expressly to Iran. The core problem with America’s Afghanistan withdrawal was not one of timing or tactics, but of original misconception. In essence, the “Afghanistan Problem” stemmed from an initially underestimated and misunderstood military operation. Looking ahead, Afghanistan’s incoherent conclusion means, inter alia, [...]

“Scholars build the structure of peace in the world.” Babylonian Talmud; Order Zera’im, Tractate Berakoth, IX Background of the Problem Back in the late 1960s, at Yale Law School and Princeton University’s Department of Politics, a series of joint-programs was developed under the heading of World Order Studies. This advanced academic series focused upon the [...]

Between Saturday night on June 26 and the early hours on Sunday, June 27, two blasts rocked the high-security technical sector of the Indian Air Force (IAF) Station in Jammu. Sources reported that an IAF patrol squad witnessed two low-flying drones drop two Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). Two IAF personnel suffered minor injuries in what [...]

Abstract: Regarding American foreign policy, US President Joseph Biden has now correctly embarked upon a plan to reverse derelictions of his White House predecessor. As many Trump-inflicted harms were grievous and potentially catastrophic, this plan is commendable. At the same time, even in the most optimistic historical narratives, American foreign policy has always been shaped [...]

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world….” -William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming Plus, ca’ change. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  In world politics, anarchy is an old and continuing story. Chaos is not. But what are the precise differences? And why do [...]