Facing recurrent cycles of terror-violence in a “state of nature,” Israel must defend itself in both law and strategy. Though generally unacknowledged, this dual-level defense could prove gainful not just for Israel, but also for other “civilized nations” in world politics. A patently core obligation, it is universal in scope and justice-seeking in objective. Multiple [...]
Human beings rarely participate in world politics directly, but they do get involved as individual members of separate sovereign states. Normally, the expected costs and benefits of such indirect participation remain tangible expressions of secular considerations. Though far less decipherable and recognizable, these expressions may also include implicit promises of personal immortality. There is meaningful [...]
“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.” Cicero, The Laws During the coming year, the United States, in occasional concert with Israel, must confront expanding terrorist threats. Topping pertinent concerns in Washington and Jerusalem will be a sordid assortment of jihadi groups, some spawned by the al-Assad regime collapse in Syria and [...]
“Science, by which I mean the entire body of knowledge about things, whether corporeal or spiritual, is as much a work of imagination as it is of observation… The latter is not possible without the former.” Jose Ortega y’ Gasset, Man and Crisis (1958) For now, the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria has [...]
Though the fall of Syria’s Assad would appear gainful for Israel prima facie, a potential nuclear threat from Iran not only remains, but is plausibly greater than before. One reason for such a counter-intuitive suggestion is that Tehran is now more likely to feel “cornered” in certain crisis circumstances (both foreseeable and unforeseeable) and to [...]
“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill one’s heart.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus A greatly-improved world order is needed for human survival. In turn, any such transformation would need to rest upon imaginative and systematic “design” processes. Oddly, apart from a tiny handful of esoteric and residual academic programs, there [...]
“A government of laws, and not of men.” John Adams (1774) Incoming US president Donald J. Trump’s obeisance to Russia’s Vladimir Putin is well-documented. Such behavior is sometimes much more serious than a matter of personal dereliction. In consideration of Putin’s ongoing crimes against Ukraine, it represents a time-urgent matter of law and justice. Though [...]
“For by Wise Counsel, Thou Shalt Make Thy War.” Proverbs 24.6 For mostly good reason, policy discussions of Israel’s nuclear strategy and doctrine have been intentionally vague and without evident nuance. More specifically, there have been few open-literature assessments of a limited nuclear war and its law-supported capacity for enhancing Israel’s strategic deterrence. Now, however, [...]
The imperatives are plain. Whatever the trajectory of wars in the region, Israel has a law-based obligation to keep Iran non-nuclear. Immediately and incrementally, therefore, Jerusalem will need to ensure “escalation dominance” during periods of competitive risk-taking. This overriding responsibility concerns both Iran’s sub-state proxies (especially Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni Hamas) and Iran directly. What [...]
Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because it is absurd.” Tertullian For conspicuous reasons, the likelihood of direct war between Israel and Iran is increasingly “high.” What remains inconspicuous is that such a war could quickly or incrementally involve North Korean military assets. Even if Israel were able to keep Iran pre-nuclear, an already nuclear North [...]
