3/17/08 Locals Only: (1) Oakland University’s Student Life Lecture Board will host author and activist Naomi Wolf on Wednesday, April 2 at 7 p.m. in the Oakland Center Banquet Rooms. Wolf is the author of “The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, which is an impassioned warning about the erosion of democracy and security from arbitrary government in the homeland. (2) The Third Annual Global Security Forum at Oakland University will feature Doris Tennant, an attorney and pro bono co-representative of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Tennant's lecture, "Behind the Scenes at Guantanamo Bay: A Lawyer’s Story," will raise awareness of the detainees who have served for many years without any charges being brought against them. The forum will be held Friday, April 4 from 2-4 p.m. in the Oakland Center Banquet Room A. Both events are free and open to the public.

3/17/08: Thanks to Juan Cole for a lively lecture at Oakland last Wednesday evening and an informative roundtable discussion Thursday morning. And thanks to Peter Bertocci for organizing it. The discussion got me thinking about both the wisdom and the likelihood of "soft partition" in Iraq. Cole thinks it's both unwise and unlikely because (a) Iraqi's don't want it, (b) Turkey would never stand for it, and (c) big oil needs uniform Iraqi oil laws. I don't know about (c). Anyone's guess is as good as mine, and Cole's is probably a lot better. As for (a) and (b), I'd say that they explain the public statements of the Bush administration, but add that these statements seem to belie different patterns of apportioning U.S. support in Iraq. There's some reason to think, as I'm stubbornly inclined to do, that at least part of the Bush administration secretly favors gradual partition, notwithstanding the wisdom or folly of it. On that score, check out Reidar Visser's "Debating Devolution in Iraq," Middle East Report, March 10, 2008. For arguments defending the wisdom of it, see The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq," by Edward P. Joseph and Michael E. O'Hanlon for the Brookings Institution, June 2007. Although my crystal ball tells me that eventual partition of Iraq looks increasingly likely, I still don't see much wisdom (or humanity) in anything but an immediate drawdown of our occupation forces, as a step towards total withdrawal. Here's a "Responsible Plan."

3/17/08: Volume 4 of the International Political Theory Beacon is now out, and it includes David Estlund's article, "On Following Orders in an Unjust War," The Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 15, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 213-234. This is a timely issue of concern to many students of just war theory. I'm placing the link here because it doesn't fit in any of the categories on my main page (which I've been threatening idly to overhaul for several years now).

2/15/08 Locals Only: The Philosophy Department at Oakland University will host guest speaker, Dr. Jeff Noonan of the University of Windsor, Wednesday February 20th from 4:00-6:00 in the Oakland Center, Heritage Room. Noonan's talk on "Religion and Human Solidarity" will present a critique of, and an alternative to, the approach to global governance set forth in Richard Falk's The Declining World Order. The talk is free and open to the public.

2/7/08: Although I don't know of anyone working in this area, it seems to me that just war theory might be usefully developed as a special subfield of internet ethics. See Johnny Ryan's "iWar: pirates, states and the internet," openDemocracy 2/6/2008: "The internet-dependence of governments, businesses and authorities around the world invites a proliferation of net-based assaults... The availability of online instructional material, relevant software and ubiquitous internet connectivity empowers virtually any proficient and dedicated actor to attack distant enemies... A new age of anarchy and piracy that will both serve and undermine the interests of power is in prospect. The need both for security counter-measures and adequate legal frameworks to meet this threat is pressing."

1/5/08: CALL FOR PAPERS: The Association for Political Theory (APT) invites proposals for its sixth annual conference to be held October 9-12, 2008 at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. More...

1/4/08: There's a new large group blog on the www dedicated to political philosophy/theory. It's called Public Reason, and it's administered by Simon May of Virginia Tech. It looks like a very promising site. JWT.com readers may be especially interested in checking out the papers page, which includes "Rethinking Revolution" by Matthew Noah Smith.

12/21/07: Over here Alan Johnson of Democratiya interviews Mary Caldor, author of Human Security: Reflections on Globalisation and Intervention.

12/11/07: Carl Conetta with the Project on Defense Alternatives questions the U.S. investment in its military primacy: "Our distinct military superiority exists only in the conventional realm. Facing an unconventional foe in a complex contingency is another matter..."

12/05/07: It's my birthday, and my Congressional Representative, John Conyers, is talking about presidential impeachment. I wanted a pony, but I'll settle for that. I post a link to Jack Lessenberry's account of his conversation with Conyers here because it's about the politics of war, in part. Warm thanks to Karl Gregory of MCHR for sending me the article.

10/18/07: Conference announcement: Torture and Terror Conference at University of Hull, Council Room, Venn Building, November 15 & 16, 2007.

10/17/07: UK Conference announcement: The University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre and the Methods and Data Institute, in association with the Cross-Disciplinary Research Group present: "The International Criminal Court and the State" on Friday, November 9, 2007.

8/27/07: Walter Pincus reports in the Washington Post today about counter-insurgency in Iraq and what may be "A Potentially Winning Tactic, With a Warning." The winning tactic involves supporting and arming Sunni tribal leaders who represent factions unsympathetic to al-Queda elements. The warning concerns the fact that these tribal leaders support neither the occupation nor the Shia dominated government in Iraq. So, whatever success this tactic can be expected to have is likely to be limited and short lived. A further qualification is in order. As Paul McLeary of the Columbia Journalism Review notes, since the successes of constructive engagement with Anbar province Sunni leaders predate the Troop Surge, it is misleading for Pincus to characterize it as "one of the few successes from the U.S. troop increase this year." Rather, the troop increase is designed to capitalize on and further develop this tactic. In the long run, the tactic may help to ensure that Sunnis will be as well armed as Shiites when U.S. troops begin their withdrawal. There's a chance that this could serve to make the civil war even more bloody than it would be without the arming of Sunni tribes. But a balance-of-power theory of Iraqi stability might see it as a recipe for rapprochement. It's pretty hard to make confident predictions either way.

8/25/07: Scott Horton reports in the latest edition of Harper's Magazine that a recent JAG Corps memorandum has announced that the Army does not consider its conventional standards for handling prisoners to have been altered by President Bush's July 20 Executive Order authorizing "highly coercive, non-Geneva compliant interrogation techniques."

8/25/07: Technorati is a useful tool for searching the blogosphere for breaking news and commentary. So, I'm adding a Technorati Profile by means of this entry.

8/22/07: In "Guantánamo in Germany," Tuesday August 21, 2007, The Guardian, Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen describe how "In the name of the war on terror, our colleagues are being persecuted - for the crime of sociology." I'd say more about this chilling tale here, but perhaps my time would be better spent removing any references to "inequality" or "gentrification" from this website...

8/20/07: There are several articles of interest to just war theorists in the June issue of Middle East Policy, which is available online free of charge.

8/15/07: Announcement of interest: "Seminar on 'Ethics and the 'War on Terror'' on Monday 10th September 2007, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. 1. Aim: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prevalence of terrorism raise many ethical issues. When, if ever, may states wage war? May states ever wage preventive war? May they use military force to intervene on humanitarian grounds? How should states seek to combat terrorism? How should war be waged? What are the responsibilities of warring parties after war has ceased? These issues will be explored in a one day seminar held at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. 2. Speakers: * Professor Henry Shue (Oxford University): 'Pre-empting Terrorism' * Professor Norman Geras (Emeritus, University of Manchester) 'Crimes against Humanity, the Duty to Protect and the Right of Intervention' * Dr David Rodin (Oxford University) 'Four Problems in Just War Theory' * Professor Darrel Moellendorf (San Diego State University) 'Jus Ex Bello' * Professor Jennifer Welsh (Oxford University) 'The Imperative to Rebuild' 3. Venue: Seminar Room G, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford. Click here for directions, and here to register. Registration is free but places are limited. 6. Queries: Please direct any queries to Simon Caney. 7. Acknowledgement: This seminar is funded by an ESRC Seminar Series Grant awarded to Dr Gillian Youngs (University of Leicester), Professor Simon Caney (University of Oxford) and Dr Heather Widdows (University of Birmingham).

8/10/07: I haven't read The New Republic for years, not least because they actually want people to pay for what they publish, and there's too much of equal or greater value available online for free. But back in the day when I did regularly read it (my roomate's copy) I was struck by how poor the more "literary" pieces were in comparison with the quality of the strategic political analysis. Must be something about inside-the-beltway political analysis that deadens finer sensibilities. Now this shortcoming has become the undoing of TNR in the "Baghdad Diarist" scandal. I thought I'd add my two bits. The initially anonymous "Diarist" is Scott Thomas Beauchamp, an aspiring writer who saw the war as a potential opportunity for literary fame. He revealed his identity after his accounts of shocking troop behavior in Iraq were challenged in the press and the blogosphere. Given that some of this shocking behavior was his own, it's surprising, not courageous, that he would show his face in public. In one tale, for example, he recounts how "in the chow hall at my base in Iraq" he mocked a woman whose face was disfigured by an IED. Beauchamp said loudly to his friends, "I love chicks that have been intimate -- with IEDs. It really turns me on -- melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses." More sordid details here. Why on earth would TNR publish this? Not, as some would have it, to turn the tide of public opinion against the war. TNR supported the war in the spring of 2003, and they support the troop surge and continued occupation today. More likely they published Beauchamp because the shock-jock model of journalism sells, and because they persistently misidentify bad literature when they see it. In response to questions about his veracity Beauchamp now claims that he made an "error," and that this episode took place at a base in Kuwait before his assignment in Iraq. An "error"? Hmm. Even this confession sounds like a piece of bad fiction. Kathleen Parker of the San Francisco Chronicle still thinks that "Beauchamp succeeded in revealing the morally and emotionally distorting effects of war he set out to illuminate." How so? The negative effects of war are well known. And there are too many serious accounts of the horrors of occupation and fear to ascribe any weight to Beauchamp's sophomoric tales of troop buffoonery. If this scandal teaches us anything, it's as an object lesson for writers and editors with more ambition than integrity, and more greed than good taste.

8/7/07: This much neglected "blog" is where I put links that defy the cumbersome (but hopefully useful) categories of the main page. Joseph Margolis' "Intimations of Moral Philosophy, By Way of War and Terrorism," Ars Disputandi Volume 6, 2006, presents reflections too wide ranging to fit into a sub-topic of JWT. It explores certain general connections between understanding the problems of philosophy and understanding the problems of violent political conflict.

7/1/07: How should the U.S. government respond in the hypothetical event that Pakistani President Musharraf is shot (either killed or seriously wounded) and a Pakistani Nuclear facility is simultaneously taken over by an unknown militant group? This is the scenario discussed in an engaging Mock National Security Council Meeting entitled "Collapse of a Nuclear Regime" (RealPlayer video), which was held at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, September 30, 2005. Participants include Steven Simon as National Security Advisor, Suzanne Nossel as Secretary of State, Michael O'Hanlon as Secretary of Defense, Mike Froman as Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Gordon III as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard A. Falkenrath as Director of National Intelligence.

6/2/07: Someone who goes by the name of "China Hand" and whose blog is called China Matters writes with the following question: "A hardliner talking point is that one nation counterfeiting another nation's currency is a casus belli, usually coupled to the statement that the last time it happened before (allegedly) North Korea did it to us was when Hitler counterfeited the English pound. I've poked around the Internet but haven't found any precedent for this claim. Have you ever heard of the 'counterfeiting as casus belli for a just war' idea?" Good question. Counterfeit has a storied history as a stratagem in warfare at least since WWI. But I can't think of any cases in which counterfeit alone was successfully presented as a sufficient just cause for war (help me out here if I'm neglecting some important moment in the history of warfare). Whether such a case could in principle be cogently made is, of course, largely a separate matter. According to Michael Walzer's approach to just war theory, which still remains the most influential approach in Anglo-American academic circles, just cause requires actual or imminent military aggression, and this stricture would clearly preclude a military response to a counterfeiting foreign government. But if a more Grotian, international law-enforcement approach to just war theory is adopted, a case for a just military response could in principle be made. Hugo Grotius (who is often called "the father of modern international law") includes defense of property among just causes in his classic work De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), albeit with the qualification of too many constraints to enumerate here. I can't recall off the top of my head any passages in which he explicitly discusses counterfeit. But monetary currency is a form of property closely tied to the public interest, and as such it would better qualify according ot the logic of Grotius' theory than, say, the property of a private person or corporation. In more recent legal history, there is also the 1929 International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency, which, although most applicable under courts of universal jurisdiction (not recognized by the U.S.), could conceivably be invoked to build a legal case for a just military response. So, a normative case, both ethical and legal, might be cogently made under the right circumstances, which would include the absence of any effective non-military means of regress (an exceedingly unlikely but conceivable circumstance). For a fairly recent account of punitive just cause in JWT that includes the possibility of a legitimate military response to counterfeit, see Kenneth W. Kemp's "Punishment as Just Cause," JSCOPE, 1995. Not every just war theorist will be convinced that the question of principle should be resolved in favor of the possibility of just counter-counterfeit warfare. In fact, I'd venture to guess that most would probably demur. Consensus aside, the question of principle is a big can of worms, one which someone with more time than I have at the moment would do well to research thoroughly. All that being said, even supposing that a normative case can be made for some range of exigent circumstances constituting grounds for just counter-counterfeiting warfare, the key question in this case would then become the factual one about whether the North Korean government is guilty of counterfeiting U.S. currency. The answer to this question appears to be "no," according to last week's report of the Swiss police. If not, then where are the "supernotes" coming from? The leading candidates would appear to be China, Russia and the CIA, though not necessarily in that order.

5/28/07: Memorial Day: "The Iraq Veterans Memorial is an online war memorial that honors the members of the U.S. armed forces who have lost their lives serving in the Iraq War. The Memorial is a collection of video memories from family, friends, military colleagues, and co-workers of those that have fallen."

5/15/07: Upcoming event announcement: Conference on the Economics of Peace and Security: "War and Poverty, Peace and Prosperity." May 30 - June 1, 2007 at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY.

4/22/07: Last week the United Nations Security Council held its first-ever debate on the impact of climate change on peace and security. Details of the debate are presented here.

4/22/07: The Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) will host a symposium on "Law and Liberty in the War on Terror," July 4, 5 & 6, 2007.

4/22/07: The Centre for the Study of Social Justice and the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxfor University wil be holding a two-day conference on "Transitional Justice and International Law: Cooperation or Competition?", June 22 & 23, 2007, Lecture Theatre, Manor Road Building.

4/12/07: In Breaking the Army," Inter Press Service News 4/12/07, Jim Lobe reports in detail on the "growing concern, particularly among the military brass, that the U.S. army is overstretched and fast becoming 'broken'."

3/14/07: Locals only... Oakland University's Global Security Forum will convene on 4/9/07 in the Banquet Rooms of the Oakland Center. Schedule: 6:00-7:00 p.m. - Panel presentations by Jodi Nachtwey of Wayne State Political Science (on "What Iraqis Think") & Peter Shields of Eastern Washington Media Studies (on "Proliferation of Surveillance"). 7:00-7:15 p.m. - Break/dessert reception. 7:15-10:00 p.m. - Screening and discussion of "Iraq for Sale" with producer/director Robert Greenwald of BraveNewFilms.org. This forum is free and open to the public. RSVP for reserved seating here.

3/10/07: In "On Michael Walzer, Gaza, and the Lebanon War," Dissent, Winter 2007, Jerome Slater argues that "Walzer�s recent arguments defending (in however qualified a manner) Israeli policies in Gaza and Lebanon are harmful to Israel�s best interests." Walzer deftly responds.

2/24/07: Now available online are numerous papers presented at the International Symposium for Military Ethics (formerly the Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics), January 25-26, 2007. The central themes of the ISME 2007 were "Religion and the Military and The Military and Code of Ethics"

2/23/07: Jonathan Moreno's Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, raises numerous important issues about the connections between neuroscience and the national defense industry. Here is a 11/2006 article by Moreno, and here is an excerpt from the book. Also available from Neurophilosophy is a Podcast interview with Moreno.

2/20/07: In a Foreign Policy in Focus Q&A, Noam Chomsky offers an explanation of why the U.S. government is willing to negotiate directly with Korea, but not with Iran. The reason, he maintains, is not oil, but the "mafia complex" of American geopolitics.

2/19/07: In a Real Clear Politics Q&A, Ian Bremmer, author of The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall, offers an explanation of why sanctions are ineffective against authoritarian "rogue" regimes, and more.

2/2/07: "Experts Give Poor Grades to Expected Defense Budget Proposal," by Bipasha Ray, Project on Defense Alternatives, February 1, 2007: "In the FY 2008 Defense Budget Report Card released by the Security Policy Working Group, four analysts gave the government low and failing grades on every criterion except for an 'A+' in advertising -- for the Pentagon managing to convince Congress that the world's largest defense budget is too small. 'We have the largest Pentagon budget since World War II, but we are losing to an opponent in Iraq that spends less over an entire year than what we spend in one day' on defense -- more than $1 billion, said Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information." Read all about it...

2/1/07: Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, seeks candidates for a PHD-studentship in International Law and Political Theory relating to the topic of "The Safest Plan: International Law, Global Justice and the Anticipatory Use of Force." Find out more here.

1/29/07: The U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, was vehemently upbraided yesterday by Senator Patrick Leahy for one of his many crimes against humanity, the "extraordinary" rendition of Canadian citizen, Maher Arar. Gonzales promised to produce within one week's time some evidence against Arar, though it is unlikely to impress Leahy any more than it impressed the Canadian commission that cleared Arar of any terrorist ties.

1/26/07: In "Blood Oil," Sebastian Junger reports for Vanity Fair on how the battle for Nigerian oil is heating up: "Because Nigerian oil is so vital to the American economy, President Bush's State Department declared in 2002 that�along with all other African oil imports�it was to be considered a 'strategic national interest.' That essentially meant that the president could send in the U.S. military to protect our access to it." Enter MEND, an Islamist militatant group committed to fighting the notoriously oppressive conditions of corruption and poverty that plague the Nigerian oil industry. Their message: "Leave our land while you can or die in it... Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil." Read more...

1/25/07: "Afghanistan Needs More than Reinforcements," by Carl Robichaud, The Century Foundation, 1/19/2007:

"As the administration prepares to send another 20,000 soldiers to Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to Afghanistan. There he met U.S. and NATO commanders that find themselves shorthanded against a renewed insurgency. In 2006, armed attacks tripled, to over twelve per day. With only 20,000 U.S. soldiers in all of Afghanistan, split between the NATO command and the U.S.-led coalition, there are not enough troops to go around.

The mission in Iraq, insatiable and interminable, has left Afghanistan in a state of chronic neglect. General David Richards, the NATO commander, estimates that he is 4,000 to 5,000 troops short; coalition commander General Karl Eikenberry is also calling for reinforcements. Unlike in Iraq, where troop increases have been tried before and failed, a few thousand additional soldiers in Afghanistan could go a long way, allowing international forces to hold towns that have been cleared of Taliban and to be proactive rather than reactive. That�s why the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden, has said, 'If we�re surging troops anywhere, it should be in Afghanistan'." Read more...

1/23/07: "Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon: The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty. You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects..." Read more from Wired...

1/8/07: Americans don't like to spend money without getting something in return. Hence, consenting taxpayers who have been willing to pay for wars in oil rich Afghanistan and Iraq have probably been hoping for a war dividend of cheap oil. Dissenters like me see this expectation and the way it helps to fuel the war machine as something much worse than foolish. But it is arguably foolish as well. According to Milton R. Copulos' testimony before U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "The 'hidden costs' of gasoline imports in 2005 ... include $780 billion in military costs, a figure that, if acknowledged and spread over all imports, would add $4.05 to the price of each gallon of gasoline." Oil wars increase the real costs of the resource. You pay more at the pump, and then you pay again on 4/15. Larry Goldstein of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation demurs (it's his job), arguing that increasing demand from China and India are driving up the cost of oil. Don't be fooled by the shill. While Asian demand has been increasing steadily for quite some time, the price of oil went up precipitously after the invasion of Iraq.

1/7/07: The very idea that we might be approaching "the end of history" always struck me as woefully dubious, if not patently absurd. I confess that I cannot attach any sense to the following: "Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again." Say what? Predictably, geopolitical experience appears either to have disconfirmed the end of history hypothesis, if it ever was a hypothesis, or, more likely, to have revealed the proposition to be nonsensical. Those who were drawn in by the idea may now be open to a gestalt shift resulting in rediscovery of the fact that we inhabit the same human world as Thucydides, Livy, Hume, Gibbon, etc. In this vein, several online commentators (here and here, for example) have been impressed with the extent to which recent history has witnessed some strikingly Thucydidean moments:

"And people altered, at their pleasure, the customary significance of words to suit their deeds: irrational daring came to be considered the 'manly courage of one loyal to his party'; prudent delay was thought a fair-seeming cowardice; a moderate attitude was deemed a mere shield for lack of virility, and a reasoned understanding with regard to all sides of an issue meant that one was indolent and of no use for anything. Rash enthusiasm for one's cause was deemed the part of a true man; to attempt to employ reason in plotting a safe course of action, a specious excuse for desertion. One who displayed violent anger was 'eternally faithful,' whereas any who spoke against such a person was viewed with suspicion... The cause of all of these things was the pursuit of political power, motivated by greed and ambition... People were ranged against one another in opposite ideological camps, with the result that distrust and suspicion became rampant. For there was no means that could hope to bring an end to the strife � no speech that could be trusted as reliable, no oath that evoked any dread should it be broken... And, for the most part, those of more limited intelligence were the ones to survive: in their fear regarding their own deficiencies and their opponents' cleverness, lest they might be defeated in debate (e.g. in a political trial) or be forestalled in laying some plot by their opponents' cunning, they turned to action right away with a boldness born of desperation..." -- The Peloponnesian War, 3.82-8.83. Porter trans.

(Porter's translation is clearer than Hobbes', though the latter gets the award for best frontispiece.)