All Commentaries
101 Steps Toward a More Secure World
The newly released United Nations report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility has the potential to reshape the United Nations and redefine collective security. A core premise of the report is that today’s “threats recognize no national boundaries, are connected, and must be addressed at the global and regional as well as the national levels.” It is a “must read” for anyone who cares about international affairs.
Missile Defense
Blowback from Iraq War Is Global, and Growing
Blowback is a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. Chalmers Johnson’s excellent book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, helped popularize the term. Originally intended for internal use only, blowback increasingly characterizes global reaction to Bush administration policies in and out of the Middle East.
Will Calls for Sharing Responsibility in New UN Report Fall on Deaf Ears?
Allegedly a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well the “High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change” that Kofi Annan asked to study how the UN copes with the threats of the new century was certainly a committee, and their report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, certainly has some aspects of a camel. I would guess it to be Bactrian from the two outstanding humps that have been added to get a consensus.
The Unintended Consequences of Crisis Public Diplomacy: American Public Diplomacy in the Arab World
FTAA Fails to Gain Support from Citizens and Governments Across the Region
Key Points
The Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy
A New Course in Iraq
As many members of Congress and President George W. Bush’s administration argue that it’s unacceptable to leave Iraq as a failed state, it becomes clearer every day that U.S. operations and policies are fueling violence and instability. It’s time for the government to directly confront the question of how to fulfill U.S. obligations under international law, restore basic security, and responsibly withdraw U.S. forces.
Options for Ukraine
The tense political situation in Ukraine may find a peaceful solution. But, at this critical juncture, efforts to maintain Ukraine as currently configured could turn out to be dangerously counterproductive. Ukraine should therefore seriously consider the option of working with all parties involved in its current crisis–including the European Union, Russia, and the United States–in taking possible steps toward its nonviolent dismemberment in a manner acceptable to its variegated population. The possibility of such a peaceful, democratic, and internationally acceptable geographical rearrangement of Ukraine should at least be put on the table before it is too late to prevent an unpredictable situation from falling out of control from increased regional, ethnic, economic, cultural, and linguistic conflicts.
Elections without Democracy
During the 1970s, the apartheid government of South Africa sought to bolster its claims to legitimacy by allowing elections in the Bantustans–the equivalent to today’s walled-in Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The thought was that if people elected local officials, even to hold largely ceremonial offices, then the rest of the world would stop whining about how undemocratic and illegal apartheid was.