[ by Charles Cameron -- cool scholarly Kepel dismissive of hot apocalyptic al-Suri, and some beautifully crafted sentences from Kepel ] . I admire Gilles Kepel, not only and not so much because he is an analyst of Islamism of the first water (which he is) as because the man can write like a poet [...]
[ by Charles Cameron -- introducing the world of problem solvers and creatives to the world of theologians and contemplatives and vice versa -- and then, Simone Weil ] . I believe this is an important post in its own way, though a short one: because it links two areas that I believe are joined [...]
President Barack Obama has established by an executive order an Atrocity Prevention Board. After the 120 day study and planning period (which will determine the writ of the APB), the board will be chaired by Samantha Power, a senior White House foreign policy adviser, NSC staffer and an aggressive advocate of R2P . This is not [...]
The summer of love (at least in the San Francisco Bay Area) was in 1967. The summer of arms control was in 1960. Longstanding readers of these posts may recall my ten favorite books on arms control. Two of them – Schelling and Halperin’s Strategy and Arms Control and Arms Control, Disarmament, and National Security, [...]
[by J. Scott Shipman] Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command, by Jon Tetsuro Sumida This monograph piqued my interest several weeks ago, as I consider whether or not to re-read Alfred Thayer Mahan‘s classic The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783. I’m about twenty years removed from my original reading, and honestly wasn’t ready for it when I did [...]
“What you think, you become” – Buddha “We are what we frequently do” – Aristotle There has been a lively and still evolving debate in the milblogosphere regarding “disruptive thinkers”, starting with Benjamin Kohlman’s post at SWJ whose editor Peter J. Munson has done a fine job steering, collecting and commenting upon. A [...]
I am a little baffled that the media isn’t making a bigger deal out of the fact that North Korea paraded six road-mobile ICBMs through Pyongyang. Six road-mobile ICBMs. Hey! Look! ICBMs! Road-mobile ICBMs! Just like Gates said! As best I can tell, reporters don’t really understand that this isn’t the same missile as the [...]
Hans J. Morgenthau was a heavyweight whose books, including Politics Among Nations (1948) and In Defense of the National Interest (1951), packed a real wallop. Morgenthau also wrote with great clarity about nuclear weapons. Check out his essay, “The Four Paradoxes of Nuclear Strategy,” which appeared in the March 1964 issue of the American Political [...]
: skip to main skip to sidebar The Nuclear Abolitionist Working towards a nuclear weapons-free world Pages Home Video Photo Y-12 Witness Quotable How can I go with a straight face to the non-nuclear weapons states and tell them nuclear weapons are no good for you , while the weapons states continue to modernize and to say we absolutely neednuclear weapons IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei , September 30, 2008 Monday , April 16, 2012 Occupy Vandenberg on May 16th Stop the tests After months of planning an intercontinental ballistic missile ICBM is readied for test launch . nbsp Air force aircraft and navy vessels work to clear the areas where the jettisoned stages of the missile will come down , as well as to keep a safety zone should the missile fail during one of its launch phases . nbspWell, North Korea is all ready to launch the Unha-3, in all likelihood carrying the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite to a fiery demise that the regime in Pyongyang will vigorously deny. We’ve posted a FAQ on North Korea’s Upcoming Space Launch at the MIIS website, but I wanted to round up some of the reporting and suggest [...]