According to Grewal, we need to understand globalization as a process in which we participate by choice but not necessarily voluntarily—one in which common standards allow more effective coordination, yet also entrap us in their pull for convergence.
This edited collection takes stock of the state of the Western alliance, seeking both to improve our theoretical understanding of conflict and crisis and to examine the relevance of theories of politics and international relations.
The U.S. proposal to establish missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic has exacerbated relations with Russia to a degree not seen since the height of the Cold War, and has done so despite the fact that the system has no demonstrated capability to defend the United States, let alone Europe, under realistic operational conditions. Further, it is being built on the shoulders of a missile defense system that has not come close to proving itself in testing and is still missing major components. Indeed, even the branch of the Pentagon charged with developing missile defense, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), claims only to be able to address an ''unsophisticated threat.'' As this paper will demonstrate, the proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe creates much havoc and provides no security in return.
In the Spring 2008 Ethics International Affairs article, "Missile Defense Malfunction," Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson systematically misrepresent or ignore key facts to bolster their arguments against deploying defenses in Europe to protect our allies and forces in that region against an emerging intermediate and long-range Iranian ballistic missile threat. I want to set the record straight.
The current state of Russian-American relations in the area of missile defense—specifically the proposed placement of U.S. missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic—cannot be evaluated without taking a retrospective look at the problem. The past has an appreciable impact on the present and future.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, America, Europe, and Poland
My goal here is twofold: First, I wish to make a plea for the relevance of moral considerations in debates about immigration. Too often, immigration debates are conducted solely from the standpoint of ''what is good for us,'' without regard for the justifiability of immigration policies to those excluded. Second, I wish to offer a standpoint that demonstrates why one should think of immigration as a moral problem that must be considered in the context of global justice. More specifically, I will argue that the earth belongs to humanity in common and that this matters for assessing immigration policy. The case I will be particularly interested in is immigration into the United States, where immigration policy continues to be a hotly debated topic. However, that discussion takes the form of a case study: the relevant considerations apply generally.
There are more resources now devoted to the pursuit of peace than at any time in the history of the international system. The participating cast of actors—international, regional, state, and nonstate—seek to create a peace that is essentially Kantian in spirit, and thus heavily dependent upon the maintenance of an international liberal order through international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations. The resultant peace-building strategies are then often justified in terms of the promotion of human rights, democratization, and ''human security''—concepts that together form the cornerstone of what has come to be termed the ''liberal peace.'' Evidence increasingly suggests, however, that the mechanisms used to achieve such a peace typically fail to secure a sustainable peace, and in particular that they may not adequately take into account those actors whose claims for peace may prove especially intransigent—such as those with ethnic and identity claims, and those, ironically, for whom the achievement of human security is particularly pertinent.
Topic:
Democratization, Government, Human Rights, and United Nations
Imagine three cases: Corporal Greene returns to the United States in a body bag having been killed by an elite armed guard in a war that had been officially authorized as a defense of her country against foes who have the capability and desire to attack her fellow citizens and soldiers at home and abroad with acts of terrorism. Such foes may either be planning eventually to launch their own attacks or to facilitate attacks by others who have an established record of using terrorism against U.S. soldiers and citizens.
This paper develops a critical analysis of deliberative approaches to global governance. After first defining global governance and with a minimalist conception of deliberation in mind, the paper outlines three paradigmatic approaches: liberal, cosmopolitan, and critical. The possibilities and problems of each approach are examined and a common concern with the scope for "deliberative reflection" in global governance is addressed. It is argued that each approach, to varying degrees, foregrounds the currently underdetermined state of knowledge about global governance, its key institutions, agents, and practices. In doing so, the question "What is global governance?" is retained as an important and reflective element of ongoing deliberative practices. It is suggested that this constitutes the distinctive and vital insight of deliberative approaches to global governance.