Acts of Aid: Neoliberalism in a War Zone

Abstract:  International aid is a dynamic bundle of geographical relationships at the intersection of war, neoliberalism, nature, and fear. The nexus between development and security warrants further conceptualization and empirical grounding beyond the instrumentalist and alarmist discourses that underwrite foreign aid. This article examines two such discourses, that of "aid effectiveness" and securitization, that serve to frame an analysis of aid to Sri Lanka. Since 1977, neoliberal policies of international assistance have shaped the country's economy and polity, and, since 1983, government troops and militant rebels have been at war. International aid focuses on economic development and support for peace negotiations, but little attention has been paid to the ways in which these agendas intersect to shape donor behavior and aid delivery. Drawing from research on international aid agencies operating in Sri Lanka, in particular the Canadian International Development Agency, the geopolitics of aid are analyzed.     

Religion,Greed, and the Insanity of War

Abstract

This article quantifies only a brief encounter with the violent intersection of religion, business, and war. It surveys war in the modern world by including the following topics: the effects of war such as environmental degradation; psychological costs, including post-traumatic stress syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome; violence against females; children at war; costs of war; causes of war and globalization. It wonders if there is such a thing as a killer-instinct that needs an antidote. Several religions from East and West, violent and non-violent, are discussed against the backdrop of war noting the presence of warrior gods and sacrifice. Finally the economic and pseudo-creative benefits of war are summarized. Selvidge poses a final question to readers, "How can we change the direction of a world gone mad?"     

The Supreme Court in Times of Hot and Cold War: Learning from the Sounds of Silence for a War on Terrorism

Justice William J. Brennan once remarked that the Court has never fully developed a jurisprudence of national security. It is simply too episodic, he said. ¹ Our present Chief Justice would, it would seem, largely agree, though his own research shows some greater willingness for the Court to superintend—at least after the fact ² —the actions of the executive in times of war or similar crisis. My assignment in this essay was to ask the question slightly differently; namely, has the posture of the Court differed in times of hot or cold war, and if so, how has it differed? As will be evident momentarily, that question is less helpful to our present circumstance than it might seem. Why? Because, frankly, we are in neither a hot nor cold war, but something quite different ³ —something that has the potential to be not only hot, but blistering, and something which will likely never be fully appreciated as having gone truly cold.     

War is its Own Justification: What Americans Think about War

Abstract

The authors deal with the morality of war in American culture. They argue that a war ethics that was characteristic of the Cold War has given way to a warrior ethics as it has developed in post-Vietnam America, in print media, popular sentiment, and film. According to this warrior ethics, the citizenry's support for soldiers, regardless of the justice of war, is understood to create social solidarity. Wars are easily justified because, at bottom, war is understood to be its own justification. It unites a country. This popular conception of war both props up more high-minded, political rationales for war and undermines traditional just war ethics. The article uses the war in Iraq as a case study. It analyzes the Bush administration's defense of the war alongside similar accounts of the just war theory given by Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and George Weigel.

"As a moral problem, war is ultimately a problem of policy, and therefore a problem of social morality." John Courtney Murray     

From War 2.0 to quantum war: the superpositionality of global violence

As information networks catalyse local incidents into international crises, as global events appear and disappear on multiple screens at an accelerated pace and as a war of images displaces the image of war, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand the rapidly changing nature of global violence within the confines of security studies. Phase-shifting with each media intervention from states to sub-states, local to global, public to private, organised to chaotic and virtual to real—and back again—global violence superpositions into a quantum war that requires new transdisciplinary, transnational and transmedial approaches.     

Virtuous War/Virtual Theory

Strategic discourse and the use of force in the twentieth century have become increasingly virtual. Leading the way, as the dominant actor in global politics, is the United States, whose diplomatic and military policies are now based on technological and representational forms of discipline, deterrence, and compellence that could best be described as virtuous war . At the cyborg heart of virtuous war is the technical capability and ethical imperative to threaten and, if necessary, actualize violence from a distance—with no or minimal casualties. Using networked information and virtual technologies to bring 'there' here in real time and with near-verisimilitude, virtuous war exercized a comparative as well as a strategic advantage for the digitally advanced. It has already become the 'fifth dimension' of US global hegemony, with a very real gap opening between technological capability and strategic value on the one side, and theoretical understanding and ethical awareness on the other. There is a clear and present need to develop a virtual theory that can assess the perils and promises of this intimate relationship between modes of representation and violence.     

Now More than Ever: Terrorism,Asymmetric Warfare,and the Just War Tradition

Abstract

For more than fifteen hundred years, the just war tradition has provided guidance about when wars should and should not be fought. It has also incorporated standards for how wars should be fought. The tradition rejects the claim that all use of force is evil, suggesting instead that in some circumstances the failure to use force is wrong. War is never desirable, but sometimes it is both right and necessary. The just war tradition helps us understand when this is true. The tradition developed to help control conventional warfare, but it is no less applicable to the terrorism and asymmetrical warfare prevalent in contemporary conflicts. In a world where American military power is unmatched, any opponent's best option is some form of asymmetric warfare. Such warfare is frustrating to conventional forces and tempts them to respond with an "all's fair in war" approach that is both morally wrong and militarily counterproductive. Neither pacifism nor "realism" deals adequately with the challenges of twenty-first century warfare. Only the just war tradition provides clear guidance about when and how it is right to go to war and places this in the context of establishing a peace based on justice and equity.     

War,memes and memeplexes

Meme theory has been attracting much attention in recent years. Pioneered by Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett it suggests that there are self‐replicating units of culture analogous to genes. Like genes these ‘memes’ seek to copy themselves as widely as possible. One of them may be war. Memetics remains in its infancy but the truly sobering aspect is that ‘fitness of purpose’ for a meme may have little to do with the biological fitness of the people who are ‘programmed’ by it; it simply evolves because it is advantageous for itself. Memes also persist because they flourish in the presence of other memes (such as religion) in what Dawkins calls ‘memeplexes’. One of the most persistent memes is honour, and another is revenge for dishonour imagined or real. War is a powerful medium for both. Even if meme theory never catches on it encourages us to think about war more creatively.     

The War on Terror from the Perspective of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia

This article examines the perspective of two major Islamic nations—Saudi Arabia and Indonesia—toward the United States' War on terror and how this war shaped and influenced the behavior of the two Islamic governments toward domestic challenges and their partnership with the United States, as they have declared their support of the United States. Indeed the war against terror has developed several security concerns for both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. However, each state has followed different methods to fight Islamic radical movements as well as a different framework of partnership with the United States on its war against terrorism.     

马里时代西亚战争惯例初探

在马里时代,西亚诸国逐步发展出制约战争的惯例。在发动战争之前,要为战争找到合法的理由,同时需要获得神明的赞同和友邦的支持,更为重要的是,要进行公开宣战。在战后对战败国的处理上,虽然存在野蛮的毁城杀人的向例,但是较为人道的战争惯例逐步发展起来:有限摧毁敌方城市,善待敌方战俘与百姓以及掩埋敌方阵亡者尸体等。马里时代的战争惯例,继承了公元前3千纪的某些战争惯例,同时又对古代西亚战争的惯例做出了新发展。马里时代战争惯例的形成,与此时大国争霸、同盟化战争以及战争的频繁有着密切关系。战争的巨大破坏力,也促使较为人道的战争惯例出现,它们代表了古代西亚战争惯例的发展方向,具有进步意义。     

The politics of memory: Commemorating the centenary of the First World War

This symposium examines how the centenary of the First World War has been marked in five countries: Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. Given their distinctive national historical experiences and political cultures, the metanarratives of the war in these countries differ; as does the relationship between the state and sub-state actors in memory making. However, in each case the commemorations of the war have been shaped by a negotiation between the state and other agents of memory at the sub-state level. National memory has also been consciously projected into international relations, through carefully orchestrated anniversary ceremonies and performative memorial diplomacy. But, despite these transnational commemorative practices, the centenary of the war remains predominantly framed within local and national imaginings.

这次研讨会议论了一战百年在奥地利、法国、德国、英国、美国这五个国家是如何庆祝的。考虑到各国不同的历史经验以及政治文化,这些国家关于一战的元叙事各不相同,国家与次国家主体关系的记忆也是如此。不过,每个国家的战争纪念,都是国家与其他次国家层面主体协商的结果。通过精心策划的纪念仪式日以及表演性纪念外交,国家记忆被有意识地投射到了国际关系之中。除了这些跨国纪念活动,一战的记忆主要是在地方以及国家的想象框架内形成的。     

War and city size: The asymmetric effects of the Spanish Civil War

Populations are affected by shocks of different kinds, and wars, a priori, may be among the most prominent. This article studies the effect of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) shock on the distribution of population, especially on cities. One of the main contributions of this study is that it underlines the importance of distinguishing between winning and losing sides, an aspect which until now has been largely overlooked. While previous research on war shocks has also tended to be concerned with inter-state wars, this paper concentrates on a civil war. We take advantage of a new, long-term, annual data set. Our results show that, overall, the Spanish Civil War did not have a significant effect on city growth. However, we also find a significant and negative effect in the growth of cities that aligned themselves with the losing side. These results are robust to heterogeneity in the effect of the war shock, measured as war severity and duration. Although short lived, the temporary effect on growth results in a permanent effect on the size of cities on the losing side.     

对新中国成立后毛泽东战争与和平思想及实践的几点辨析、概述和思考

毛泽东是伟大的思想家、理论家、政治家、军事家、战略家,他关于战争与和平的思想内容十分丰富,其中许多深刻的基本理论(例如有关战争的根源;提高警惕,准备打仗;热爱和平,不怕战争;努力加强国防建设;常规战争与核战争;世界大战是否可以避免;美帝国主义要称霸全球;帝国主义的两重性;要利用世界各种矛盾;坚持和平共处五项原则;支持各国人民反对帝国主义的战争;结成最广泛的统一战线;弱国、小国能够打败强国、大国;第三世界团结起来,等等)今天无疑仍然适用,对这些思想和实践进行总结和继承,既有助于加深对邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想关于战争与和平思想的理解,又有助于遵循正确的战略和策略,争取到一个较长时间的国际和平环境和良好的周边环境,全面建设小康社会。     

Profiteering in Australia during the First World War

The effect of domestic profiteering on Australia’s war effort and economy is a field still under-represented in historical research. This paper discusses how Australian governments struggled to come to grips with profiteering and public perception of the problem during the First World War. It is also a plea for military historians and others to move beyond the Gallipoli and Anzac perspective that still dominates this field and to look at other issues that were important during the war but which remain under-studied.     

Pandours,Partisans, and Petite Guerre: The Two Dimensions of Enlightenment Discourse on War

During the Enlightenment period a certain notion of war came to prominence in European thought. This notion, which I here refer to as ‘civilized war’, centred on the idea that European war-making in the eighteenth century was characterised by humanity and honour. This image of European war-making was sustained by a variety of intellectuals and even some military practitioners who reflected not only on the practice of war in Europe in this period, but on the practice of war among supposedly less ‘civilised’ peoples in other parts of the world and in Europe's barbaric past. In these other places, among other peoples, and at other times, warfare was characterised as altogether less ‘civilised’, less ordered, less humane and honourable, and was thus considered more ‘savage’. I will argue in this paper, however, that there were at least two dimensions to the Enlightenment discourse on civilised war: the first dimension stressed the moral qualities of civilised war, its honour and humanity above all; the second dimension emphasised its technical or rational qualities that gave European war-makers a decisive military advantage over non-European war-makers. These two dimensions applied to conventional or symmetrical war between sovereign militaries contending by massed fire power on the field of battle. They were less easily applicable to petite guerre, that is, unconventional, asymmetric or partisan war. Here, the two dimensions of the idea of civilised war were shadowed by persistent anxieties about the status of both dimensions of civilised war.     

国际法、女权保护与第一次世界大战期间的英德宣传战

宣称战争因某种道德理想而展开是一次大战的显特征,国际法、平民权益特别是妇女儿童权益保护就成了区分和衡量战争正义合法与否的标尺。英德关于非人道作战方式的合法性争执凸显出国际法存在的严重缺失及其在宣传战中作用的有限性,而侵害最易成为战争受难的妇女儿童权利便成了宣传战中最能调动舆论情绪、最易产生宣传效果的主题,这也是英国适时将宣传战主题从德国违反国际法切换到德军大规模强暴妇女儿童上来的主要原因。     

Wages of War: Manufacturing Nationalism During World War II

Abstract: During World War II the state created a new and deeper set of relationships with defense contractors. These contractors manufactured the vast majority of war materials and relied extensively on the state for financing. These same contractors also encouraged workers and civilians to understand their every minute action as contributing to the war effort. In order to fully integrate workers’ and civilians’ lives into the war effort, the state and industry created and distributed a war wage—a sense of contribution, national belonging, and sacrifice. In this paper I analyze the wartime records of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in order to understand how the state and industry created the war wage alongside the military–industrial complex. With the help of the war wage, the state and industry radically expanded the production of war materials and enlisted a more compliant population of workers and civilians into the war effort.     

War and wildlife: the Clausewitz connection

Carl von Clausewitz might seem an unusual thinker to invoke in the name of wildlife protection but his insights into the nature of war provide a unique perspective into an arena that arguably poses more complex moral questions of responsibility to protect than with humans. The increasingly dangerous world of wildlife conservation offers a prism for examining many issues linked to sovereignty, especially in developing countries. This study highlights how the commercial rewards of the wildlife trade have fed into problems surrounding national security such as corruption, sub‐state insurgency and state legality. These factors have led to the growing militarization of wildlife protection and, in turn, raise a fundamental question: is it ever right for an outside actor to ignore international convention to save a species from extinction?     

公民资格理论与战后英国社会政策转变

1950年代英国社会学家T.H.马歇尔提出的公民资格理论,成为二战后英国建立普遍主义福利制度的重要依据。公民社会权利是公民资格理论的核心,它对战后英国社会政策的演变产生了重大影响。1970年代末英国保守党倡导的"消费者主义",以"消费者取向"为原则,以避免个人对国家的依赖、回归个人自助和非正式的照顾为目的,从而否定了公民享有普遍福利的权利;新工党实行了新的公民权利体制,权利和义务的平衡是新工党价值观念的核心,也是贯穿福利国家改革的基本思路,它是对公民社会权利的重新界定。"公民资格"内涵的变化反映了人们对福利国家作用的重新认识以及对公民个体责任意识的强调。     

War as a Paradigmatic Phenomenon: Endemic Violence and the Finnish Subneolithic

Abstract

In Finnish archaeology, the hunter-gatherer Stone Age has generally been viewed as a peaceful period. Here we argue that this view is based on anachronistic understanding of the nature of war. Building on Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm as applied to the study of war, we examine the interpretations given to an enigmatic group of Subneolithic (ca. 3500–2000 cal. BC) megastructures located in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland. Although generally interpreted as being related to sealing or a "symbolic" function, a defensive purpose emerges as a more probable interpretation.