A mbassador of Israel: Peace for Peace

[Israeli Ambassador to the United States Zalman Shoval spoke in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 20, 1992. The ambassador's presentation was a session in the Wisconsin International Trade Conference at the Pfister Hotel.]     

The Peace Movement: A Necessary Corrective

Book reviewed in this article:
Cecilia Lynch, Beyond Appeasement: Interpreting Interwar Peace Movements in World Politics     

A critique of freedom and equality

The study of historiography is undergoing a revolution akin to that which took place in the history of political thought in the 1960s, and the work of J.G.A. Pocock is central to both. Pocock's continuing exploration, in Barbarism and Religion (1999-), of the intellectual contexts of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is central to this enterprise, and this essay situates the origins of his own work within a pre-‘Cambridge School’ Cambridge and its experience of what might be called the Butterfieldian moment. That was marked by a desire to treat religion seriously as a driving force in history; and the same concern is applied here to further understanding an eighteenth-century controversy in which history and religion were dramatically involved, and which profoundly affected Gibbon's own historical and religious views. The work of Conyers Middleton and John Jortin is critically examined from this perspective. These preludes to Gibbon lead to a series of postludes examining the particular contexts in which Victorian and twentieth-century historians and writers, from Henry Hart Milman to Evelyn Waugh, variously appreciated and interpreted Gibbon. The whole is to be seen as a reflexive engagement with Pocock's vitally illuminating studies in eighteenth-century historiography.     

The moral acceptability of nuclear deterrence: A critique

Theorists within the just war tradition of ethics differ in their conclusions about nuclear warfare and nuclear deterrence. This paper examines three arguments for the conditional moral acceptability of nuclear deterrence—those of the U.S. National Conference of Catholic Bishops in their pastoral letter, of J. Bryan Hehir, and of Michael Walzer—and argues that none of the three constitutes intellectually compelling and practically useful moral advice. The bishops fail to convince us that nuclear use can ever fulfil the requirements of proportionality, and therefore that the intention to use nuclear weapons can ever be justified. Hehir fails to convince us that nuclear deterrence policies in fact distinguish categorically between intention and use. Walzer's case that deterrence is bad but necessary is more convincing but it, like Hehir's, does not constitute coherent moral advice for the citizen, soldier or government official. I conclude that, given the inadequacy of attempts to justify nuclear deterrence, even conditionally, we have a strong moral obligation to pursue alternatives.

The level of citizen concern about the dangerous possibility of nuclear war has become greatly heightened in Europe and the United States in the 1980s. This is probably due to at least three factors: the significant technological developments in nuclear weaponry that have occurred during the last decade, the increased fear of Soviet military strength, and the concentration of recent U.S. administrations on developing and improving a nuclear war‐fighting capability. But even before the growth of the peace movement since 1980, a ‘new debate’ about the morality of nuclear weapons and deterrence policy had begun in academic and theological circles. In this paper, I will analyze three arguments of moral philosophers and theologians, all working within the ‘just war’ tradition, about whether nuclear deterrence, in any form, can be morally justified.     

Conceptions of Australian political thought: A methodological critique

This paper takes issue with a number of standard interpretations of Australian political thought and the methods of argument by which they have been reached. It confronts the substantive claims (a) that Australia has produced no significant indigenous political thought, ideology, or ideological conflict, and (b) that which passes for political thought is generally derivative, lacking in originality and inferior. It is argued that such claims are based upon unduly narrow conceptions of political thought and misplaced categories of evaluation. Finally, the paper demonstrates that by expanding our conceptions of political thought beyond that of ‘epic’ or universalist political philosophy, and applying methods of evaluation appropriate to the subject matter, more sensible conclusions can be drawn about the existence and quality of Australian political thought, as well as its place in political life.     

The Peace Process and the Palestinians: A Road Map to Mars

This article provides an analytical framework in which to understand the new approach to the Israel–Palestine conflict that has been developing over the last two years. It discusses this new agenda: how it operates, and what arenas it operates in. It looks at the ways this new approach is being implemented through various processes and common understandings by the officials, experts, diplomats, and academics who make up the international community involved in the Middle East Peace Process.     

A decade of African Peace and Security Architecture

This article examines how the African Union (AU) has handled Africa's peace and security challenges since 2002, defines what has been successful and what remains aspirational. It does so by examining how the AU has responded, from using sanctions against coups, to deploying peacekeeping missions and mediating in conflicts. An African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) has developed since 2002, including a Peace and Security Council, an African Standby Force, a Continental Early Warning System and a Panel of the Wise. This sounds impressive, but the operationalization record is patchy: AU‐deployed missions have been fully dependent on external donors; harmonization is a major problem; serious questions remain over AU capacity; and some of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are developing at a quicker pace than the AU. Given these circumstances and its internal capacity deficit, the AU will likely struggle to exercise oversight of regional processes, including the development of regional standby force arrangements. APSA is clearly based on a liberal peace model, yet democratic systems, respect for human rights and good governance aren't always in place in African countries, and the self‐interest of elites continues to be a constraint on APSA and its success. Over the last decade the AU has found a voice and, despite some setbacks, it has shown through AMISOM in Somalia that it is capable of conducting a successful peacemaking operation. Its biggest challenge is not making the decision to intervene or deploy forces, but the capacity of most African states to deploy effectively. APSA's dependence on external partners needs to diminish over the next decade if better African solutions are to be found to peace and security challenges in the continent. Yet, the internationalized nature of crises such as the one in Mali in 2012–13 requires international partnerships. Not all of Africa's security problems can be solved by Africa alone, but APSA does provide a vision framework for African and external partnership.     

On anthropological epistemology: Praxis and critique

Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. xv + 205 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $28.00 cloth, $13.00 paper.

Ulin, Robert C. Understanding Cultures: Perspectives in Anthropology and Social Theory. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984. xvii + 200 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $19.95 cloth.