Using Skilful Means Skilfully: The Buddhist Doctrine of Upāya and Its Methodological Implications*

This article concerns itself with the Buddhist doctrine of upāya (“skilful means”). Rather than provide a historical analysis of the concept, this paper first of all outlines some of the presuppositions that affect both its working in a traditional Buddhist context and its interpretation in modern academic enquiry. It is argued that these contexts differ significantly and that they lead to quite different understandings of the role and function of the concept itself. Then, through reference to the Tibetan dGe lugs pa tradition and the background of Tibetan doxography, it is suggested that there are certain dangers in over‐emphasizing the concept of upāya in isolation. Most notably, if the doctrine of upāya is simplistically posited as some sort of aphilosophical praxis against rational enquiry, then there is a danger of not taking the tradition's own scholastic endeavours seriously enough and downplaying the status of rational enquiry in the tradition itself.     

Vulnerability to Bushfire Risk at Melbourne's Urban Fringe: The Failure of Regulatory Land Use Planning

The 7 February 2009 bushfires in the peri‐urban region to the north of metropolitan Melbourne heralded what many have called an entirely new epoch in terms of weather‐related disasters in Australia. A total of 173 people and 2000 properties were destroyed and, as with the 1939 fires in Victoria, a Royal Commission was subsequently instituted to inquire into the causes and responses to the fire. The Royal Commission has heard much evidence about alleged failings of fire response, communication and administration. It also considered land use planning issues and the associated regulatory framework. Using the Shire of Murrindindi as a case study, this paper argues that the location of population growth, and associated regulatory failure, are contributory, yet under‐researched, factors associated with life and property losses. The adoption of more robust planning tools which incorporate climate change considerations, we argue, is essential to anticipate and minimise the impacts of disastrous natural events such as bushfires. In the latter part of the paper, attention is drawn to a recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision which is groundbreaking in its use of the precautionary principle to prevent dwelling construction in an ‘inappropriate’ location as well as to some major inconsistencies between planning for flood and bushfire threats.     

Fifty shades of purple? A risk‐sharing approach to the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review

The next Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) will be held in 2015. With unfinished business from its 2010 predecessor, and with no sign that UK national strategy is about to escape the grip of austerity, the 2015 SDSR is set to be more complex and contentious than the government might have hoped. There is a possibility that the review will, yet again, see the three armed services struggle against each other to secure the largest slice of a diminishing cake. The review might also be captured by a fruitless discussion of ‘grand strategy’. SDSR 2015 must avoid both of these distractions. There are four principal concerns arising from SDSR 2010: the feasibility of the Future Force 2020 plan; various capability gaps that must be managed; inconsistencies in the national strategic planning framework; and unresolved concerns about the relationship between society, armed forces and government in the UK. In response to these concerns, the authors argue for a risk‐sharing approach to the SDSR, embracing the widest conceivable range of stakeholders in national strategy: the armed services; government departments and agencies; industry; civil society; and allies and partners. In UK military circles, inter‐service cooperation is known as ‘jointery’ and is denoted by a certain shade of purple. The effect of austerity is to constrain national strategy, just as the international security environment makes ever more demands upon it. In these circumstances, strategic options must be generated by joint collaboration, denoted by as many shades of purple as appropriate.     

The future of NATO enlargement after the Ukraine crisis

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that his country's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was partly in response to NATO enlargement. NATO leaders counter that eastern enlargement is not a cause of the Ukraine crisis, and they argue that enlargement does not threaten Russia, but rather it creates stability for all of Europe. This article examines the history of NATO–Russian tensions over enlargement, considers how NATO's enlargement policy factored into the Ukraine crisis, and reviews options for the future of enlargement. Drawing on diplomatic history and geopolitical theory, the article explains Russia's persistent hostility towards NATO's policy of eastward expansion and highlights NATO's failure to convert Russia to its liberal world‐view. The alliance's norm‐driven enlargement policy has hindered the creation of an enduring NATO–Russia cooperative relationship and helped fuel the outbreak of conflict in Georgia and Ukraine. In light of this, NATO should alter its current enlargement policy by infusing it with geopolitical rationales. This means downgrading the transformative and democratization elements of enlargement and, instead, focusing on how candidate countries add to NATO capabilities and impact overall alliance security. A geopolitically‐driven enlargement policy would prioritize countries in the Balkan and Scandinavian regions for membership and openly exclude Georgia and Ukraine from membership. Ultimately, this policy would have the effect of strengthening NATO while giving it more flexibility in dealing with Russia.     

When a gamekeeper turns poacher: torture,diplomatic assurances and the politics of trust

Diplomatic assurances are promises which purport to manage the tension between the need for national security and the human rights obligations not to send individuals to countries where they would be at risk of torture. This article looks at how and why diplomatic assurances have become a part of policy efforts to make counterterrorism human rights compliant and as part of a wider strategy for drawing a line under the damaging legacy of the ‘war on terror’. This positive gloss on the use of diplomatic assurances is, however, in contrast to the worries motivating human rights advocates which centre on the implications for the global anti‐torture regime. Behind the doubts surrounding diplomatic assurances is a wider concern, centred on whether the past architects of the war on terror can be trusted to progressively develop the rules and norms governing this domain.     

Complex security and strategic latency: the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Whichever party or parties form the next UK government, a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is expected to begin soon after the general election in May. The review might be a ‘light touch’ exercise—little more than a reaffirmation of the SDSR produced by the coalition government in 2010. It seems more likely, however, that the review will be a lengthier, more deliberate exercise and one which might even last into 2016. For those most closely engaged in the process the challenge is more complex than that confronted by their predecessors in 2010. The international security context is more confused and contradictory; the UK's financial predicament is still grave; security threats and challenges will emerge that cannot be ignored; the population's appetite for foreign military engagement appears nevertheless to be restricted; and prevailing conditions suggest that the risk‐based approach to national strategy might be proving difficult to sustain. Two key questions should be asked of the review. First, in the light of recent military experiences, what is the purpose of the United Kingdom's armed forces? Second, will SDSR 2015–16 sustain the risk‐based approach to national strategy set out in 2010, and if so how convincingly? Beginning with a review of the background against which SDSR 2015–16 will be prepared, this article examines both enduring and immediate challenges to the national strategic process in the United Kingdom and concludes by arguing for strategic latency as a conceptual device which can complement, if not reinvigorate, the risk‐based approach to national strategy and defence.     

NORBERT ELIAS,THE CIVILIZING PROCESS: SOCIOGENETIC AND PSYCHOGENETIC INVESTIGATIONS—AN OVERVIEW AND ASSESSMENT

Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, which was published in German in 1939 and first translated into English in two volumes in 1978 and 1982, is now widely regarded as one of the great works of twentieth‐century sociology. This work attempted to explain how Europeans came to think of themselves as more “civilized” than their forebears and neighboring societies. By analyzing books about manners that had been published between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, Elias observed changing conceptions of shame and embarrassment with respect to, among other things, bodily propriety and violence. To explain those developments, Elias examined the interplay among the rise of state monopolies of power, increasing levels of economic interconnectedness among people, and pressures to become attuned to others over greater distances that led to advances in identifying with others in the same society irrespective of social origins. Elias's analysis of the civilizing process was not confined, however, to explaining changing social bonds within separate societies. The investigation also focused on the division of Europe into sovereign states that were embroiled in struggles for power and security. This article provides an overview and analysis of Elias's principal claims in the light of growing interest in this seminal work in sociology. The analysis shows how Elias defended higher levels of synthesis in the social sciences to explain relations between “domestic” and “international” developments, and changes in social structure and in the emotional lives of modern people. Elias's investigation, which explained long‐term processes of development over several centuries, pointed to the limitations of inquiries that concentrate on short‐term intervals. Only by placing short‐term trends in long‐term perspective could sociologists understand contemporary developments. This article maintains that Elias's analysis of the civilizing process remains an exemplary study of long‐term developments in Western societies over the last five centuries.