Tag Archives: Kenneth Waltz
Richard Falk
Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He initiated this blog partly in celebration of his 80th birthday.
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
Tags
AKP anti-Semitism apartheid Balfour Declaration Barack Obama Biden China citizen pilgrim civil society Climate change Cold War Democracy Democratic Party diplomacy Egypt Erdogan European Union Gaza genocide geopolitics George W. Bush Hamas Hilary Clinton Hiroshima Hosni Mubarak Human rights International Criminal Court international law intervention Iran Iraq Iraq War Israel Israel-Palestine Israel/Palestine Israeli apartheid Jerusalem Libya Middle East militarism NATO Netanyahu New York Times NPT Nuclear disarmament nuclearism nuclear weapons Obama Palestine Palestinian people Palestinian territories peace process racism Richard Falk Russia Saudi Arabia Snowden Soviet Union Syria Tel Aviv Terrorism Trump Turkey Ukraine UN United Nations United Nations Security Council United States Vietnam Vietnam War Washington West Bank world order World War II ZionismRecent Posts
Categories
- 'Abnormal' Japan
- 'Fortress World'
- 'Humaitarian Pause'
- 'New Anti-Semitism'
- 'New' Normal
- 'Normal' Japan
- 'Operation Protective Edge'
- 'Peace Process'
- 'Suspending' Annexation
- 'Voluntary' International Law
- (un)civility
- 13 Demands
- 1915 Genocide
- 1948 War of Independence
- 1967 War
- 1968-69
- 2016 Presidential Election
- 2019
- 2020 Election
- 2020 Presidential Election
- 2020 Presidential Elections
- 2020 Primary
- 2020 U.S. Elections
- 2024 Impperatives
- 9//12 war(s)
- 9/11 + 9/12
- 9/11 Attacks
- 9/11. 9/12
- A Quiet Heart
- A remebrance
- A Sputnik Moment
- aapartheid
- Abbas
- Abdullah Gul
- Abraham Accords
- Abraham Center for Middle East Peace
- academic freedom
- acadmic freedom
- accountability
- Activism
- Adala Urgent Appeal
- Administrative Detention
- Adorno
- Advisory Opinion
- Advocacy Jurisprudence
- Afghanistan
- Africa
- Age
- Ageing
- aggression
- Ahed Tamimi
- Ahmet Davutoglu
- Ahmet Davutoğlu
- AK Party
- AKP
- Al Aqsa Mosque
- al Awda Freedom Flotilla
- al-Shayat Airfield
- Alfred Nobel
- Algeria
- Ali Khamenei
- Ali Mazrui
- alliance
- Altamont Speedway Concert
- Alternative Facts
- Ambon
- America
- America as republic
- American Deep State
- American elections
- American Embassy Seuzure
- American Exceptionism
- American foreign policy
- American Heroes
- American presidential campaign
- American presidential election
- American racism
- American Sniper
- AMEXIT
- Amos Oz
- Anarchy
- and Opponents
- Andrew Ross
- Animal Rights
- Anit-BDS Summit
- anit-Semitism
- annexation
- Anthropocene
- Anti-colonialism
- anti-Israel bias
- anti-Semitism
- anti-Semitism
- Anti-Turkish Campaign
- Anti-Zionism UN Resolution
- Antisemitism
- Antonina Zabinski
- Antonio Guterres
- Antony Blinken
- apartheid
- Apartheid Convention
- Apartheid State
- Apology
- Aquino
- Arab Spring
- Armenia
- Armenian community
- Armenian Genocide
- arms control
- arms sales
- Article 9
- Asian Economic Growth
- aspirational democracy
- asymmetric warfare
- Ataturk
- atomic attacks
- atomic bomb
- Audre Lorde
- Auschwitz
- authoritarianism
- autobiography
- autocracy
- Autocratic Rule
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khpomeini
- Ayça Çubukçu
- Ayça Çubukçu
- Ayelet Shaked
- Azopt
- B'Tselem Report
- Balfour Declaration
- Ban KI-moon
- BAN Treaty
- Barack Obama
- Barbara Walters
- Bashar el-Assad
- Basher al Assad
- BBC
- BDS
- BDS Campaign
- BDS-Bashing
- beauty
- Belgium
- Ben Ali Saleh
- Benjiman Netanyahu
- Berlin Wall
- Bernie Sanders
- Berrigan Brothers
- Bibi Netanyahu
- Biden
- Biden Diplomaccy
- Biden diplomacy
- Biden's foreign policy
- Biden's Middle East Visit
- Big History
- Bil'in
- Bilin
- Bill Clinton
- Bill Cosby
- Binali Yildirim
- binary thinking
- Bio-Ethical Emergency
- Bio-Political Crisis
- Biopolitical Moment
- Bipartisan Consensus
- Blacklisting
- Blocking Comments
- blog boundaries
- blog civility
- blog comments
- Blog ethics
- Bob Kerrie
- Bolsonaro
- book burning
- Bret Stephens
- BREXIT
- BRICS
- British colonialism
- British Mandate
- Brzezinski
- Bush family
- C.J. Polychronious
- Caeser Group
- Cambodia
- campaign fundraising
- capital punishment
- Capitalism
- Capitalist Constraints
- Carl Schmitt
- Caterpillar
- Catholicism
- CATS
- ceasefire
- Ceylan Orhun
- Chaim Weizman
- charismatic resilience
- Charles Blow
- Charlie Hebdo
- Charlottesville
- Chas Freeman
- Chemical Weapons
- Chemical. Weapons
- Cherif Chouachi
- Chernobyl
- child prisoners
- China
- China Rivalry
- Chinese Marxism
- Chomsky
- CHP
- Christian Zionism
- Christmas
- Christopher Kennedy
- citizen pilgrim
- citizenship
- City of
- citzenship
- Ciultural Engagement
- civil disobedience
- civil society
- Civil Society Discourse
- civil society tribunals
- Civil War Scenario
- civility
- Clash of Civiizationss
- Claudia Rankine
- Clean Break
- Climate Change
- climate denial
- climate justice
- Clinton
- Clinton Defeat
- Clinton's belligerence
- Clinton's foreign policy
- CNN
- Coalition for Change
- Coercive Diplomacy
- Cold War
- Colin Kaepernick
- collective punishment
- collective security
- Collective Self-Defense
- Colombia Peace Process
- Colonial Legacies
- colonialism
- Comment Guidelines
- Commentary
- Complexity
- Complicity Crimes
- Compllicity Crimes
- Comprehensive Strategic Partnership
- Conservative Republicans
- Constitutional issues
- consumerism
- contextual and configurative analysis
- Copenhagen failure
- Cornel West
- Coronavirus Pandemic
- Corporate responsibility
- Corrupting. Democracy
- cosmic consciousness
- cosmopolitanism
- Council of Foreign Relations
- counter-terrorism
- Counterinsurgency Tactics
- counterinsurgency warfare
- Counterinsurgency Wars
- Counterrevolution
- counterterrorism
- Coup aftermath
- Coup attempt
- Cour failure
- COVID-19
- COVID-19 Pandemic
- COVIS-19
- Crackpot Optimism
- Craig Hicks
- crime of apartheid
- crime or war
- Crimea
- Crimes against Humanity
- Crimes of Complicity
- Crimes of State
- Criminal Accountability
- Criminal Law
- Criminality
- Crisis of Crises
- Cruelty
- Cruz
- Cuban Revolution
- cultural imagination
- cultural war of aggression
- culture of violence
- cyber attacks
- Dahiya Doctrine
- Damascus consular attack
- Dan Ellsberg
- Daniel Berrigan
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Daniel Falcone
- Daniel Pipes
- Dany Danon
- Dautoglu
- David Krieger
- Davutoglu
- Dayan Jayatilleka
- Deal of the Century
- Deal of. the Century
- debate
- Deborah Sills
- Declaration of Conscience
- Decline of
- decline of democracy
- Decline of International Law
- Deep State
- Deepak Nayyer
- Deepak Tripathi
- Defamation
- Defamatory Comments
- Demagogic Leaders
- demagogue
- Demagogues
- demilitarization
- democracy
- Democracy
- Democratic Candidates
- democratic elections
- Democratic Paarty
- Democratic Party
- Democratic Party foreign policy
- democratic pluralism
- Demographic Bomb
- denuclearization
- Depolarization
- Derrida
- deterrence
- dialogic humility
- dialogue
- Dieudonne
- digital age
- Digital Divide
- Digital Etiquette
- Digital Home
- Digital India
- Diploamacy
- diplomacy
- Diplomacy v. War
- diplomatic initiative
- Diplomatic Protocol
- dipomacy
- disarmament
- discourse
- dispossession
- Disproportionality
- Dombas
- Donald Trump
- Dortmund
- double jeopardy
- double standards
- Douma 2018 Attack
- Douma CW attack
- drone warfare
- drones
- drug prices
- Durban Conference 2001
- Durban Process
- Duterte
- dystopia
- early Christianity
- Earth Charter
- Ebrahim Yazdi
- eco-humanism
- eco-insurgency
- eco-politics
- ecological alienation
- Ecological Civilization
- ecological collapse
- Ecological Constraints
- Ecological Ethos
- Ecological Imperatives
- ecological jurisprudence
- ecology
- economic and social rights
- Economic embargo
- education
- educational reform
- Edward Said
- Edward Snowden
- Effective Control
- Egypt
- Egypt (2011) (2013)
- Ekrem Imamoglu
- electability
- Electoral Aftermath
- Electoral College
- electoral politics
- Elizabeth McAlister
- Elizabeth Warren
- Embassy Move
- ending apartheid
- ending occupation
- Enlightenment
- environmment
- Eqbal Ahmed
- Erdogan
- ESCWA
- ESCWA Report
- ESCWA Report (2017)
- espionage
- Ethical Relevance
- Ethics of Apology
- Ethno-nationalist Moment
- ethnocracy
- ethnographhic moment
- Euromed
- Europe
- European statecraft
- European Union
- European Unity
- Exclusionary Nationalism
- failed coup
- Failed Geopolitics
- failed state
- failing state
- Fakhrizadeh
- False Certainty
- False Consciousness
- fanaticism
- fascism
- Fascist Threat
- Fatah
- Father Miguel D'Escoto
- Fatou Bennssouda
- FDR
- feminism
- Fethullah Gulen
- FETO
- Fetullah extradition
- Fetullah Gulen
- Fidel
- Fidel Castro
- FIFA
- FIFA and Palestinian Football
- Fist Pump Statecraft
- food security
- Force-feedomg
- foreign military bases
- Foreign Policy Magazine
- forever wars
- Forgetting 2019
- forgiveness
- Fouad Ajami
- France
- France and the United States
- Francesca Albanese
- Francis Fukuyama
- Fred Skolnik
- Fredrik Heffermehl
- Freedom Flotilla
- freedom of expression
- friendship
- Fukashima Daiichi
- Fukushima
- Fulbright Vietnam University
- funding terrrorism
- future generations
- Future of Gaza
- G-20
- G-7
- G20 Meeting
- G5
- Gandhi
- Gaza
- Gaza
- Gaza Massacre
- Gaza occupation
- Gaza oppressi
- Gaza/Israel
- Gaza\/Israel Violence
- Gemeva Convention IV
- Gen. Yasem Soleimani
- General el-Burhan
- General Mark Milley
- General Yair Golan
- Geneva IV
- genocide
- Genocide Controversy
- Genocide Convention
- Genocide Convvention
- Genocide-duty to prevent
- Geoecomic Dimensionss
- Geoffrey Darnton
- Geopolitic bersus International Law
- Geopolitical Bribery
- geopolitical buffoonery
- Geopolitical Crime
- Geopolitical Fault Lines
- Geopolitical Futures
- geopolitical laws
- Geopolitical Militarism
- Geopolitical Realignments
- Geopolitical Veto
- Geopolitical War
- geopolitics
- geopolitics of decline
- George H.W. Bush
- George McGovern
- George Shultz
- George W. Bush
- Germany
- Gerry Spence
- Gideon Levy
- Giraffes
- glaucoma
- Global autocracy
- Global Battlefield
- Global Capital
- Global Challenges
- global citizen
- global cooperation
- Global Disorder
- global domination project
- global emergency
- Global Governance
- Global Imperial State
- Global Inequality
- global interest
- global justice
- global leadership
- Global Militarism
- Global Populism
- Global presidency
- global public order
- global reform
- global risks
- global security
- Global Solidarity
- Global State
- global warming
- Gloria Emerson
- Goodaall
- Governaability
- Grand Inquisitor
- Grand Strategy
- Great March of Return
- Great Return March
- Great Transition Network
- Great Transition Network (GTN)
- Greta Thunberg
- Guantanamo
- Guardian of the Walls
- Gujurat
- Gulf Cooperation Council
- Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
- Gulf Crisis
- Gulf Crisis of 2014
- Gulf Monarchies
- gun culture
- Gunnar Myrdal
- hacking
- Haider Eid
- haiku
- Haim Saban
- Hamas
- Hamas Charter
- Hamas Hezbollah
- Hanan Ashrawi
- Hannibal Directive
- Hans Morgenthau
- harmony with nature
- Harrisburg 7
- Harvard University
- hasbara
- Hassan Rouhani
- hate speech
- HDP
- Health
- Heffermehl
- Henry David Thoreau
- Henry Kissinger
- Henry L. Stimson
- Henry Paulson
- Hersch Lauterpacht
- Hewlett Packard
- hibakusha
- Hilary Clinton
- Hilary Clinton's foreign policy
- Hillary Clinton
- Hiroshima
- Hirosshima
- Hirpshima/Nagasaki
- History
- Hizmet
- Hizmet movement
- Ho Chi Minh
- Holocaust
- HOME FIRE
- Hormuz Peace Endeavor
- House of Commons vote
- Houthis
- Huawei
- human interest
- human interests
- Human Rights
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Council
- Human Rights Watch
- human security
- Human Survival
- humanism
- Humanitarian Pause
- humanitarianism
- Humanities
- Hunger Strike
- hunger strikes
- ICC
- ICC Decision
- identity
- ideology
- IHRA Definition of New Anti-Semitism
- III
- Ilhan Omar
- Illiberal State
- Illiberalism
- imagination
- Imelda Marcos
- Imperialism
- Implementation
- impunity
- Incitement to Genocide
- inclusiveness
- indefinite detention
- India
- Indian Wells Tennis Tournament
- Indonesia
- Inner Peace
- Insiders v. Outsiders
- Insurrection
- Interational Law
- internal displacement
- Internation Law
- International & Global Law
- International Chaos
- International Court of Justice
- International Court of Justice (ICJ)
- International Crimes
- International Criminal Court
- International criminal law
- International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People
- International Human Rights
- international humanitarian law
- international law
- international law
- international lawyers
- International Liberal Order
- International reputation
- intervention
- interview
- Iran
- Iran & 2020 US Elections
- Iran (1979)
- Iran Counter-Measures
- Iran Dimension
- Iran diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Agreement
- Iran nuclear diplomacy
- Iran Nuclear Program
- Iran Sanctions
- Iran's nuclear program
- Iran/United States
- Iran/US Confrontation
- Iranian democracy
- Iraq occupation
- Iraq War
- Iraq War Tribunal
- Ireland
- Iron Dome
- ISIS
- Islamic Community
- Islamic Republic
- Islamic Response
- Islamic Revolution
- Islamophobia
- Israel
- Israel elections
- Israel Palestine
- Israel prisons
- Israel's Arms Industry
- Israel's Obligations under IHL
- Israel-Palestine
- Israel/Iran
- Israel/Palestine
- Israel/Palestine
- Israel/United States
- Israel/US
- Israeli 'Democracy'
- Israeli apartheid
- Israeli Apologists
- Israeli assassinations
- Israeli Belligerence
- Israeli Entitlements
- Israeli impunity
- Israeli jurisprudence
- Israeli Law
- Israeli Lobby
- Israeli one-state
- Israeli One-State Solution
- Israeli one-state unilateralism
- Israeli Prisons
- Israeli Security Establishment
- Israeli soul searching
- Israeli war crimes
- Istanbul
- Italy
- Jacob Mchangama
- Jacques Derrida
- Jakarta
- James Douglass
- James Zogby
- January 6th
- Japan
- Japanese poetry
- Jared Kushner
- JCPOA
- Jean Bricmont
- Jeff Halper
- Jeremy Corbyn
- Jeremy Hammond
- Jerusalem
- Jerusalem Resolution
- Jerusalem UN Resolution
- Jerusalem US Embassy Move
- Jewish exceptionalism
- Jewish identity
- Jewish Voices for Peace
- jihadism
- Jill Stein
- Joan Mellen
- Joe Biden
- John Bolton
- John Ikenberry
- John Kasich
- John Kerry
- John Pilger
- Joint Declaration on International Law
- Joint Statement of Opposition
- Jokowi Wadido
- Jonathan Pollard
- Joseph Nye
- Joshua Angrist
- Joshua Oppenheimer
- journalistic ethics
- Juan Manuel Santos
- Julian Assange
- July 15th
- July 15th Coup Attempt
- justice
- Justice & Development Party (AKP)
- Kader Asmal
- Kamila Shameis
- Kamila Shamsie
- Kashmir
- Kashmir
- Kellyanne Conway
- Kenneth Roth
- Kerry Diplomacy
- Khan Sheikhoun
- Khomeini
- Kim Jung-un
- Kissinger
- Kneeling
- knowledge
- Kosovo
- Kurdish conflict
- Kurdish Issues
- Kurdish movement
- Kurdish struggle
- Kurdish victory
- Kurds
- Kyoto
- Laos
- Law and Politics
- Law Enforcement
- Lawfare
- Lawfare Project
- leadership
- leadership crisis
- League of Nations
- Legacies of racism
- Legal Sophistication
- Legitimacy
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy War
- Legitimacy Wars
- Legitimating Apartheid Israel
- Leila De Lima
- liberal
- Liberal Democrats
- Liberal Economic Order
- Liberal Zionism
- liberalism
- Libya
- Lidia Yuknavitch
- lockdown sanctuary
- logic of reciprocity
- lost causes
- luxury
- Macro-corruption
- Macron
- Madrid train bombings
- Mahmoud Abbas
- Majoritarian Democracy
- Makarim Wibisono
- Managerial Approach
- Marc Lamont Hill
- Marc Nerfin
- Marco Rubio
- Marcos
- Mario Savio
- Marjorie Cohn
- Marsahll Islands nuclear zero litigation
- Martin Luther King
- Martin Niemoller
- Marwan Barghouti
- Mattes Letter
- Max Blumenthal
- Max Havelaar
- Mazin Qumsiyeh
- McCain
- ME Disengagement
- ME Nuclearism
- media
- meditative intelligence
- Mega-Terorism
- megaterrorism
- Melvin L. Oliver
- memoir
- Memories
- Mendlovitz
- Mental Health
- Mexico
- Michael Moore
- Michael Oren
- Michael Walzer
- Michelle Bachelet
- Michelle Obama
- Micro-Corruption
- Middle East
- Middle East Forum
- Middle East geopolitics
- Middle Easy
- Miguel d'Escoto
- Mika Brzezinski
- Mike Pompeo
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- militarism
- Military Council
- military intervention
- military technology
- Mira Regev
- Mission for Growth
- Modernity
- Modi
- Mohamed Mahathir
- Mohammed Omer
- Money
- Moral Revolution
- Morning 'Joe'
- Moscow Pro-Trump
- Mossadegh
- Motorola Solutioons
- Muharram Ince
- Multipolarity
- Multituli
- Muslim Brotherhood
- Muslim Response
- My Lai Massacre
- Myanmar genocide
- Nadia Murad
- Nagasaki
- Nakba
- Nakba as Process
- Naomi Klein
- Naomi Osaka
- NAPF
- Naphtali Bennett
- Narendra Modi
- Nasser
- Natanz Facility
- national interest
- national liberation
- National Review
- National Security
- national security legislation
- nationalism
- NATO
- NATO Membership
- Nazi Past
- Nazi period
- Nazism
- Nebraska
- Necessary Utopianism
- needs based development
- Nelly Sachs Prize
- Neoliberal Capitalism
- neoliberalism
- Netanyahu
- netizenship
- New Anti-Semitism
- New Cold War
- new geopolitics
- New New Anti-Semitism
- New Wars
- new world order
- New York Times
- NGOs
- Nicaragua
- Niger
- Nikki Haley
- no first use
- No Fly Zone (NFZ)
- Nobel Peace Forum
- Nobel Peace Prize
- Nobel Prize
- Nobel Prize in Economic
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- Non-intervention
- Non-violent Struggle
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation
- nonproliferation treaty
- Nonviolence
- Nonviolent Global Solidarity
- Nonviolent Resistance
- Nora Erakat
- Normalization Agreements
- normative democracy
- North Carolina murders
- North Korea
- north/south divide
- Noura Erakat
- NPT
- NPT Article IV
- NPT Geopolitics
- NPT Regime
- NPT Review Conference
- NPT Review Conference. TPNW, Ukraine Geopolitics, China, Russia, U,S.
- nuclear age
- Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
- Nuclear Apartheid
- Nuclear Ban Treaty
- nuclear civil disobeidence
- Nuclear Complacency
- Nuclear Disarmament
- Nuclear disarmament
- nuclear education
- Nuclear Famine
- nuclear power
- nuclear securitization
- nuclear war
- Nuclear War Danger
- Nuclear Weapons
- Nuclear Weapons Policy
- nuclearism
- Nuremberg
- Nuremberg Human Rights Award 2017
- Nuremberg Judegment
- Nuremberg Judgment
- Nuremberg Laws
- Nuremberg Obligation
- Nuremberg Principles
- Nuremburg
- NY Times
- Obama
- Obama on nuclear policy
- Obama's foreign policy
- Obama's Irvine Commencement Address
- Obstacle to Peace
- occupation
- Occupied Palestine
- Ohio State memories
- oil
- Okinawa
- Old City of Jerusalem
- old geopolitics
- Omar Barghouti
- Omar el-Bashir
- One-Israel-State-Solution
- One-state
- one-state solution
- One-State Solutions
- One=state Solution
- ONUMAsan
- OPCW-CWC
- OPEC
- OPEc+
- Open Letter to Trump
- Operation Spring Peace
- Oppenheimer
- oppression
- Oppressive Occupation
- Oren Ben-Dor
- Orientalism
- Oslo Approach
- Oslo diplomacy
- Oslo Peace Process
- Oslo Process
- Outlaw State
- P-5
- P5
- P5 +1 Agreement
- Pacification
- Palestine
- Palestine
- Palestine Authority
- Palestine Prisoners
- Palestine statehood
- Palestine/Ireland
- Palestine/Israel
- Palestinian Authority
- Palestinian children prisoners
- Palestinian people
- Palestinian Rights
- Palestinian Self-determination
- Palestinian solidarity
- Palestinian statehood
- Palestinian stone quarries
- Palestinian struggle
- Palestinians
- pandemic
- Paris 2015
- Paris Agreement
- Paris Attacks
- Paris Climate Change Agreement
- Paris Preamble
- partition
- Partition Resolution
- Partition War
- Patriotism
- Patriotism of the Earth
- Paul Findley
- Paul Raskin
- peace
- Peace and Justice
- Peace Diplomacy
- peace journalism
- Peace process
- Peace Scenario
- Peace Talks
- Peace Through Diplomacy
- Peaceful World
- Pearl Harbor
- PEN Ameriica
- Pentagon
- Peres Funeral
- Permanent Occupation
- Persian Gulf
- Personal Background
- Pete Buitigeig
- Peter Handke
- petropolitics
- Philip
- Philip Berrigan
- Philippines
- Phyllis Bennis
- Pitzer College
- Pivot away from Middle East
- Pivot to Asia
- PKK
- Plan B: Colonial Retreat
- Plan C: A Just Peace
- planetary movement
- Planetary Realism
- PLO
- Plowshares 8
- Poems
- POEMS of others
- Poetic Wisdom
- Poetry
- poetry & war
- Poetry as Knowledge
- polarization
- Police Brutality
- Police State
- political assassinations
- political community
- Political Community?
- Political correctness
- political extremism
- political fundraising
- political leadership
- Political Parties
- political prisoners
- political style
- political violence
- Political Will
- Politics of Apology
- Politics of Impossibility
- Politics of Language
- Pompeo
- Pope Francis
- Popular Mobilization
- Popular Vote
- populism
- Populist Representation
- Port Huron Statement
- Portfolio Democrats
- post-colonial colonialism
- post-COVID
- Post-Pandemic
- Post-Pandemic World Order
- Power
- Power as Crime
- Pragmatic Authoritarianism
- Pramoedya
- prayer
- Pre-Facsism
- Pre-Fascism
- Precautionary Principle
- Predatory Capitalism
- Presbyterian Divestment
- President Erdogan
- Presidential Campaign
- Presidential System
- Primary Campaign
- Princeton
- Princeton memories
- Princeton Senior Thesis
- Princeton Thesis
- Princeton University
- procedural democracy
- progressive
- Progressive Lawfare
- Progressive politics
- Progressive Populism
- Progressiveness
- Protection of Holy Sites
- Protective Edge
- public intellectual
- Punitive Peace
- Putin
- Qaddafi
- Qassim Soleimani
- Qatar
- QGOs
- Quran Desecration
- R2P
- R2P Diplomacy
- racialized language
- racism
- Radical Humanism
- Rafael Lemkin
- Rainforests
- Ralph Nader
- Ralph Schoenman
- Ramsey Clark
- ran
- Rashida Tlaib
- Razan al-Najjar
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
- reconciliation
- red lines
- Reflections
- Reform
- refugee law
- refugees/migrantss
- regime change
- regional conflict
- Regional Disengagement
- regional governance
- Regressive Lawfare
- Religion
- religious counterrevolution
- Religious Zionism
- Remembering Mueller
- reparations
- representation
- republican democracy
- Republican Party
- republicanism
- Resistance
- Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
- Restorative Diplomacy
- Retaliation and Law
- Retreat from Globalization
- Reuven Rivlin
- Revolution
- Richard Fa;lk
- Richard Falk
- Richard Goldstone
- Richard Haass
- Richard Kemp
- Right to Food
- Rima Khalaf
- risk management
- Risky Business
- Robert Faurisson
- Robert Kaplan
- Robert Mueller
- Robert O Paxton
- Robin Nisblett
- Roger Cohen
- Roger Federer
- rogue states
- Rome
- Ronald Reagan
- Rosemary Tylka
- Rouhani
- rule of law
- rules of the game
- Rules-Based-International-Order
- Russell Tribunal
- Russia
- Russian hacking
- Ryōkan
- Sakamoto
- Salmon Rushdie
- Samer Issawi
- Samuel Huntington
- Sanctions
- Sanders
- Sanders and Warren
- Sanders' Revolution
- Santa Barbara Fires
- Sarin Gas
- Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Royal Family
- SC Res. 242
- Schoenman's Legacy
- Science of Peace
- Scientific Consensus
- Sean MacBride
- Second Axial Age
- Second Cold War
- Secretary General
- sectarian warfare
- Sectarianism
- Secular one-state
- secular Zionism
- secularism
- security
- Security Council
- Security Council veto
- Security Councull veto
- Selection Process
- Self-defense
- self-determination
- Self-Immolaation
- Self-reflections
- Selma
- semantics
- Separation Wall
- Sepp Blatter
- Serbia
- Serena Williams
- Settlement Outposts
- Settlements
- settler colonialism
- sexism
- Shaman Peres
- SHAPE
- Sharpevile
- SHEEL-SHOCKED
- Shimon Peres
- Shinzo Abe
- Shireen Abu Akleh
- Shireen Issawi
- Shlomo Sand
- Shooting the Messenger
- Silicon Valley
- Sisi
- Smearing BDS
- Social & Economic Rights
- social welfare
- Socialism
- Soft Power Balances
- South Africa
- South Africa: ICJ
- South African apartheid
- Sovereignty
- Special Counsel
- Special Rapporteur
- Special Rapporteur on Palestine
- Special Relationship
- Special Relationship (Israel)
- Special Relationship (Saudi Arabia)
- Special Relationships
- Special Relationships-Israel/Saudi Arabia
- Species Idenity
- species survival
- Spirituality
- sportsmanship
- Spyware
- state building
- State of the Union
- State of the Union Address
- state system
- state terrorism
- State-Building
- state-centric versus earth-centric
- State-centric world
- State-Centricism
- State-Centriism
- Statism
- Stefan Andersson
- Stephen Rappp
- Stephen Zunes
- Steven Salaita
- Stockholm Agreement
- Stuart Rees
- Student Activism
- Study Abroad Program
- Sub-Species Identity
- Subsiding Iron Dome
- substantive democracy
- Sudan
- Suharto
- Sukarno
- superdelegates
- suppression
- Supreme Grace
- Surveillance
- sustainability
- sustainable peace
- Sweden
- Swedish initiative
- Swedish recognition pledge
- Sykes-Picot
- Sykes-Picot Agreement
- Symbolic Politics
- Syria
- Syria Withdrawal
- Syrian ceasefire
- Syrian Dilemma
- Syrian Visits
- Syrian war crimes
- Syrian Withdrawal
- T.S. ELIOT
- Tahrir Square
- Taiwan
- Taliban
- Targeted Killing
- Technological Competition
- Ted Cruz
- Tedros Adhanan Grebreyerus
- Temple Mount and Western Wall
- Temple University
- tennis
- TEPCO
- Terrorism
- terrorism
- terrorist
- Thanksgiving
- The Deal of the Century
- The Economist
- The Orwellian State
- Third Parties
- Thomas Friedman
- Thomas Jefferson
- Threats of Force
- Three Pillars
- Three Pillars of American foreign policy
- Timothy Brennan
- Timothy Snyder
- Titanic
- Tom Friedman
- Toni Morrison
- torture
- TPNW
- traitor
- Transcivilizational Approach
- Transformational Approach
- Transformational Horizons
- Transhuman
- Transnational Activism
- travel ban
- treason
- Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- tribalism
- Trumism
- Trump
- Trump Criminal Accountability
- Trump Diplomacy
- Trump Era
- Trump Foreign Policy
- Trump nationalism
- Trump obsession
- Trump Presidency
- Trump's 'Maximum Pressure'
- Trump's Deal
- Trump's Deal of the Century
- Trump's demonic worldview
- Trump's foreign policy
- Trump's geopolitics
- Trump's Inaugural Address
- Trump's worldview
- Trumpism
- Trumpt
- Tsitsipas Generation
- Tsutomu Yamaguchi
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkey
- Turkey-Yemen
- Turkish Coup Attempt
- Turkish domestic politics
- Turkish Elections
- Turkish Electiuons
- Turkish foreign policy
- Turkish leadership
- Turkish Municipoal Elections
- Turkish November elections
- Twitter tweets
- two-state consensus
- Two-State Solution
- Two-State-Solution
- Two-states
- U.S. Congress
- U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Constitutionalism
- U.S. Foreign Policy
- U.S. Global State
- U.S. Government role
- U.S. Presidential Election in 2024
- U.S. Sanctions
- U.S. State Department
- U.S./Israel Alliance
- U.S./Russia Relations
- UAE
- UDHR
- Ukraine
- Ukraine War
- Ukraine War Geopolics
- Ukraine Wars
- ultra-nationalism
- UN
- UN 'shame list'
- UN Anti-Racism
- UN Balance Sheet
- UN Charter
- UN Commission of Inquiry
- UN funding
- UN Human Rights Council
- UN Multilateralism
- UN Reform
- UN Responsibility
- UN Secretary General
- UN Security Council
- UN Security Council Veto
- UN Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- UN veto
- UN Watch
- Uncategorized
- Uncertainty
- underground homes
- UNESCO
- Unipolarity
- United Nat
- United Nations
- United States
- United States
- United States alliance
- United States Congress
- United States foreign policy
- United States response
- Uniting for Peace Resolution
- Unity Government
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- universal jurisdiction
- University of Illinois
- Unjust World
- UNSC 2334
- Updating ESCWA Report
- US 'Special Relationships'
- US Congress
- US interference
- US-Israel Special Relationship
- US/Iran Relations
- US/Saudi Relations
- USS Liberty
- utopianism
- Vanunu
- Venus Williams
- Versailles Peace Treaty
- Veto Power
- Victors' Justice
- Victory Caucus
- Victory Scenario
- Vienna Talks
- Vietnam
- Vietnam and Palestine
- Vietnam Lessons
- Vietnam Syndrome
- Vietnam War
- Virginia Tilley
- Vision of Prague
- Voluntary Agreement
- Wahabbism
- Wahabism
- Walden Bello
- Wall Street
- war crimes
- War Dangers
- war journalism
- war making
- War on Terror
- war prevention
- Warsaw Ghetto
- Warsaw Zoo
- Weaponizing Lawfare
- Weinberger Doctrine
- Wesphalian Model
- West
- West Bank
- West Point
- Westphalia
- Westphalian Representation
- whistleblowing
- WHO
- Wider War Option
- William Barr
- William Schabas
- William Sullivan
- wisdom
- Women's March
- WOMP
- Woodrow Wilson
- world citizen
- World Court
- World Economy
- world government
- World Government Research Network
- world order
- World Order Models Project
- World Parliament
- World Politics
- World War I
- World War I diplomacy
- worldview
- Xi Jinping
- Yazidi people
- Yeats
- Yemen
- Yemen Intervention
- Yenkapi Rally
- Youth
- YPG
- Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Zelensky
- Zionism
- Zionisrt Regimes of Thought Control
- Zionist Pressure
- Zionist Project
- Zombie Solution
- zoo animals
Join 7,912 other subscribers
Kenneth Waltz is not Crazy, but he is Dangerous: Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East
6 JulIt seems surprising that the ultra-establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, would go to the extreme of publishing a lead article by the noted political scientist, Kenneth Waltz, with the title “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” in its current issue. It is more the reasoning of the article than the eye-catching title that flies in the face of the anti-proliferation ethos that has been the consensus lynchpin of nuclear weapons states, and especially the United States. At the same time, Waltz takes pain to avoid disavowing his mainstream political identity. He echoes without pausing to reflect upon the evidence undergirding the rather wobbly escalating assumption that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons at this time. Waltz does acknowledge that Iran might be only trying to have a ‘breakout’ capability of the sort long possessed by Japan and several other countries, that is, the technological capacity if facing a national emergency to assemble a few bombs in a matter of months. Nowhere does Waltz allude to the recently publicized agreement among the 14 American intelligence agencies that there is no evidence that Iran has decided to resume its military program that had been reportedly abandoned in 2003. In other ways, as well, Waltz signals his general support for the American approach to Israeli security other than in relation to nuclear weapons, and so, it should be clear, Waltz is not a political dissenter, a policy radical, nor even a critic of Israel’s role in the region.
Waltz’s Three Options
Waltz insists that aside from the breakout option, there are two other plausible scenarios worth considering: sanctions and coercive diplomacy to induce Iran “to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” which he deems unlikely to overcome a genuine appetite for the bomb, or Iran defies the pressures and acquires nuclear weapons, which he regards as the most desirable of the three options. It seems reasonable to wonder ‘why.’ In essence, Waltz is arguing that experience and logic demonstrate that the relations among states become more stable, less war-prone, when a balance is maintained, and that there is no reason to think that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons it would not behave in accordance with the deterrence regime that has discouraged all uses of nuclear weapons ever since 1945, and especially during the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this regard, Waltz is expressing what I regard to be a wildly exaggerated faith in the rationality and prudence of leaders who make decisions on matters of war and peace.
He does make a contextual argument that I mostly agree with, namely, that Israel alone possessing a regional nuclear monopoly is more dangerous and undesirable than Iran becoming a second nuclear weapons state in the region. In effect, a regional nuclear monopolist is worse than a regional system of balance that incorporates deterrence logic. For Israel to be deterred would contribute to peace and security in the region, and this seems likely to reduce somewhat, although at a level of risk far short of zero, the prospect of any use of nuclear weapons and other forms of aggression in the Middle East. But to say that A (Iran gets the bomb) is better than B (breakout capability but no bomb) and C (sanctions and coercive diplomacy induce Iran to forego bomb) is to forget about D, which is far better than A, B, and C in relation to sustainable stability, but also because it represents an implicit acknowledgement that the very idea of basing security upon the threat to annihilate hundreds of thousand, if not more, innocent persons is a moral abomination that has already implicated the nuclear weapons states in a security policy, which if ever tested by threat and use, would be genocidal, if not omnicidal, and certainly criminal. This anti-nuclear posture was substantially endorsed by a majority of judges in a groundbreaking Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on 8 July 1996, although these strong findings as to international law were, not surprisingly, cast aside and ignored by the nuclear weapons states, most defiantly by the United States.
The Case for Option D
What then is Option D? Option D would involve the negotiation and implementation of a nuclear weapons free zone throughout the Middle East (MENFZ), reinforced by non-aggression commitments, normalization of economic and political relations, and ideally accompanied by genuine progress toward a just and sustainable Palestine/Israel peace accord. Significantly, Waltz does not even pause to consider it as in all likelihood he regards such an approach as completely inconsistent with the hard power realities of global diplomacy, making it foolish and irrelevant to take the possibility of a MENFZ seriously. Needless to say, D is also not in the Netanyahu playbook, and quite likely no future Israeli leader will be prepared to give up the nuclear weapons arsenal that Israel has been consistently acquiring and developing over the last four decades. And it seems fair to conjecture that anyone who proposes a MENFZ would be at odds with the realist camp in international relations, and such a piece would almost certainly be rejected by the editors of Foreign Affairs, among the most ardent guardians of the realist status quo.
Waltz’s preference for A, favoring an Iranian bomb, is an extension of his long-standing belief that proliferation as actually desirable based on a view of global security that depends on sustaining power balances. In my judgment this carries confidence in the logic of deterrence (that is, the rationality of not using the bomb because of a fear of nuclear retaliation) to absurd degrees that go well beyond even the extreme rationality relied upon by the most influential war thinkers during the Cold War era. In this sense, Waltz is correct to equate the Middle East with the rest of the world, and not engage in the widespread practice of ethno-religious profiling: that is, Israel’s bomb is okay because it is a rational and ‘Western,’ while Iran’s bomb would be a world order disaster as it is irrational and governed by Islamic zealots that have declared their implacable hostility to Israel. If such distinctions are to be made, which is doubtful, it should be appreciated that Israel is the antagonist that has been threatening war and pushing for coercive diplomacy, while it is Iran that has so far peacefully tolerated a variety of severe provocations, acts of war, such as the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists, the infecting of its enrichment centrifuges with the Stuxnet virus, and verified violent covert acts designed to destabilize the Tehran regime. Had such incidents been reversed, it is more than 100% likely that Israel would have immediately gone to war against Iran, quite likely setting the entire region on fire.
Objections to Option A
My basic objection to the Waltz position is a disagreement with two of his guiding assumptions: first, with respect to the region, that other countries would not follow Iran across the nuclear threshold, an assessment he bases largely on their failure to acquire nuclear weapons in response to Israel’s acquisition of the capability. Surely Saudi Arabia and Turkey would not, for reasons of international status and perceived security, want to be non-nuclear states in a neighborhood in which both Israel and Iran had the bomb. Such an expansion of the regional nuclear club would become more prone to accident, miscalculation, and the sort of social and political pathology that makes nuclear weaponry generally unfit for human use in a conflict, whatever the region or occasion. In this respect, the more governments possess the bomb, the more likely it becomes that one of those horrible scenarios about a nuclear war will become history.
And secondly, Waltz does not single out nuclear weapons for condemnation on either ethical or prudential grounds. In fact, he seems to hold the view that we can be thankful for the bomb as otherwise the Cold War would likely have resulted in a catastrophic World War III. In my view to have sought the bomb and then used it against the helpless Japanese at the end of World War II was certainly one of the worst instances of Promethean excess in human history, angering not only the gods but exhibiting a scary species death wish. Leaders have acknowledged this moral truth from time to time, most recently by Barack Obama in his 2009 Prague speech calling for a world without nuclear weapons, but politicians, including Obama, seem unable and unwilling to take the heat that following through would certainly entail. In the end, anti-nuclearism for leaders seems mainly an exercise in rhetoric, apparently persuasive in Norway where the Nobel Prize committee annually ponders the credentials of candidates, but without any behavioral consequences relating to the weaponry itself. To be sure nuclear policies are challenged from time to time by a surge of anti-nuclear populism. In this regard, to favor the acquisition of the bomb by any government or political organization is to embrace the nuclearist fallacy relating to security and the absurd hubris of presupposing an impeccable rationality over long stretches of time, which has never been the case in human affairs.
The secrecy surrounding policy bearing on nuclear weapons, especially the occasions of their possible use, also injects an absolutist virus into the vital organs of a democratic body politic. There is no participation by the people or even their representatives in relation to this most ultimate of political decisions, vesting in a single person, and perhaps including his most intimate advisors, a demonic capability to unleash such a catastrophic capability. We now know that even beyond the devastation and radiation, the smoke released by the use of as few as 50 nuclear bombs would generate so much smoke as to block sunlight from the earth for as long as a decade, dooming much of the agriculture throughout the world, a dynamic that has been called ‘a nuclear famine.’ As disturbing as such a possibility should be to those responsible for the security of society, there is little evidence that such a realization of the secondary effects of nuclear explosions is even present in political consciousness. And certainly the citizenry is largely ignorant of such a dark eventuality bound up with the retention of nuclear weapons.
It is for these reasons that I would call Kenneth Waltz dangerous, not crazy. Indeed, it is his extreme kind of instrumental rationality that is dominant in many influential venues, and helps explain the development, possession, and apparent readiness to use nuclear weapons under certain conditions despite the risks and the immorality of the undertaking. If human society is ever to be again relatively safe, secure, and morally coherent, a first step is to renounce nuclear weapons unconditionally and proceed with urgency by way of an agreed, phased, monitored, and verified international agreement to ensure their elimination from the face of the earth. It is not only that deterrence depends on perfect rationality over time and across space, it is also that the doctrine and practices of deterrence amounts to a continuing crime against humanity of unprecedented magnitude and clarity!
Tags: Cold War, Iran, Israel, Kenneth Waltz, Middle East, Nuclear weapon, United States, Waltz