A World Going in the Wrong Direction

The converging crises facing our world today shout out the fact that their roots are systemic. Tinkering around the edges won’t solve these problems, because they are embedded in the systems logic itself. The climate crisis is the signature of this. While definite progress has been made in deploying low-carbon energy technologies, overall carbon pollution has continued to increase because of the systemic economic and political assumptions under which dominant institutions operate. More

An Escalatory Game for Fools and Madmen

In the past 30 years, the number of nuclear-armed nations has grown. Arms treaties have been broken, including unilaterally and without merit by my own country. Modernization of nuclear forces by all parties has greatly increased the destructive capability of missile and bomber fleets, so even though numbers and yields of nuclear weapons have diminished, improved accuracy has increased the destructive power of those fleets. There are warheads designated as “usable” nuclear weapons. Disturbingly, we have generals, diplomats and politicians who believe such things exist. More

The United States and the Middle East: the Politics of Miscalculation

The U.S. experience in the Middle East is a classic study of political and military miscalculation leading to strategic failure.  President Joe Biden’s political support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is being sorely tested, and his military support for Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which is making the United States complicit in Israel’s genocidal campaign, is the latest and worst example of U.S. miscalculation.  Overall, the exercise of U.S. military power in the Middle East, designed to gain strategic advantage, has backfired.  It has led to disarray in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, and has opened diplomatic opportunities for Russia and China. More

Europe Sleepwalks Through Its Own Dilemmas

On March 19, 2024, the head of France’s ground forces, General Pierre Schill, published an article in the newspaper, Le Monde, with a blunt title: “The Army Stands Ready.” Schill cut his teeth in France’s overseas adventures in the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Somalia. In this article, General Schill wrote that his troops are “ready” for any confrontation and that he could mobilize 60,000 of France’s 121,000 soldiers within a month for any conflict. He quoted the old Latin phrase—“if you want peace, prepare for war”—and then wrote, “The sources of crisis are multiplying and carry with them risks of spiraling or extending.” More