Test shot of the French M51 strategic ballistic missile on July 1, 2016 "The US tactical nuclear weapons are in Europe, let us not forget this. Does it mean that the US has occupied Germany or that the US never stopped the occupation after WWII and only transformed that occupation troops into the NATO forces?"... Continue Reading →
According to Othon von Bismarck:
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election." Othon E. Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenberg, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until the 1890s and was the first Chancellor of the German Empire between 1871 and 1890.... Continue Reading →
Book review: The War Puzzle Revisited, by John Vasquez, 2009.
A Syrian forces' artillery observer looks through a scope as smoke plumes rise on the horizon, near the town of Qumhanah in the countryside of the central province of Hama, on April 1, 2017. Photo: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images. Bottom line: this book is interesting. John Vasquez affirms that around 70% of wars happen because of territorial... Continue Reading →
According to Sir Winston Churchill:
"I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father’s house to believe in democracy. ‘Trust the people’—that was his message… I owe my advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants... Continue Reading →
Analysis: On the perks and flaws of the very old idea of “New Nationalism”
"Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism." - George Orwell When Nation-States are born, they remember and reinterpret their pasts.This narrative brings meaning and sense of direction to their members. As countries evolve, they must go back to those pasts and permanently review them, sometimes even adapt them and make them omnipresent, to justify... Continue Reading →
Ted Talk: Is war between China and the US inevitable? by Graham Allison, 2018 (19 m)
Graham Allison is a prominent American political scientist. He is a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1971 he became internationally renowned after the success of his book Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, Remaking Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection, co-written with Peter Szanton, was... Continue Reading →
According to Kenneth Waltz:
"Asking who won a given war, someone has said, is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. That in war there is no victory but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance in the twentieth century." -Man, the State, and War, 1959. Kenneth Neal Waltz ( June 8, 1924... Continue Reading →
Book review: Win, Lose, or Draw, by Allan C. Stam III, 1999.
This is a well-organized and elegant work, however, It lacks a condensing theory, though. The main argument of this work is that domestic politics are the main elements that predetermine the result of an inter-state armed conflict. This is not a new idea; however, it is a novelty in the sense that it challenges presuppositions of... Continue Reading →
Documentary Review: The German Military – Filling the Ranks, by Udo Bauer, 2017 (12 m)
The German military is looking for new recruits. But, where to find them? How to seduce them? Marketing the army was never so difficult as it is today. Becoming a soldier is not a popular career option at this moment in the most successful country of the European Union... The German government has set up... Continue Reading →
Analysis: Brexit: a nightmare of unimagined proportions that might not go away… soon.
"Anybody who's studying the detail of this knows that the moment you leave on the 31st January you then go into the next Brexit negotiation which, by the way, is going to be much tougher than the last one." - Tony Blair The U.K. A positive example for the world... The U.K. has been a... Continue Reading →