Week: Academic Perspectives

Academic Perspectives

The US and Nuclear Weapons: A Turning of the Tide?

Peacekeeper missile after silo launch, Vandenberg AFB, CA.
USAF/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by The Strategist (ASPI) on 27 August, 2014.

Given the intensity of media focus on a series of crises this year—Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Ebola, and the South China Sea to name just a few—readers may be forgiven for having failed to notice that another important, though more incremental, development has also occurred. With each passing month it becomes clearer that a mood of nuclear realism is unfolding in US strategic policy. While President Obama is still remembered most clearly in the public mind for the anti-nuclear language in his Prague speech of 2009, a string of events in 2013–14 suggest that a shift of emphasis is occurring in relation to nuclear weapons.

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The Missing Link in Understanding Global Trends? Demography

Population density. Data from the G-Econ project gecon.yale.edu/
Image: Anders Sandberg/Flickr

This article was originally published on 11 August 2014 by New Security Beat, the blog of the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) at the Wilson Center.

Since the end of World War II, a number of the world’s most dramatic political events have resulted from demographic shifts and government reaction to them. Despite this, political demography remains a neglected topic of scholarly investigation.

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After Joining the WTO, What’s Next for Laos?

Image: Government of Thailand/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by the East Asia Forum on 9 August 2014.

Earlier this year Laos celebrated the first anniversary of its WTO membership. Laos’ accession to the WTO has been less talked about than that of its neighbours China and Vietnam, who joined the organisation in 2001 and 2007, respectively. This is partly due to Laos being a small, landlocked economy whose accession would not be expected to make a big impact on international trade.

But Laos’ clout is more than may first appear.

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New World Disorder – How We Got Here

Image: Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia

This article was originally published by NewPopulationBomb on 29 July 2014.

The world is in extraordinary turmoil — a violent Islamic Caliphate overturning the borders of Syria and Iraq; a war in Europe pitting Russia and pro-Russian rebels against the new regime in Ukraine; Israel invading Gaza and trading rocket exchanges with Hamas; Egypt, Libya and Yemen disrupted by the Arab uprisings; confrontations among Japan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines in the South and East China Seas; and gang wars in Central America driving thousands of young families and children across borders. Worse yet, Europe is caught up in its own internal squabbles, leaving the U.S. without the full support of its most powerful and reliable allies in dealing with these crises.

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Dispatches From the Robot Wars; Or, What is Posthuman Security?

Image: Kevin L. Moses Sr./Wikimedia

This article was originally published by The Disorder of Things on 24 July 2014.

“So when are the intergalactic robot wars coming?” This is a question I’ve been asked (more than once) by colleagues who’ve heard that I’m working on posthumanist thought and international security. The implication is that what I’m doing is a kind of science fiction. Well, there’s definitely science (including robots – see below) and a rich fictional literature to draw on, but it’s not taking place in a galaxy far, far away. It’s very much rooted in, and attuned to, this planet.

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