The Paranoia of the Powerful: Thucydides on World War III

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 10-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Ned Lebow
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
History Of ◽  
World War Iii ◽  
Insight Into

In the sixteenth year of the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian expedition descended upon the small island of Melos, about 90 miles south of Athens in the Aegean Sea, and demanded that the Melians join in alliance or be destroyed. Although a Spartan colony, Melos had remained scrupulously neutral in the war. Her citizens, unwilling to renounce their independence, sought unsuccessfully to dissuade the Athenians from attacking them. The Athenians explained that an independent Melos situated in the very heart of the Athenian imperium encouraged other island allies to aspire toward independence. Their failure to put an end to the anomaly of Melian independence would therefore be seen by friend and foe alike as a sign of weakness on Athens' part.The really intriguing question about the Melian dialogue is not the Athenian decision to invade Melos but rather Athenian toleration of Melian independence for the first sixteen years of the Peloponnesian War. For surely, if Melian independence constituted a threat to Athens in 416 B.C. it must have done so in 430 B.C., the year in which the war broke out, and in all of the years in between. Why then did Athens wait so long to impose its hegemony over the island? The answer, implicit in Thucydides' narrative history of the Peloponnesian War, contains an important insight into the nature of aggression, one, moreover, that is particularly germane to contemporary international relations.The Athenian reply to the Melians stresses the subjective nature of power; if others think of you as powerful, you are powerful andvice versa. For this reason, states must be concerned about their image abroad and must from time to time offer vivid demonstrations of their capability and resolve. The Athenian invasion of Melos, unnecessary for any strategic reason, was envisaged as such a display.

AI Narratives

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Intelligent Machines ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Imaginative Thinking ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real artificial intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed, and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing prehistory of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerged alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI’s social, ethical, and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphization, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

Restoring the Memory of the Forgotten Dutch Embroidery Designer Nellie van Rijsoort

Costume ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Marta Kargól
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Second World ◽  
Insight Into

In 1932, Nellie van Rijsoort (1910–1996), the Dutch embroidery maker and designer, opened her atelier in Rotterdam. Among her clients were prestigious fashion stores in the Netherlands as well as wealthy middle-class customers. After the Second World War, van Rijsoort left Rotterdam and continued her career in Melbourne in the rapidly developing fashion network of Australia. Today, samples of embroidered fabrics and fashion drawings by Nellie van Rijsoort are part of the collections of the Museum Rotterdam and the National Trust of Australia in Melbourne. These collections provide insight into half a century of history of embroidered fabrics. This article illustrates the largely forgotten career of the embroidery designer. The first part of the article outlines the position and meaning of van Rijsoort's atelier in the fashion networks of the Netherlands and Australia, while the second part provides an analysis of embroidery samples and drawings, which reveal the place and function of embroideries as dress decorations.

Korea 1905–1945

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ku Daeyeol
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial Korea ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Second World

This important new study by one of Korea’s leading historians focuses on the international relations of colonial Korea – from the Japanese rule of the peninsula and its foreign relations (1905–1945) to the ultimate liberation of the country at the end of the Second World War. In addition, it fills a significant gap – the ‘blank space’ – in Korean diplomatic history. Furthermore, it highlights several other fundamental aspects in the history of modern Korea, such as the historical perception of the policy-making process and the attitudes of both China and Britain which influenced US policy regarding Korea at the end of World War II.

History and International Relations

Mind-Society ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 228-256
Author(s):  
Paul Thagard
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
General Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Insight Into

Historical explanation and the understanding of international relations can be enhanced by applying detailed psychological, neural, and social mechanisms to real-world events. By applying the method of social cognitive-emotional workups to the origins of World War I, this chapter shows the relevance of an integrated account of beliefs, concepts, values, rules, analogies, metaphors, emotions, inferences, and communication. The result transcends the limitations of purely narrative explanations in history and provides insight into why the field of international relations has lacked a satisfactory general theory. Explaining social changes in both groups and individuals requires understanding the communicative interactions of cognitive-emotional minds; the result is mechanistic-narrative explanation. Dealing with complex historical developments such as the outbreak of wars requires solution of the person–group problem.

Who f(o)unded IR: American philanthropies and the discipline of International Relations in Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deniz Kuru
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Disciplinary History ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Narratives ◽  
Major Factors

This article aims to present a history of International Relations (IR) that looks at the role of three big American foundations (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations) in the development of IR as an academic field in continental Europe. Its framework goes beyond the usual disciplinary history narratives that focus on IR’s US or UK trajectories, pointing instead to American foundations’ interwar and early post–World War II influence on French and German IR. The cases emphasize US foundations’ interactions with European scholars and international scholarly organizations as major factors shaping IR’s developmental pathways. This study offers a way to consider foundations’ role in IR’s gradual academic institutionalization by connecting disciplinary historical approaches to disciplinary sociology. Its sociologically conscious position underlines the significance of American philanthropies in a historical narrative and recognizes the relevance of transnational dynamics by going beyond usual emphases on ideas and national contexts.

School for Statesmen?

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-262
Author(s):  
William W. Kaufmann
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Effective Training ◽  
The Future ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Gaining Insight

The history of international relations has lent itself to many uses. Its narrators have employed the tangled web of intention, maneuver, alliance, and war to vindicate or besmirch men's reputations, prove the guilt or innocence of nations in conflict, enrich traditions, furnish precepts for the present, and provide guides to the future. Their activity has gone on for a very long time and the product of their research has grown enormous. Presumably such a vast and varied output reflects a number of needs and interests. But is its perusal a useful way of gaining insight into the varied problems of international politics? More, as diplomatic history customarily is written, does it constitute an effective training ground for statesmen?

‘Where are we going?’ International Relations and the voice from below

1999 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER HILL
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Second World

They tell us that the Pharoahs built the pyramids. Well, the Pharoahs didn't lift their little fingers. The pyramids were built by thousands of anonymous slaves . . . and it's the same thing for the Second World War. There were masses of books on the subject. But what was the war like for those who lived it, who fought? I want to hear their stories.Writing about international relations is in part a history of writing about the people. The subject sprang from a desire to prevent the horrors of the Great War once again being visited upon the masses and since then some of its main themes have been international cooperation, decolonisation, poverty and development, and more recently issues of gender.

The Laws of War in Ancient Greece

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan Lanni
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Equal Power

One of the earliest and the most famous statements of realism in international law comes from ancient Greece: the Melian dialogue in history of the Peloponnesian War. In 416 B.C.E., the Athenians invaded Melos, a small island in the Aegean that sought to remain neutral and avoid joining the Athenian empire. Thucydides presents an account of the negotiation between the Athenians and the Melian leaders. The Athenians offer the Melians a choice: become a subject of Athens, or resist and be annihilated. The Melians argue, among other things, that justice is on their side. The Athenians dismiss arguments from justice as irrelevant and reply with a statement that many scholars believe represents view: “We both alike know that in human reckoning the question of justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.”

scholarly journals EMSIAC Wars

Extrapolation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Mike Ryder
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
World War ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Drone Warfare ◽  
World War Iii ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

Bernard Wolfe’s dystopian satire Limbo (1952) remains a critically under-discussed work, and despite its many controversies, offers important insight into the ethical dilemmas surrounding modern-day drone warfare and human-machine relations. While the EMSIAC war computers in Limbo may be blamed for World War III, they are only ever a scapegoat to shift blame away from the humans who follow orders blindly, and themselves behave much like machines. To this end, this paper will explore the ethical implications of Wolfe’s novel and what it means for the way we wage wars with robotic drones controlled by humans from afar.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document