A Match Made in “Outer Heaven:”

2014 ◽  
pp. 248-282
Author(s):  
Jorge Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Digital Rhetoric ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
War Economy ◽  
Ideological Criticism ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
Made In

The stealth-action videogame Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features the tired heroics of Solid Snake (also known as Old Snake), a retired, legendary soldier whose services are demanded one last time by a world in perpetual war. This epic game, containing almost ten hours of cutscenes alone, delineates the consequences not only of nuclear proliferation, but of mass (re)production in a digital age. In this fourth and final entry in the Solid Snake saga the two go hand-in-hand: a nuclear age exacerbated by advanced technology, advanced technology proliferated under the banner of a post-Cold War war economy. In this chapter, Kenneth Burke's rhetoric of rebirth and Slavoj Žižek's ideological criticism, along with several ludological frameworks, are adopted to show how various multiliteracies can be unearthed from this artifact of digital rhetoric. The chapter closes with implications for digital rhetoric studies.

A Match Made in “Outer Heaven:”

Gamification ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 159-193
Author(s):  
Jorge Gomez
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Digital Rhetoric ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
War Economy ◽  
Ideological Criticism ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
Made In

The stealth-action videogame Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features the tired heroics of Solid Snake (also known as Old Snake), a retired, legendary soldier whose services are demanded one last time by a world in perpetual war. This epic game, containing almost ten hours of cutscenes alone, delineates the consequences not only of nuclear proliferation, but of mass (re)production in a digital age. In this fourth and final entry in the Solid Snake saga the two go hand-in-hand: a nuclear age exacerbated by advanced technology, advanced technology proliferated under the banner of a post-Cold War war economy. In this chapter, Kenneth Burke's rhetoric of rebirth and Slavoj Žižek's ideological criticism, along with several ludological frameworks, are adopted to show how various multiliteracies can be unearthed from this artifact of digital rhetoric. The chapter closes with implications for digital rhetoric studies.

A Research Agenda for the Study of Peaceful Change in World Politics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
T.V. Paul ◽  
Harold A. Trinkunas ◽  
Anders Wivel ◽  
Ralf Emmers
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Mechanisms Of Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Made In

This concluding chapter offers a summary and evaluation of the key ideas contained in the chapters of this Handbook. The chapter discusses peaceful change in terms of conceptual clarity; historical evolution of scholarship in the area, especially the interwar, Cold War, and post–Cold War era efforts at analyzing the concepts; and the policy innovations in this realm. This is followed by an evaluation of the key umbrella theories of international relations—realism, liberalism, and constructivism—and how they approach peaceful change. Some important sources and mechanisms of change are analyzed. This is followed by discussion of the policy contributions of selected great and rising powers toward peaceful change. The chapter then offers a summary of contributions and progress that various regions have made in the area of peaceful change. It concludes with some ideas for future research while highlighting the significance of the subject matter for international relations and the world order.

Islam, the West, and Ethnonationalism

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Iftikhar Malik
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Western View ◽  
New Generation

Western analysis, due to its dangerous oversimplification of Islam and othermatters in the Muslim world, has traditionally seen the appearance of anyindigenous movement calling for change and improvement in the name of Islamas a major threat. Muslims continue to be viewed in the stereotypical perspectiveof the “us-against-them” syndrome, a practice which prevents a propercomprehension of the dynamics and dilemmas faced by Muslims in thepostcolonial era. The Western media and, to some extent, academia thrive onsuch themes as minority rights, nuclear proliferation, human rights, anddemocracy, which they use as barometers. Based on the data which they collect,they then pass sweeping decrees about Muslim countries. Internal diversity andconflict receive a great deal of attention, whereas human achievements andcivilizational artifacts are considered as “foreign” to the Muslim ethos. Islamas a religion is reduced to so-called “fundamentalism” and a mere puritanicaland/or coercive theological orthodoxy. Moreover, no distinction is made betweenIslam as a religion and Muslim cultures and societies, nor between Muslimaspirations for unity and the realities of national and ethnic differentiation. Theresult is a Western view which both distorts and demonizes a large part of theMuslim world.As if this were not enough, Muslims in the post-Cold War era are now beingpresented and “imagined” as the next enemy. Among the factors responsible forthis are a) the multiple nature of the Muslim world, given its geostrategic locationright next to Europe; b) Islam as the second major religion in the West; and c)the assertion of a new generation of Muslim expatriate communities at a time ...

12. The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 202-219
Author(s):  
C. Dale Walton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the role played by nuclear weapons in international politics during and after the cold war, making a distinction between the First Nuclear Age and the ongoing Second Nuclear Age. After providing a background on the First Nuclear Age, the chapter considers the various risks present in the Second Nuclear Age, focusing on issues related to nuclear deterrence, nuclear proliferation networks, strategic culture, and ballistic missile defences. It then discusses the assumption that arms control and disarmament treaties are the best means to further counterproliferation efforts. It also assesses the future of nuclear weapons and whether the world is facing a Third Nuclear Age before concluding with an analysis of the relevance of deterrence in the face of changing political and technological circumstances.

Contesting Identity

2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 423-436
Author(s):  
Sanjeev Kumar H.M.
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
War Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Cold War

The interface between religion and politics has become strong in the wake of expansion of modernity in its contemporary form. This can be regarded as cultural globalization. To interpret this phenomenon, the demonization of Islam by the West led by the US has been taken as a key epistemological point. This article argues that this policy, framed as part of the American strategy in the global war on terrorism, has constituted a key component of the larger US agenda. One facet of this agenda is primarily related to America’s bid to perpetuate the institutional structure of the permanent war economy envisaged during the Cold War period. The structure consists of the vocational interests of the arms lobby and the hawkish politico-bureaucratic-strategic condominium in the US. To accomplish this goal, communism, the United States’ Cold War enemy, has been replaced by a new enemy, Islam, at the end of the Cold War. The events of 11 September 2001 brought all this to a full circle and facilitated the US to advance justifications for continuing the permanent war economy and to substantiate the transformation of the ideological conflict of the Cold War into a cultural conflict in the post-Cold War period. In this regard, the rise of US soft power, made possible by the pervasive impact of globalization, has helped defend America’s post-Cold War proposition regarding an emergent war culture and the portrayal of Islam as the Manichean other in this war.

7. Post-Cold War era

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-126
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Global Security ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Terrorism ◽  
Regional Conflict ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

What significant lessons can be learned from the history of nuclear weapons? ‘Post-Cold War era’ considers post-Cold War attempts to curb nuclear proliferation. The clarity of the Cold War world has given way to the ambiguities and uncertainties of a world where global security is threatened by regime collapse, nuclear terrorism, new nuclear weapons states, regional conflict, and pre-existing nuclear arsenals. The nuclear rivalry with Russia, North Korea, and Iran gives the feeling of returning to the Cold War period, with the ever present threat of a deliberate or unintended confrontation. So far, we have avoided mutual destruction, but is this down to policy or luck?

scholarly journals The Origins of Transnational Alliances: Rulers, Rebels, and Political Survival in the Congo Wars

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Tamm
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
External Support ◽  
Political Survival ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Made In

Despite their catastrophic proportions, the Congo Wars have received little attention from international relations scholars. At the heart of these conflicts were alliances between rebel groups and neighboring rulers. What are the origins of such transnational alliances, which have been a major feature of nearly all civil wars in post–Cold War Africa? Recent scholarship on external support for rebel groups does not offer a clear answer, either providing long lists of the goals that state sponsors may have or avoiding the question of motives altogether. A focus on political survival reveals that African rulers form alliances with rebels in nearby states to reduce the threats of rebellions and military coups that the rulers themselves face at home. Transnational alliances serve either to weaken a ruler's domestic enemies by undermining their foreign sponsors or to ensure the continued allegiance of key domestic supporters by providing them with opportunities for enrichment. Case studies of the alliance decisions made in the two Congo Wars by the rulers of Angola, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe show that their struggles for political survival account for why they sided either with their Congolese counterparts or with Congolese rebels.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document