On the Abolition of War

In this essay Wight advanced four main criticisms of the proposal by Walter Millis for the abolition of what Millis called ‘the war system’. First, the proposal disregards ‘the positive or constructive functions of war in international society’, such as bringing about ‘desirable change’, gaining independence, preserving independence, and maintaining the balance of power. Second, the proposal to abolish war understates ‘the intractability of international conflicts’ and exaggerates the role of armaments and military formations in causing war. The true causes of war reside in ‘human passions and conflicting interests’, not weapons. Third, the proposal to eradicate war fails to recognize the price that must be paid to defeat aggression and establish order. Fourth, no effective alternative institution has been found to replace ‘the war system’ as a means to perform certain functions, including the prevention of detrimental change. The vision of an ‘international government’ ruling the world without war ultimately implies ‘a monopoly of power’, including nuclear arms, perhaps under ‘an American–Russian dyarchy’, despite ‘the intrinsic instability of dyarchy’ and its ‘disagreeableness’ for the rival powers, such as China and France.

‘Wars of Resistance and Rebellion: The Myth of Protest and Popular Dissent against the Vietnam War in Australia and Canada’

This article traces the history of war resistance in both Australia and Canada during the era of the War in Vietnam that became so culturally resonant with popular dissent from the status quo. Unlike all other major international conflicts in the twentieth century, this war represented a point of departure for Canada and Australia. Australia faithfully committed fully to the American effort, while Canada refused to commit militarily, shifting its focus to one of diplomacy. This article provides a comparison of acts of resistance to the war, arguing that while the two countries resisted the war differently a sense of national identity shifted for both, even if slowly and subtly. The history of war and nationalism engendered through its engagement needs to be nuanced enough to view acts of resistance and protest as being integrally bound together. The inevitably politicised nature of war means that the memory of war and its practice is often viewed in complete distinction and isolation from war resistance and the memory of anti-war protest. War and war resistance, I argue, are not binary opposites, not two sides of the same socio-political coin. Instead, it calls for a consideration of these issues together and critically, not artificially separating war from peace and warring from acts of resistance to it.

Turkey’s Grand Strategy and the Great Powers

How compatible is Turkey’s grand strategy with the grand strategies of global great powers? This article briefly summarizes principles of Turkish grand strategy, both from a descriptive and normative point of view, and then proceeds to outline and compare the grand strategies of five great powers that are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). While there are some observable conflicts between Turkey and the French, Russian, and American proxies in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus, there are no outstanding militarized conflicts between Turkey and the British proxies. China is also positioned against Turkey in several international conflicts including Syria, and the intense persecution of Turkic Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang adds another dimension of latent Chinese-Turkish conflicts. The article provisionally concludes that the Turkish grand strategy seems to be most compatible, or least incompatible, with the British grand strategy, followed by the U.S. grand strategy, among the five permanent members of the UNSC, whereas Turkish and French and especially Russian grand strategies seem particularly incompatible.

Latvian Students’ Understanding of Global Problems and Readiness to Get Involved in Solving Them in OECD PISA 2018 Comparison

Students’ life in the modern globalized world gives them many new possibilities and at the same time also creates new serious challenges putting forward also new requirements. Students’ understanding of the global problems (climate changes and global warming, global health (including pandemics), migration, international conflicts, famine or insufficient food, the causes of poverty, etc.) become more and more important. The aim of the study is to analyze the results of Latvia’s fifteen years old students in the OECD PISA 2018 in the aspect of the global competence paying a more detailed attention to the students’ understanding of the global problems and their readiness to take action for collective well-being. The research questions are follows: 1) What is Latvian students’ global competence in the international comparison and what is its relation to the characteristics of students, their families and school; 2) What is Latvian students’ understanding of the global problems and readiness to get involved in their solution? The descriptive statistical analysis employs the data from surveys/questionnaires (66 countries) and tests (27 countries) included in PISA 2018 international data basis. Latvian students’ performance in the cognitive test of the global competence is considerably higher than the average of the participating countries, and as regards the OECD countries we are on the average level. In Latvia, students of capital Riga schools have the highest level of global understanding, it is lower in other cities and even lower in rural schools. Latvian students have a slightly lower readiness to get involved in solving the global phenomena and participation in concrete activities than the average in OECD countries.

International crisis in the midst of civil war

This article examines the nexus between international crises and civil wars. Based on the premise that not all simultaneous civil and international conflicts are related, the study aims to explore the circumstances in which civil wars affect violent escalation in international crises. The study identifies ‘composite’ crises – where the civil war is the core issue of the international dispute – as a unique subset of international crises. These crises are distinguished from ‘unrelated-civil war’ situations, in which the issues in the internal and international conflicts are separate. Using data from the ICB, COW, and UCDP/PRIO datasets, the article tests a dual-conflict argument, positing that interconnected issues and interactions between actors in composite situations inhibit moderate crisis management and aggravate interstate behavior. The findings show that while civil war in composite situations has a negative impact on crisis escalation, unrelated-civil war has an inverse impact on interstate relations in crisis.

Righteous or Rebellious? Narratives of the Qatar Diplomatic Crisis in British and Qatari Media

Media representations of international conflicts are instrumental in determining how we imagine, evaluate, and discuss conflicts. The Qatar diplomatic crisis, an ongoing international diplomatic conflict between Qatar and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of nations, has received extensive global media coverage. This study compares British and Qatari media discourse of this crisis, by examining ten news articles from the BBC and Al Jazeera English (AJE) for bias in language based on the respective national contexts. Evidence of agenda-setting, priming, nationalization of discourse, and public diplomacy was revealed in articles from both outlets. AJE, due to its relative political proximity to the conflict, ascribes the diplomatic crisis much more significance than does the BBC. Both outlets also differ in their evaluations of allegations of terrorist-financing against Qatar and the legitimacy of the blockade. These results indicate that media outlets which claim to be impartial are nonetheless influenced by national contexts when reporting on international conflicts. This study is the first to apply previously-established media effects theories and discourse analysis approaches to media representations of the ongoing Qatar crisis and furthers our understanding of power dynamics in narratives of global conflicts.

Solving the guardianship dilemma by war

This article develops a new theory of how dictators can solve the guardianship dilemma. I study a dynamic game to show that the dictator may build a large army and deal with the guardianship dilemma by resorting to international conflicts. Specifically, when a military revolt is imminent, the dictator can obtain enough resources to buy off the military by attacking and ultimately defeating his international opponent. The framework thus shows that a weakly institutionalized polity may either have a small military or have a large military and be more aggressive on the international stage.