November 05, 2008

America enters the 21st century

Okay, it's a bit late, but I think it's happening. For the past eight years it has felt as if we being thrown back into some of the worst years...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

November 04, 2008

Obama discussing HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Thanks to Dominic who sent me the link to this YouTube video of a meeting Sen. Obama had in August 2006 with some leaders and township-based activists in South Africa's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:50 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 11, 2008

What is this 'G-7' anyway?

Willem Buiter gives the gathering of finance ministers of the so-called 'G-7' nations a very low grade for the quality of the decisions they made (or failed to make) during...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:53 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

September 16, 2008

Piracy: Another fruit of US over-stretch

Many indeed are the fruits, on the international scene, of the two developments that: 1. First of all, the US claimed the right to dominate all the world's major sea-lanes,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:07 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 15, 2008

Two big crises for Washington: Financial meltdown and Af-Pak escalation

Washington's decisionmakers are today confronted with two huge and hard-to-handle crises. On Wall Street the large brokerage firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, after Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson decided the US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:37 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

September 14, 2008

Realism, war, and pacifism

Is pacifism the new Realism? Or is Realism the new pacifism? I've been toying with both arguments for a while now, including back in June when I made the first...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:38 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

September 10, 2008

US's global dominance 'Reduced': It's nearly official!

Thomas Fingar, the U.S. government's highest ranking intelligence analyst, recently told a semi-public audience that he envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, according to this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:43 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 30, 2008

Italy gives Libya $$ compensation for colonial rule

... That's $5 billion-worth. Probably nowhere near enough if you recall it's been 65 years since the Italians were booted out by the British Army. (If Italy had compensated Libya...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:25 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

August 26, 2008

The return of geography

Some of the commentary on the whole Russia-Georgia affair has talked about the "return" of history, in somewhat post-Fukuyaman terms. (Though Fukyama himself has denied that what is underway now...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:05 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 21, 2008

My CSM piece on the big-picture implications of Georgia

I worked pretty intensively on this earlier this week. It's here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:01 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

Mahbubani on western hypocrisy, etc.

Longtime JWN readers will know that I'm quite a fan of Kishore Mahbubani, an extremely smart strategic thinker who was Singapore's ambassador to the UN until a couple of years...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:12 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 18, 2008

And another thing about Finland

In this blog post last Thursday I wrote a bit about the prospects of a "Finland-like" outcome for Georgia-- and several of us then had a pretty good quick discussion...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:05 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

August 16, 2008

Where in the world is... Ban Ki-Moon?

The Georgian-Russian war is the most significant watershed in world politics since George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in March 2003. As I noted last Sunday, it signals clearly for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:28 AM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

August 14, 2008

Georgia crisis and the shifting global balance

Another great post from Bernhard of Moon of Alabama on the Georgian crisis, today. What Bernhard really "gets" about this crisis is the degree to which it reveals the extreme...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:35 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

"Nation-building"-- some quick thoughts

I've just been invited to a talk next week at the New America Foundation titled "Does Nation-Building Have a Future? Lessons from Afghanistan." The presenter is James Dobbins, who seems...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

July 12, 2008

How powers emerge today

Time was, major shifts in the balance of international power were cataclysmic, violence-wracked events. Not today. (And maybe, paradoxically, we have the existence of nuclear weapons and the broad knowledge...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:10 AM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

May 28, 2008

Pictures and reflections from China

Thanks to McClatchy's Tim Johnson for signaling two extremely moving collections of photos from China's earthquake zone. This one is on the WaPo's website and has images from a number...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:09 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 16, 2008

Condolences to friends in China, Myanmar/Burma

I know I'm late saying this, but I want to send heartfelt condolences to everyone in China and Myanmar/Burma whose universe has been shattered by the loss of loved ones,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:38 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 08, 2008

Humanitarian access, R2P, Burma/Myanmar, and Sadr City

Much of the US media continues to parrot the accusatory, highly politicized "Laura Bush version" of what's been happening in Myanmar/Burma. Namely that (a) the country's military junta is largely...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

May 06, 2008

Tragedy in Myanmar/Burma, finger-pointing from Laura

Yesterday, Laura Bush, a woman famous only for being married to a president, gave an extraordinarily inappropriate, finger-pointing press briefing about the recent cyclones in Myanmar. Huge kudos to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:22 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 29, 2008

How we think about the global food crisis

I was really disappointed, when watching the BBC's US newsfeed this evening to hear the two evidently well-fed white-guy anchors talking about the mounting global food crisis in ill-informed and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 17, 2008

U.S. speculators took multi-billion dollar incomes from sub-prime crash

Obscene! Read the whole of this article on how some male US speculators pulled in multi-billion-dollar takings from their activities in so-called hedge funds in 2007, and weep. The top...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:10 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 14, 2008

A great resource on food (in-)security issues

Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:44 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 13, 2008

Carter quite right-- On Olympics, Hamas, and Nepali elections

I just watched this clip of George Stephanopoulos's interview with Nobel Peace Laureate and former US president Jimmy Carter this morning. (Complete transcript here.) Carter is such a wise, inspirational...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:44 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 10, 2008

Krugman worried. Soros still worried. Worry.

The US-dominated world financial system may well be in much more trouble than most people think. Paul Krugman is blogging today about his concerns in the "spreads" between LIBOR rate--...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:41 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 09, 2008

So this is the way the US's "unipolar moment" will end?

... Not with a bang but with the whimper of hungry children in scores of different countries around the world?? Still concerned about the ongoing steep hike in food prices,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:38 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

April 04, 2008

George Soros, on the phone

This morning, responding to a gracious invitation from the New America Foundation's Steve Clemons, I got to take part in a media teleconference with George Soros, organized around the release...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:56 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

February 19, 2008

Open thread on Castro's resignation

I'm terrifically busy with page-proofs of my book and many other things. But surely we should all discuss the news from Havana. Ther NYT seems to have good coverage, here....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:38 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

September 10, 2007

If US citizens truly believed that all persons are created equal...

Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

June 20, 2007

Failed States Index & "Failing the Faithful"

The July-August issue of Foreign Policy magazine features the 3rd installment of the annual "Failed States Index," (FSI) a tool intended to identify the world's "weakest links." A project of...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:27 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 14, 2007

The US, the UN, and the world: The De Soto report

The London Guardian yesterday published the 52-page "End of Mission Report" written by the UN's recently retired envoy to the Middle East peace talks, Alvaro De Soto. De Soto reportedly...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:44 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

May 22, 2007

Violence begetting violence in the Middle East

One of the truest teachings of the Dalai Lama and of other nonviolence activists throughout history is that the use of violence to attain one's goals will always cause more...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:16 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

May 15, 2007

Global security after Iraq, part 2

In part 1 of this series on JWN, and in my contribution to this follow-up post, I argued: That the failure of the Bushists' 2003 project in Iraq will...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:21 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 07, 2007

Global security after Iraq

Part 1. When I was in Oxford this past March, my wise friend and colleague Avi Shlaim reminded me that back in February 2003 he had been one of several...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

April 29, 2007

Highlights (and some low points) of my trip

This was another, most amazing trip. I do truly feel blessed to be able to travel so freely in the world and to have a profession that allows me to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:52 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 23, 2007

Depends what you mean by 'Honor'...

Blogger Will Bunch had a good post recently analyzing the statement Unca Dick Cheney made recently, namely that, "We want to complete the mission [in Iraq], we want to get...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:27 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

February 09, 2007

More thinking on the coming withdrawal

The generally very wise Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld has a must-read article in the online edition of New Perspectives Quarterly. It's titled " The Fall: Consequences of US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:28 AM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

December 30, 2006

Macacas, mirror neurons, and reviving Samuel Pufendorf

Back in late summer our outgoing senator, George Allen, used the term "macaca" as a demeaning racial epithet. However, few of those who read of that event with horror and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:21 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

April 25, 2006

Governance crisis early-warning tools compared

The latest (May/June 2006) issue of Foreign Policy mag-- right, the one with the letters and discussion about my recent war-crimes courts article-- landed on our front stoop last week....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

December 31, 2005

Year's-turn thoughts

I guess some JWN readers have already entered 2006, and the rest of us are being pulled along to midnight behind you as this heavy old planet of ours continues...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:58 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

December 03, 2005

On human equality

I've been thinking a little more about what it would really mean if we were all serious about saying (as the Founding Fathers of the US said) that all "men"--...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:34 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

November 04, 2005

Empire and the discourse of "justice"

Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:40 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

October 09, 2005

Disasters, natural and man-made

The death toll from yesterday's earthquake in eastern Pakistan already stands at "more than 20,000 people" and is expected to rise. This IRIN story says: About 19,400 people were killed...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:53 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 01, 2005

Apartheid's 'Total Strategy', contd.

About a month ago, JWN regular Dominic and I were doing some online work together looking at potential areas for comparison between the "total strategy" adopted by the SA apartheid...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:49 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

April 13, 2005

Oil price spike: who suffers?

[T]he US appears to have fought a war for oil in the Middle East, and lost it. The consequences of that defeat are now plain for all to see. Yes,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:28 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 31, 2005

US military $$, part 2

Addenda to yesterday's post: (1) Commenter Christiane pointed out (from Switzerland) that the shocking recent report from the UN's Jean Ziegler on the near-doubling of child hunger in Iraq since...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:00 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 30, 2005

US military spending out of control

What would you buy with $419.3 billion if you had the choice? Well, one really good first idea might be to give about $69 to every woman, man, and child...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:13 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

March 11, 2005

Remembering the horror in Madrid

It happened one year ago today, in Madrid. That evening I sat down, stunned, and blogged a short post about the attack. Early the next morning I found the following,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:54 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 07, 2005

Sistani: Nobel Peace Laureate?

A group of Iraqi exiles in the US has nominated Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. It's a brilliant nomination. I've written on this blog a number...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:09 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

December 31, 2004

New year, new possibilities

Great news from President Bush, who has decided to increase tenfold, to $350 million, the amount of aid his administration will be giving to survivors of the Indian ocean tsunami....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:08 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

December 29, 2004

Relief, not parties!

The Red Cross is now saying that more than 100,000 of our fellow humans may have died already in the Indian Ocean tsunami. In the days ahead many more scores--...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:27 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

December 27, 2004

Tragedy in Asia

Such terrifying pictures and information coming out regarding yesterday's Indian Ocean tsunami. They remind me of the urgency of us all starting to think and act like a single world...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:55 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 25, 2004

South Africa, the microcosm

I've thought for a while--and I don't think I've blogged about this before, though I may be wrong there--that you can look at South Africa as a microcosm of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:50 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

June 06, 2004

Western ethno-psychology confronts atrocities

I've been at this conference on atrocious violence ("Why neighbors kill") at the University of Western Ontario. I came mainly because the subject --which is fairly heavily focused on genocide...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:00 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 29, 2004

Conference on Trauma and Transitional Justice

I've been here at the Airlie House Conference Center in Virginia at a conference on Trauma and Transitional Justice in Divided Societies since Saturday night. It has been extremely "busy",...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:57 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

March 12, 2004

From Maria, in Madrid

JWN reader Maria, from Madrid, has posted a very moving Comment on last night's post. Please, everyone read it. Dear Maria, thanks for connecting with us and describing that wonderful...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 11, 2004

Horror in Madrid; stunned silence in Bilbao

How ghastly, how world-shattering for Madrilenos today's multiple bomb attacks were. It is still quite unclear if these were Basque radicals, or Islamist extermists, or some new coalition between those...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:12 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 08, 2004

Happy International Women's Day!

Happy International Women's Day to all my women and men readers! This is truly a good day to think about the position of women in society-- in all societies, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

March 04, 2004

U.S. foreign policy: time for a clear alternative

Iraq, Haiti, Israel-Palestine, the world... Everywhere, the failure of the Bush team's foreign-policy approach is quite evident. Now, the Democratic Party has a candidate. But it is not enough for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:05 AM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

February 08, 2003

Burden of Proof

I guess it's Sunday in Japan already... Sun quite high in the sky already over that magnificent semicircle of hills that surrounds Hiroshima... So Ramesh Thakur, a wise Indian scholar...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)