Journal of International Studies

Considerable media coverage around the globe has been devoted to the on-going saga of the National Security Agency leaks emerging from the computer and files obtained by contractor and ex-Central Intelligence Agency employee Edward Snowden.  The stories and the revelations themselves have sparked considerable political and public discussion over the limits on privacy and the intervention of the state into the lives of ordinary citizens. Some of this has concentrated on the implications of intrusive surveillance through technological collection on personal privacy. Hollywood movies such as  Enemy of the State  and  Minority Report  suddenly seem less works of futuristic fiction and more like contemporary documentaries. And yet this emphasis is problematic in two important respects. First, it suggests that everyone is equally under threat from surveillance. More significantly, the focus ignores the continuing involvement of old fashioned human beings as key ins...

In a history plagued with inaction, uncertainty, and a lack of consensus on human rights issues and abuses, the United Nations again proved its ineptitude this week by awarding seats on its Human Rights Council to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba and Algeria.  If you need to read that again to make sure I am being serious, feel free. The Council’s members are elected by the UN General Assembly for a 3-year term.  The 47-seat Geneva-based Council is said to be a pivotal body in monitoring and inspecting accusations of human rights abuses across the world, and in protecting the values of human security and rights on behalf of the UN General Assembly.  There are no veto votes on the Council, so a majority can still lean the Council in the right direction, but one wonders exactly how and why anyone would think it to be a good idea for states of this type to be awarded anything related to human rights, other than perhaps a “worst violators club” award. It should...

This article is based on a speech given by Alexei Arbatov at the international conference “Russia in the 21st-Century World of Power” held to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and the tenth anniversary of  Russia in Global Affairs . The “power of arms,” in other words, the role of military force in politics and war is mostly determined by the nature of potential and real arms conflicts; by military-technical progress and available economic resources needed for defense; and by ambitions and phobias of state leaders, military-industrial complexes and their contractors at research centers and in the media. PREMONITION OF WAR Contrary to the widespread belief among the Russian military-political elite, all objective parameters indicate that the threat of a major war is now (and in the future) less than ever in modern history. And the reason is not the stockpiles of nuclear weapons possessed by the leading powers: during the Cold War the...