Geopolitics of Nuclear Hypertrophy. America,the Bomb and the Temptation of Nuclear Primacy

The United States’ grand strategy has consistently been marked by a distinct tendency toward nuclear hypertrophy. Especially the inherent difficulties in extending deterrence to its allies and friends, compounded by the geopolitical characteristics of the US as an unassailable ‘insular’ fortress off Eurasia, have generated, rather paradoxically, a strong incentive for Washington to pursue a wide margin of nuclear superiority, if not nuclear primacy. This has implied, in turn, the deployment of redundant arsenals, robust counterforce capabilities and even a ballistic missile defence. Significantly, not even the Obama administration, though solemnly committed to nuclear disarmament, abstained from embracing a very ambitious modernisation program of American nuclear forces.     

Addiction and Responsibility – Part II

Law and Philosophy -     

How to do things on purpose: R. A. Duff'sIntention,Agency, and Criminal Liability

Conclusion There is a lot of material in this book, and Duff handles most of it very well. It is unfortunate that he felt the need to tie his discussion of serious philosophical questions in the criminal law to larger overarching questions of philosophy. It is possible that current conceptions of intentional action implicate dualism (or Dualism), I suppose, but that would be a book-length discussion all of its own. It would begin with a careful discussion of just what dualism is, and would track down the various ways in which particular substantive positions on intentional action rule out alternatives to dualism. Such a work might be interesting indeed. It would be interesting, for example, to see a discussion of a type of conceptual dualism that I suspect Duff would find congenial: a dualism that insisted upon the autonomy of purposive notions and rejected the causal analysis of intentional action. Would that sort of dualism make any difference at all for the criminal law? It might, and it might not. But in any event that is not what we find in this book, which, for all of its healthy enthusiasm for the place of philosophy in the law shows an excessive tolerance for makeweight arguments about the great questions.     

BRICS,the southern model,and the evolving landscape of development assistance: Toward a new taxonomy

In recent years, there has been an explosion of categories and labels to account for the expansion of forms of cooperation beyond the membership of the Development Assistance Committee. Such hype has led to the construction of the so‐called southern model as the archetype of development cooperation coming from non‐Development Assistance Committee countries that are somehow committed to the principles of the South–South cooperation. The present article challenges the idea of a southern model by providing an analysis of drivers, tools, and modality of development assistance.