Sublime

Overstretch—the enfeeblement that comes with confusing ends and means—allows enemies to apply leverage: small maneuvers that have big consequences. Themistocles wouldn’t have won at Salamis without spinning a Delphic oracle. Elizabeth trusted her admirals to trust the winds. And Kutuzov could safely slumber after Borodino, certain that geography, t

Eleven years after the civil war and genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994, the world embraced the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (commonly referred to as R2P), which in principle provides a basis for interventions by other countries or regional or global organizations (be it with words, sanctions, or even military force) in situations in

Contrairement à la situation de la Guerre froide, c’est l’Occident qui se divise alors que les démocratures tendent à s’unir sous l’impulsion de la Chine pour présenter un front commun et construire un monde qui se revendique à la fois post-occidental et post-démocratique.

since the conclusion of World War II, Europe has known unprecedented stability, prosperity, and freedom. Much of the credit goes to the two great undertakings of the post–World War II era, namely, the NATO alliance and the project of European integration. Still, there is a question of whether Europe’s best days are behind it. The future of both NAT

The UN Security Council is of little relevance to most of the world’s conflicts, and international arrangements have failed to contend with the challenges associated with globalization. The world has put itself on the record as against genocide and has asserted a right to intervene when governments fail to live up to the responsibility to protect t

Advocates of global sustainability not only need strong institutional and scaling capacities, but they also require the moral force of popular support to compel governments to share sovereign power in the near future.

We are left, in the end, with a need, a hope, and a conundrum. The need is to steer the new age of globalization so that our energies are directed toward ending human poverty rather than human life. The hope is that across the world’s societies and religions there are common ethical underpinnings. The conundrum is how easily we nonetheless fall pre