Space control and global hegemony
Abstract This article argues that in addition to ideology and an ensuing discourse, one—if not the only—effective grand strategic means for a great power to establish global hegemony is through space control. Today, the sole power with both the will and the capability to achieve the grand strategic end of hegemony is the United States, which spends nearly as much on space and armaments as all other countries combined. However, time is not on the side of the United States. Unless it proves able to secure control of space in the coming few years, the European Union and Russia will hardly consent to U.S. domination of space—and through it world politics. Thus, military space control is not the only way ahead.
Missile Defense Malfunction: Why the Proposed U.S. Missile Defenses in Europe Will Not Work*
T he U.S. proposal to establish missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic has exacerbated relations with Russia to a degree not seen since the height of the Cold War, and has done so despite the fact that the system has no demonstrated capability to defend the United States, let alone Europe, under realistic operational conditions. Further, it is being built on the shoulders of a missile defense system that has not come close to proving itself in testing and is still missing major components. Indeed, even the branch of the Pentagon charged with developing missile defense, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), claims only to be able to address an ‘‘unsophisticated threat.’’ As this paper will demonstrate, the proposed U.S. missile defense system in Europe creates much havoc and provides no security in return.
American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
This is a story of rumour, charity, vengeance, and restraint. "American Insurgents, American Patriots" reminds us that revolutions are violent events. They provoke passion and rage, a willingness to use violence to achieve political ends, a deep sense of betrayal, and a strong religious conviction that God expects an oppressed people to defend their rights. The American Revolution was no exception. A few celebrated figures in the Continental Congress do not make for a revolution. It requires tens of thousands of ordinary men and women willing to sacrifice, kill, and be killed. Breen not only tells the history of these ordinary Americans but, drawing upon a wealth of rarely seen documents, restores their primacy to America's road to independence. Mobilizing two years before the Declaration of Independence, American insurgents in all thirteen colonies concluded that resistance to British oppression required organized violence against the state. They channeled popular rage through elected committees of safety and observation, which before 1776 were the heart of American resistance. "American Insurgents, American Patriots" is the stunning account of their insurgency, without which there would have been no independent republic as we know it.