Mostrando resultados por autor "Ryan Webb" en Todas las categorías

In "The Art of the Long View," published in 1991, Peter Schwartz presented scenario-building as a useful planning tool. First, he argued that “driving forces” move the plot of a scenario. These forces often involve developments in society, technology, economics, and politics. Next, Schwartz identified “predetermined elements,” or events that seem certain to occur. Examples include population change, resource constraints, and inevitable collisions. Third, Schwartz explored “critical uncertainties,” which are important unknown events. After identifying these three factors, ...

Because of the monumental destructive force of nuclear weapons, no theory of international relations is more important than that which guides US nuclear policy. During the Cold War, the views of Thomas Schelling and Herman Kahn dominated the debate. Overall, both theorists had confidence in deterrence, felt it was predictable, and based their reasoning on a rational opponent. Still, they each drew different conclusions, with the United States adopting Kahn’s recommendation for a strong offense, while siding with Schelling’s view that defense was not needed. While Cold War deterrence ...

“That’s it?” I ask myself as I close John Gardner’s novel, Grendel, and place it on my desk. “Where’s the decisive battle between Beowulf, the herculean warrior, and Grendel’s outraged mother? Where’s the scene of the mighty thane slicing off dead Grendel’s ugly head and carrying it proudly into King Hrothgar’s mead hall? Why does Gardner not show us the restoration of peace to the land of the Danes?” Leaning back in my chair, I think, “Why doesn’t John Gardner’s novel mimic the end of the epic, Beowulf, on which it is based? Why does Gardner downplay the great ...

In Plato’s, The Ring of Gyges, Glaucon believed that man created justice by coming to an agreement not to inflict injury or suffer it. Glaucon also pointed out that man struggled to act justly since his natural tendency was to be unjust. This hypothesis is demonstrated in the story of the ancestor of the Lydian Gyges. In this story, a man found a ring that could make him invisible. Leaving his life as a quiet shepherd, he decided to engage in an affair with the king’s wife, killed the king, and then took over the kingdom. Would other men act similarly? Glaucon believed the only way to ...

As a young man growing up in Virginia and Georgia in the late 18th century, Meriwether Lewis displayed the courage that would be so valuable to him later in life. When he was eight or nine years old, a bull charged him. He coolly raised his rifle and shot it dead. A year later, during a nighttime Indian attack on his family, he had the presence of mind to extinguish the campfire so as to hide his party. At eighteen, Lewis was the head of his family’s plantation. Despite such promise, Stephen Ambrose, in "Undaunted Courage," portrays Meriwether Lewis as both a hero and a flawed man. Indeed...

While globalization is not a perfect economic system, it has been overwhelmingly beneficial to the world. According to Thomas Friedman, the “Golden Straightjacket” of market capitalism benefits you the more you tighten it (Lexus and Olive Tree). The system promotes competition and rewards those who work the hardest with a better standard of living. Still, Noreena Hertz, in The Silent Takeover, focused on the negatives of the system, arguing that it drowns democracy and leaves too many people in the hole of poverty. In addition, author Paul Blustein focused on the complexity of the ...

In William N. Still’s essay, “A Naval Sieve: The Union Blockade in the Civil War,” he contended that the blockade “was not a major factor in the collapse of the Confederacy” (Still 72). Of the Union Navy’s primary tasks of maintaining control of Southern ports, supporting amphibious operations, and pursuing piratical cruisers, the effectiveness of the blockade remains the most hotly debated strategy. Did it strangle the Confederate economy and force the South to pursue peace? According to Still, the answer is no. The supporting evidence he cites, however, is inconclusive and can...

Purpose: In "Errand into the Wilderness," one of Perry Miller’s goals was to explain the establishment and development of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony using the two meanings of the word errand, in order to gather insight into the genesis of the American experience. Key Questions: Miller first asked whether the Puritans were sent on a mission, like an errand boy, or whether they were acting alone, doing their own errand. He then asked whether the Puritans fell short of their goal by 1660, and, if so, in what sense had they failed. Finally, he examined whether there was a further ...

This paper explores President Truman’s decision to intervene in the Korean War and then cross the 38th parallel and invade North Korea. An analysis of Truman’s foreign policy reveals that intervention in the Korean War was part of a new global offensive against the spread of communism. Domestically, Truman believed that a Korean offensive across the 38th parallel would quiet his critics and allow him to mobilize the economy for a long-term Cold War. Militarily, Truman’s advisors overwhelmingly supported the invasion of North Korea. They concluded that Korea could be unified after ...

An examination of the records of Captain William Scott and Major Samuel Scott in the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files provides insight on their war and post-war lives. Additional information from secondary sources allows for a more detailed biography of these Virginian-born Revolutionary War officers. Both brothers served during most of the war, as did a third brother, Captain Thomas Scott. In December 1775, William saw action in the Battle of Great Bridge, in Virginia, before he and Samuel Scott headed south to Georgia and the Carolinas. This was after ...

Both John Mill and Jeremy Bentham agreed with the utilitarianism claim that a “good action” resulted in an increase in the overall balance of pleasure. At the same time, a “bad action” decreased the balance. In other words, actions can be deemed “right” depending on their promotion of happiness and labeled as “wrong” when they produce the opposite effect. It should also be noted that, according to the theory, happiness is characterized as pleasure and the absence of pain.

In 1864 the Union was at last prepared to implement a unified land strategy designed to achieve victory in the Civil War. The plan called for William Tecumseh Sherman to drive hard to Atlanta, while farther East, Ulysses S. Grant would engage Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Sherman reasoned that an assault on Mobile would force the Confederates to send reinforcements, thus weakening their defense of Atlanta. Patrolling the blockade in the Gulf of Mexico, Admiral Farragut got word that he would finally receive the monitors necessary to capture the last major Southern port. To ...

The signing of the Camp David Peace Accords by President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin on March 26, 1979 altered the strategic picture of the Middle East, as it marked the first time an Arab state recognized the legitimacy of Israel. In reaching a settlement, Sadat alienated himself from the Arab world by failing to secure an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza or the recognition of the Palestinians. Instead, Sadat obtained a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. In short, Sadat acted in the best interests of Egypt at the expense of his Arab neighbors. This ...

This scenario contains multiple examples of humanity's lust for power, which is defined as having an intense desire or need to control or influence others. Lust for power also has the characteristic of being able to appear anywhere and in many different forms. These forms can be conspicuous or subtle. The more noticeable forms include military domination, political power, and economic superiority. More subtle forms include dominating a conversation, always having to get ones way, and bullying others. All of these examples show that lust for power is varied and widespread.

The mourners fall silent with anticipation as Pericles walks briskly from the sepulchre to the erected stage. After a slight pause, he takes a deep breath and begins an eloquent funeral oration. He speaks on the glory of Athens and the honor of her dead. It is the Athenian winter of 431 B.C. and the city-state is engaged in a bitter war with its rival Sparta. Pericles’ resounding voice echoes off the surrounding hills and into the ears of Thucydides, the historian who records them in his work, The History of the Peloponnesian War. About eight hundred years later, a Christian bishop in ...

Why did Adolf Hitler allow the British to escape at Dunkirk? Why did he not invade England but attack the Soviet Union instead? Why did he order his army to halt outside Moscow? In "Hitler: The Pathology of Evil," Dr. George Victor, a psychotherapist, explores Hitler’s childhood to find the answer to these military questions and concludes that Hitler’s obsession with the Jewish question drove him to prolong World War II as a cover for the Holocaust. In part I, Victor investigates Hitler’s development into a charismatic leader, concluding that his desire to be his mother’s champion ...

Napoleon Bonaparte once stated, “Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, and Frederick the Great. This is the only way to become a great general.” Napoleon’s successes on the battlefield point to the validity of his assertion. His study of the past informed his understanding of the present, and influenced his actions. In the same way, history provides valuable insight into other areas. For example, an analysis of military history, from the 16th through the 19th centuries, reveals several characteristics of effective militaries. During ...

What do fairy tales, such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Hansel and Gretel,” have to do with French peasant life in the eighteenth century? What does a cat massacre reveal about the relationship between artisans and the bourgeois in early modern France? In Robert Darnton’s, The "Great Cat Massacre," the underlying themes of fairy tales and the circumstances surrounding a large killing of cats provide the answers to these questions and reveal the attitudes and concerns of peasants and artisans in eighteenth century France.

The just war tradition provides a framework to evaluate decisions on waging and conducting war. It can also inform conduct after a war. In addition, just war principles can assist military planners and decision-makers regarding situations other than war, including humanitarian intervention. For example, consider a potential mass atrocity in sub-Saharan Africa. The just war concepts of just cause, legitimate authority, reasonable chance of success, last resort, right intention, and proportionality can inform the moral and legal basis for intervention by a state or the international community.

Welcome to Rooked: The Cheaters' Gambit. Join hosts Jess and Ryan as they unravel the ongoing chess cheating scandal (among other chess controversies). Elon Musk tweets - and then deletes - a joke (?) about cheating in chess via anal beads. Suddenly, the game of chess is thrown into the spotlight again, two years after the well-received debut of The Queen's Gambit Netflix series (we have no affiliation, but, like, the SEO is cool for us...and it was a pretty good show, in our opinions). But what the anal bead headlines are missing is the complicated web of accusations, slander, lies, ...