Showing papers on "Expansionism published in 2020"

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell : Cold War Fears and Hopes 1950–52

Abstract: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 26 covers a period of transition in Russell's political life between his orthodox and sometimes pugnacious defence of the West in the early post-war, and the dissenting advocacy of nuclear disarmament and detente that started in earnest in the mid-1950s. While some of the assembled writings echo harsh prior criticism of Soviet expansionism and dictatorship, others register growing qualms about the recklessness of American foreign policy and the baneful effects on civil liberties of anti-communist hysteria inside the United States. Whether continuing to push for western rearmament, or highlighting in a more placatory vein the folly of the Cold War's divisions and rival fanaticisms, Russell's paramount objective was avoiding a war that threatened global catastrophe. Suspended between fear and hope, he expounded his evolving political concerns–and much else besides, including autobiographical reflections and typically common-sense guidance for living well–in a constant flow of newspaper and magazine articles, letters to editors, radio broadcasts and discussions and, of special note, a Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Russell also completed two lecture tours of the United States (the last of many), as well as a landmark such visit to Australia. All three of these journeys, and the textual record they left, are examined in depth using manuscript material and unpublished correspondence from the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, which is mined extensively throughout the volume.

The dark side of the Empire: Roman expansionism between object agency and predatory regime

Abstract: This debate piece offers a critique of some recent ‘new materialist’ approaches and their application to Roman expansionism, particularly those positing that the study of ‘Romanisation’ should be about ‘understanding objects in motion’—a perspective that carries important political and ethical implications. Here, the authors introduce the alternative notion of a ‘predatory’ political economy for conceptualising Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome. The aim is to illuminate the darker sides of Roman expansionism in order to produce more balanced and inclusive accounts. Two cases studies—the archaeology of the Roman conquest and of rural communities—illustrate the potential of such a perspective.

Climate crises and crypto-colonialism: conjuring value on the blockchain frontiers of the Global South

Abstract: In this commentary we explore how international development, disaster relief and climate change mitigation credentials are being called upon to justify ‘crypto-colonialism’, whereby blockchain technology is used to extract economic benefits from those suffering the scars of colonial expansionism in the Global South. These benefits include land, labour and resources needed to facilitate local ‘crypto-utopian’ developments, or a ‘green economy’ elsewhere. As with past neoliberal development agendas imposing structural economic reforms, the contemporary crypto-colonial exercises discussed here are driven in pursuit of a common good – to protect the global commons and improve people’s lives. Within spaces where crypto-colonialism manifests, the governance frameworks of the associated technology is heavily entangled with social-spatial relations in multiple ways. We argue that despite being distributed, techno-ecological fixes are never placeless. How people engage with, resist or reconfigure a crypto-economy is geographically contingent. This commentary argues for more situated critical analysis of actually existing case-studies to reveal the inequitable terrain of project benefit distributions, and to expose the likely winners and losers within each. The success or failure of use-cases is less dependent on technical viability, but rather mediated through reactions to colonial contexts and historical experiences of various economic and climate crises.

Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity

Abstract: Dark Skies is the first work to assess the full impacts of space expansion, past, present, and future. Thinking about space, and the visions fervently promoted by the global space movement, is dominated by geographic misperceptions and utopian illusions. The parts of space where almost all activity has occurred are part of the planet Earth, its astrosphere, and, in practical terms, are smaller than the atmosphere. Contrary to frontier visions, orbital space is already congested and degraded with dangerous space debris. The largest impact of actual space activities is an increased likelihood of catastrophic nuclear war stemming from the use of orbital space and space technology to lob nuclear weapons at intercontinental distances. Building large-scale orbital infrastructures will probably require or produce world government. The ultimate goal of space advocates, the colonization of Mars and asteroids, is promoted to guarantee the survival of humanity if major catastrophes strike Earth. But the spread of humanity into a multiplanet species will likely produce an interstate anarchy highly prone to total war, with Earth having many disadvantages. Altering the orbits of asteroids, a readily achievable technology vital for space colonization, also makes possible “planetoid bombs” with destructive potentials millions of times greater than all nuclear weapons. The biological diversification of humanity into multiple species, anticipated by space advocates, will further stoke interworld wars. Astrocide—the extinction of humanity resulting from significant space expansion—must join the lengthening list of potential threats to human survival. Large-scale space expansion should be relinquished in favor of an Earth-oriented space program of arms control and planetary security.

People on the Move: Forced Population Movements in Europe in the Second World War and Its Aftermath

Abstract: Europe has a long history of state-led population displacement on ethnic grounds. The nationalist argument of ethnic homogeneity has been a crucial factor in the mapping of the continent. At no time has this been more the case than during and after the Second World War. Both under the aggressive expansionism of the Third Reich and after Germany's defeat, millions were brutally forced out of their homelands. Presenting a history from the top as well as the bottom, People on the Move reconstructs the complex map of forced population displacements that took place across Europe during and immediately after the Second World War.

China's “Politics of Harmony” and the Quest for Soft Power in International Politics

Abstract: This article engages with China’s “politics of harmony” to investigate the dangers and possibilities of soft power as a concept and practice. Chinese sources claim that China will be able to exercise soft power due to its tradition of thinking about harmony. Indeed, the concept of harmony looms large in Chinese soft power campaigns, which differentiate China’s own harmonious soft power from the allegedly disharmonious hard power of other great powers—in particular Western powers and Japan. Yet, similarly dichotomizing harmony discourses have been employed precisely in the West and Japan. In all three cases, such harmony discourses set a rhetorical trap, forcing audiences to empathize and identify with the “harmonious” self or risk being violently “harmonized.” There is no doubt that the soft power of harmony is coercive. More importantly, the present article argues that it has legitimized and enabled oppressive, homogenizing and bellicose expansionism and rule in the West and Japan. A similarly structured exercise of soft power may enable violence in and beyond China, too. Ultimately, however, we argue that China’s own tradition of thinking about harmony may help us to theorize how soft power might be exercised be in less antagonistic and violent ways.

(Techno-)Utopias and the Question of Natural Boundaries

Abstract: Two key issues are currently dominating the discourse on the future: On the one hand, technological and especially digital transformation, on the other hand the socioecological transformation towards sustainable development, which takes into account ecological boundaries. Both topics are becoming increasingly linked, but there is no consensus on the direction of the upcoming socio-eco-technological transformation. As stated in the article, the controversies and the different concepts are influenced by the utopian traditions of modernity. In particular, the technical utopia ‘Nova Atlantis’ by Bacon, and the paradigmatic social utopia ‘Utopia’ by More are crucial. The hegemonic technology-oriented sustainability concepts are in the tradition of Bacon. Since they continue modern expansionism, they are inadequate to solve the ecological crisis. Approaches in the tradition of social utopia may be more likely to solve the crisis, as they include more comprehensive socio-eco-technical imaginaries of a sustainable future.

¿Hacia la unidad de Hispania? Explicaciones sociales a las ofensivas militares visigodas en la Península Ibérica (siglos VI-VIII)

Abstract: War and conquest had a great incidence in the making process of the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania. In this paper, alternative explanations are proposed to the Visigoths’ territorial expansionism by armed means, for which their offensive campaigns are analysed not as a consequence of a secular project aimed at achieving the peninsular unity under Gothic sovereignty, but as a result of immediate motivations which were far from maximalism. In this regard, we will emphasize the role of the monarch’s personal motivations, in particular the pursuit of their political survival, and the army’s collective incentives, such as their eagerness for plunder, as the main driving force of Visigothic offensive military activity. For this purpose, the assumptions derived from social history and the anthropology devoted to the study of war will become very useful analysis tools.

China, the emerging economic power: options and repercussions for Pak–US relations

Abstract: Washington established relations with Pakistan immediately after the independence when Moscow was diplomatically avoided by Pakistan elite policymakers to opt for one of the superpowers as a need for the Cold War. The article aims to analyses Beijing as an emerging economic power with special reference to Pak–US relations. During and after the Cold War period both the USA and Pakistan have close relations to deter communist expansionism in South Asia and Central Asia but post 9/11 when the US decided to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Pakistan aligned its policies and strategies with Washington. Despite Pakistan’s huge sacrifices and loss of life and economic suffering, the US still doubts Pakistan’s intentions. In this backdrop, Pakistan tilted wholeheartedly toward its all-weather friend China for its diplomatic moral, political, and military support.

The Formalities of Temporaryism without Presentness

Abstract: Temporaryism—the view that not always everything always exists— comes in two main versions: presentism and expansionism (aka the growing block theory of time). Both versions of the view are commonly formulated using the notion of being present, which we, among others, find problematic. Expansionism is also sometimes accused of requiring extraordinary conceptual tools for its formulation. In this paper, we put forward systematic characterisations of presentism and expansionism which involve neither the notion of being present nor unfamiliar conceptual tools. These characterisations are full blown logics, each logic comprising an axiomatic proof system and an intuitive semantics with respect to which the system is both sound and complete.

Multilateral Diplomacy as China’s Expansionism in ACFTA

Abstract: ACFTA or ASEAN-China Free Trade Area, also known as China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is an economic agreement to construct a free trade zone between 10 ASEAN member countries and China to eliminate various tariff and non-tariff barriers. All of ASEAN members’ leaders and China’s leader signed the ACFTA on November 5, 2002 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia which latter came into effect on January 1, 2010. Since then, it was recorded in 2016 that the total trade between ASEAN and China has reached to US$ 475 billion, thus making China as ASEAN’s largest trading partner while ASEAN serves as China’s third largest trading partner. This means that China’s export to ASEAN is more than ASEAN’s export to China. It could be seen that the free trade area has benefitted China more than it has benefit ASEAN. This paper aims to provide brief explanation on how China 1 The author is an Assistant Professor at the UPN “Veteran” Jawa Timur. 2 The author is an undergraduate student at the UPN “Veteran” Jawa Timur. is able to benefit more on the trade agreement. Using a descriptive method of analysis, combined with expansionism and multilateral diplomacy concepts, it can be found that China is able to utilize various means to maximize its benefit in the ACFTA scope of agreement. Through the ACFTA, China has managed to master trade routes, break trade barriers, invest more, deepen economic cooperation contracts and master production skills in manufacturing all across ASEAN member countries. All of these efforts are made possible by China’s favourable multilateral diplomacy instruments in the ACFTA.

Law of Nations Theory and the Native Sovereignty Debates in Colonial India

Abstract: Beginning in the 1840s, high-ranking officials within the East India Company began a concerted effort to confiscate and annex princely states, citing misrule or a default of blood heirs. In response, metropolitan reformers and their Indian allies orchestrated a sustained legalistic defense of native sovereignty in the public sphere and emerged as vocal opponents of colonial expansionism. Adapting concepts put forth by both law of nations theorists and contemporary jurists, they sought to preserve longstanding treaties and defend the princes' exercise of internal sovereignty. The colonial government's failure to adequately define the basis of its modern “paramountcy” invited such creative maneuvering. Reformist opposition to the annexation of Awadh, the dispossession of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and the confiscation of Mysore demonstrates that international law did not simply function as a Eurocentric tool of subordination, but could also provide a bulwark against colonial depredations.

Towards a history of global humanitarianism

Abstract: We are currently witnessing the emergence of global humanitarianism as a fully fledged historical field. Eighteenth-century transatlantic abolitionists, nineteenth-century imperial missionaries, twentieth-century aid workers, and twenty-first-century activists inhabit the pages of more and more published books and articles. Global humanitarianism denotes a sphere of action as well as an object of study. Questions as to where or what the global is persist. The books under review all operate within the sphere of Western influence: North America, the British empire, or former colonies. They also have similar protagonists. They are largely populated with practitioners of humanitarianism, rather than the objects of their beneficence. This raises some questions. Where does global humanitarianism take place and who does it encompass? Is global humanitarianism inherently enmeshed with Western expansionism and unequal power dynamics?

Matariki and the decolonisation of time

Abstract: One of the most recognisable symbols of British expansionism, industrialisation, and Christianity is the clock, and its dissemination across the globe was central in the colonisation of Indigenous peoples. In Aotearoa, the standardisation of Western time was part of a larger programme to assimilated Māori as British subjects. Hence, many Māori environmental and ecological time keeping systems were replaced with the clock. Yet in recent times the celebration of the winter pre-dawn rising of Matariki (Pleiades), which marks the Māori New Year, has been revived as a means to reintroduce a Māori system of time to Aotearoa.

Western European Expansionism in India, China, and Indonesia

Abstract: This chapter charts the history of expansionist adventures of European Colonial Powers in India, Indonesia, and China. The chapter focuses on the relationship between the colonial elite and the natives. It analyses the theories of client patron relationships and the role of special events such as the battle of Plassey and the Mutiny.

Western perspectives of the COVID-19 in China

Abstract: The first outbreak of COVID-19 happened in Wuhan, China, which has made a tremendous impact on Chinese society during the winter of 2019. China has taken timely quarantine measures after realization to stop the spread of the virus, also provided experience about epidemic prevention and how to control the situation to the rest of the world. However, under the analysis of western medias, China’s behaviour has became a manifestation of backward sanitary conditions and expansionism. As a matter of fact, China’s prevention and control measures have won countless lives for China. In the west’s blind smears and falsification of facts, the only thing waiting for the West is the out of control of COVID-19.

A postcolonial critique of mental health : Empire and psychiatric expansionism

Abstract: With growing calls from the World Health Organization and the Movement for Global Mental Health to ‘scale up’ Western mental health provision to meet a supposed ‘treatment gap’ in the Global South, this chapter offers a timely postcolonial critique of the historical imposition of such medical practices and discourse. The chapter begins by defining and explaining postcolonialism and the rare engagements with such theory in previous mental health literature. This is followed by a summary of the ‘official narrative’ of Western mental health interventions in colonial and ‘post-colonial’ societies which forwards the position that psychiatry’s social control function in colonial times was less than systematic, and that their work has ultimately had a positive impact on the local population. The claims from medical scholars that psychiatric interventions in the Global South are benevolent, moral, and serve no economic benefit to Western imperialism does not stand up to close scrutiny.

The Strange Career of Gross Indecency: Race, Sex, and Law in Colonial Singapore

Abstract: In 1938, the British enacted Section 377A of the Straits Settlements Penal Code, criminalizing male same-sex acts in Singapore. Although the law was neither the first nor only attempt to regulate same-sex activity, it represented a stark intensification in sexual policing. Yet, the reasons for the introduction of Section 377A remain elusive. New sources, including recently declassified documents, reveal that Section 377A intersected with the colonial state's wider project of social control. In the early 1930s, intensified policing of female prostitution inadvertently magnified the visibility of male prostitution in Singapore, just as homosexuality was emerging as a distinct conceptual category. Meanwhile, scandals about sexual liaisons between European officials and Asians men threatened British legitimacy. This “discovery” of homosexuality led the British to introduce Section 377A. As British troops arrived in Singapore in the late 1930s in response to Japanese expansionism in the Far East, concerns about blackmail, military discipline, and the colonial color line governed the enforcement of Section 377A. Between 1938 and 1941, the British disproportionately used Section 377A to punish Asian male prostitutes whom they thought had seduced European men. Secondarily, the British used the provision to deter European soldiers, sailors, and non-officials from exposing themselves to extortion. Seen in this light, Section 377A served as a response to changing configurations of race, class, and sexuality in colonial Singapore.

Herdsmen as the Spiritual Arm of Fulani Expansionist Quest: A Threat to Integration in Nigeria

Abstract: Most scholars have often interpreted herdsmen attacks on farmers in Nigeria from myriads of standpoints. However, this paper situates the herdsmen as the spiritual arm of Fulani expansionist mission in Nigeria while not down-playing other arguments. The paper further argues that the recent spate of Fulani migration into the northern, north-central and Southern parts of Nigeria in search of grazing land is an attempt to actualize the age long agenda of islamizing Nigeria. The paper adopts the expansionism theory which advocates aggressive policy of territorial or economic expansion. Using also both primary and secondary data, the paper reveals that herdsmen attacks is a continuation of the Fulani expansion which began in the 14th and 15th centuries particularly in West and Central Africa and 19th century in Nigeria. To save the nation from chaos and disintegration due to this untoward Fulani territorial acquisition, the paper recommends the enforcement of measures like declaring the move as terrorism and the application of extant laws on the perpetrators as terrorists.

Frontier violence in the nineteenth-century British Empire

Abstract: [Extract] In The Trouble with Empire, Antoinette Burton explores how violence accompanied the imperial project wherever it went. Arising from a perennial struggle between imperial expansionism and counter-resistance, she argues, violence emerged as an inherent feature of Britain’s colonial frontiers. Although it sometimes took the form of large-scale warfare, colonial violence predominantly manifested itself as innumerable, small-scale insurrections that perpetually called forth Britain’s military interventions. The level of repressive violence that was required to shore up Britain’s fragile rule over its extensive territories belied its own understanding of itself as a harbinger of civilisation. Rather than representing a benign civilising force, the British Empire was a ‘great military machine’, as Richard Gott puts it, one that over an extended period pursued the widespread exploitation of peoples, lands and resources. This is not to say that ideas of civilisation exist in a state of inevitable contradiction with violence. As the precedent of the Roman Empire had demonstrated, the violence of colonisation and a belief in its civilising potential had long gone hand in hand, and this was also true of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. Framed by the beginning of the Second British Empire (with American independence in 1783) and the end of the so-called imperial century (with the onset of World War I in 1914), the ‘long’ nineteenth century of the British Empire witnessed a period of unparalleled territorial growth accompanied by various forms of coercion.

Comprendre les enjeux de la rivalite russo-americaine dans le conflit syrien au moyen-orient

Abstract: The Middle East is the epicentre of world geopolitics because it is at the heart of the stakes and the desires of the world's powers. The United States, which has long considered itself the world's policeman, must deal with the unbridled ambitions of the new Russia, determined to catch up in global governance. Since the end of the cold war, this is the first time that these two states have fought on the same political, diplomatic and strategic ground that the Syrian conflict offered. Beyond the lines of friction, Americans and Russians have been forced to cooperate against the dangerous expansionism of the Islamic state under the banner of the fight against terrorism.

Brzezinski and Mackinder theories: Role and influence on the political construction of Eurasia

Abstract: International relations theories act as the guiding lantern to provide a simple yet powerful description of international phenomena such as war, expansionism, alliances and cooperation. Thus, the primary objective of this article is to analyze international relations theories, their roles and influence on global politics hereby bridging the gap between the abstract world of theory and the real world of policy. The article utilizes the Grand Chess Board and Heartland theories on the regional geopolitical processes in Eurasia. The core argument of the article is that theoretical perception creates regional identities, and states use these emerged identities to influence geopolitical traditions. The Grand Chess Board theory of Brzezinski states that in order to sustain its position as a global hegemon, the US needs to control and manage Eurasia. Moreover, this article analyses American foreign policy in Eurasia under the umbrella of the Grand Chess Board theory. The Chinese strategy towards Eurasia through the prism of Mackinder’s Heartland theory is also explored. By analyzing initiatives such as One Belt One Road (OBOR), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the energy push in Central Asia, this article can serve as an examination into the Chinese taking up the mantle of the heartland to emerge as the land power of the 21st century

Expansionism, Russian Revolution, and the Two World Wars

Abstract: The collapse of the international system (the concert of Europe) that managed competing European imperial interests ushered in an era of uncertainty and extremely violent imperial conflicts. This had catastrophic consequences for both elites and non-elites in Europe and the rest of the world. This chapter is broadly divided into three parts. The first part deals with the period leading up to World War I. This is followed by a discussion of the Bolshevik Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union. Finally, the chapter ends with the audit of the World War II history (which is effectively a continuation of World War I). Key military and political events leading up to World War II are analysed. The toxic ethno-nationalist ideology of German exceptionalism as promoted by the National Socialists is examined. Key economic events such as the great depression and the role of the financial elites are also discussed in this context.

The Indo-Pacific: The Gauntlet Thrown Down by US, India, Japan and Australia to China’s Asia-Pacific Order

Abstract: The idea of the Asia-Pacific region is giving way to another construct: the Indo-Pacific, a contest with strategic implications, not least the growth of China’s power and interests. This involves recognizing that the growing economic, geopolitical, and security connections between the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean regions are creating a single strategic system with the Indian Ocean replacing the Atlantic as the globe’s busiest and most strategically significant trade corridor. The Indo-Pacific frame is closely linked to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad: a coalition of powers that are either wary or ambivalent towards China: Australia, India, Japan and the United States (USA). The increased cooperation among these four democratic countries is perceived and interpreted in China as part of a USA-driven containment strategy towards Beijing: namely a reaction to the Chinese maritime territorial expansionism signalling that the South China Sea is not part of China’s integral territory (as China likes to argue). As a matter of fact, China, while getting hold of Asian, African, and also European (Piraeus of Athens) commercial ports, feels encircled by the Quad countries and, by exerting political pressure, resorts to carrot-and-stick policies towards countries in the region. In such a contest, the EU could play a pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific game and its contributions through imaginative mediation and political appeasement could be crucial and significant.

Premise: A Land of Extremes

Abstract: The human and ecologic dimensions of Central Asia (CA) are rapidly changing; this fact is due, to some extent, to the stress affecting the physical environment, characterized by endorheic conditions and continentalism, and by other elements, deriving from political-cultural changes and transformations; above all, the position of this region, considering the technological, geo-political and geo-economic situation, makes these countries appear as central or peripheral compared to the wider Eurasiatic spaces. In fact, the significance of this region has been changing continuously. In its history it has often just been a remote and neglected land. In other cases, it has been the target of expansionism, a space and cache of resources to be exploited. Seldom has it been regarded as the cradle of original cultures, which would exert their influence on the wider world.

The Adventures and Misadventures of Expansion in Eastern and Central Europe

Abstract: This chapter covers the history of eastward expansion attempts by imperial Sweden and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It also covers the history of Russo-Turkic wars and expansionism by the Russian and Ottoman empires. The Crimean War between the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, British, and French empires receives special attention as this is a prime example of expansionism by the European empires in the dying days of the Ottomans. The chapter emphasises that one of the key motives of this conflict is to share the spoils of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. In addition, this chapter examines the Napoleonic invasion of Russia and the broader Napoleonic wars. The defeat of Bonaparte initiated the concert of Europe, an important institution that preserved peace in the continent for almost a century. Finally, this chapter discusses the role of the Westphalian system in preserving peace under competing imperial interests.