The world might have come close to ending in the early 1980s. Tensions had been rising between the United States and the Soviet Union for years, and Soviet leaders were convinced that their American counterparts were planning to launch a nuclear war. The Soviets became hypersensitive to possible warning signs of an impending American or … Continue reading Apocalypse Averted: The Brink’s Tale of Near-Nuclear War
Category: Russia
Extermination by Hunger: Red Famine’s Story of Lethal Injustice
Joseph Stalin took a fateful trip to Siberia in January, 1928. Stalin, soon to become the Soviet Union’s supreme leader, traveled to the country’s outskirts to identify the causes of poor agricultural production and food shortages. He concluded that Soviet farming was too small-scale: most peasants tended small farms that were not economically efficient, while … Continue reading Extermination by Hunger: Red Famine’s Story of Lethal Injustice
Using Empathy during a New Cold War
An American contemplating the hostile state of current US-Russian relations might well be pessimistic. Russia, this American observer might conclude, is an implacably hostile enemy whose actions reflect Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambition to act aggressively abroad while suppressing dissent at home. From this perspective, America has no choice but to wage a new Cold … Continue reading Using Empathy during a New Cold War
Engagement, Not Confrontation: The Need for a New US Policy toward Russia
America and Russia are currently engaged in a new Cold War: a conflict marked by mutual suspicion and hostility; confrontation in certain regions of the world, such as Ukraine and Syria; and at least potential military competition. Over a quarter-century after the last Cold War ended with the Soviet Union’s formal dissolution in December 1991, … Continue reading Engagement, Not Confrontation: The Need for a New US Policy toward Russia
The Just War Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Although nuclear weapons receive far less attention today than during the Cold War, the weapons—and the dangers and ethical problems they pose—remain with us. The nuclear weapons currently held by the nine nuclear powers number almost 10,000. Of these, over 3,900 are deployed with operational military forces. Almost 2,000 nuclear weapons are on high alert … Continue reading The Just War Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons
Resolving the Ukraine Crisis: A Proposal
Relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated dramatically this past winter and spring as the result of the unfolding civil strife in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich accepted and then rejected a trade agreement with the European Union, resulting in popular unrest that led to Yanukovich’s overthrow. Russia then initiated a military occupation … Continue reading Resolving the Ukraine Crisis: A Proposal
No-Win Scenario for Consistent Lifers? Thoughts Inspired by Bloodlands
History has a way of challenging your beliefs. Past human experience, with all its complexity, ambiguity, hard cases, and agonizing choices, can cast doubt on previous certainties about justice or right and wrong. Advocates of the consistent life ethic might find their beliefs challenged in this way by the extremely dark chapter of human experience … Continue reading No-Win Scenario for Consistent Lifers? Thoughts Inspired by Bloodlands
Peacemaking for Life 