POLS 170 BLOG GROUP 0403

  3/23/2022 Strange’s text on Japan and the US finance, information, and power got me thinking a little about fun childhood memories. I’m from a very  African rooted family, meaning my Grandparents were culturally oriented. My parents were more open-minded, probably because they were more exposed to the global world than my Grandparents. Growing up my grandparents would normally come and get us during school break because they believed that my parents were not “ disciplining” us the right way.       In my Grandparent's house, my grandpa always had the final say, his word was basically law because he was the man of the house. On the other hand, my grandma was the one in charge of everything domestic. She did the cooking in particular because she was the only person that knew my grandpa's diet. She also ordered people to do the cleaning, made sure everything was in place and so you had to respect her or you would be in big trouble. On one particular occasion,...

Law and Force in conversation with Hobbes's Leviathan           Chaos and bloodshed. Man versus man. This is what is given as the picture of a place without laws. The “state of nature” as Thomas Hobbes called it, is a place where every man is for themselves. Though we left the state of nature for something better, a society built around the Covenants of Man, or our social contracts or laws, Hobbes argues that we need a force to keep it. Any good villain will tell you that fear of force and consequences is what keeps people in line, but is that always true? Man’s word is not always worthless without the power to enforce it, but instead just as steady when it benefits society as a whole.  Throughout Leviathan , Hobbes argues that “The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice.”(CHAP. XIII, second to last ...

  Why international law hasn’t stopped Russia in its attacks on Ukraine The recent Russian attacks on Ukraine have demonstrated not only the power role that is at play, but have greatly violated the rules of international law. Even though the attacks are violating laws in a variety of ways, Russia is depending on international law to defend its actions. Though Putin is trying to justify his decision by using Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which states that an attacked U.N. nation has the right to attack for self-defense purposes, Ukraine did not attack Russia, so Putin’s claims are invalid. In his speech, Putin gave a multitude of examples of when the West violated international law- Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Seria- but international law is not meant to defend parallel attacks of old ones.  Although Russia has commonly been seen as “the bad guy” over the course of the last month, it is important to recognize that they hold great power, both militarily and politically. This pol...

  Blog Post #3: Is Bitcoin a Threat to Established Global Currencies?  Over the past two decades, international monetary power has become more widely diffused. Due to this phenomenon, the authority of market agents has been enhanced at the expense of sovereign governments and their established bureaucratic entities concerning monetary policy. I argue that this problem will continue to be augmented with the advent of Bitcoin and other unique cryptocurrencies.  Because Bitcoin is decentralized and unregulated across the globe, important questions have been raised regarding the ability of states to control their own forms of currency. The US dollar, the world’s “major reserve currency,” could be unseated by Bitcoin. I believe this could be the case because investors and traders have criticized soaring deficits within our economy and multi-trillion dollar spending programs enacted by the Biden administration. In due time, I think these individuals will switch and primarily us...

  As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to upend the daily lives of Ukrainian citizens, we find ourselves asking when this horrible conflict will end, and if there are going to be any consequences for Russian president Vladimir Putin. Before spring break started, we discussed international law and how military weak countries, such as Ukraine, lean on international law, and it is my belief that when this war ends Vladimir Putin will be put on trial at an international level, with the support of the United States, due to the war crimes he has committed which violate international law and the Geneva Convention.  International law only exists when it is enforced by other countries, which in the past has not meant much, but since the invasion of Ukraine started three weeks ago, many western nations condemn the actions of president Putin and believe that he should be tried in international court due to his actions. Russian forces have deliberately targeted and bombed locati...

     Our recent lectures in class concerning Russia's invasion of Ukraine while the USA, Nato, and,  EU, on the other hand, trying to " help" Ukraine from being invaded got me thinking about a scene from a book that I'm currently reading, called A Tempest, written by Aime Cesaire. In this book, one of the characters is perceived as a monster and is under the spell of the king called Prospero. Caliban(the monster), welcomes Prospero on his island, but Prospero having magical power took Caliban's land, turns him into a monster, and later curses him because he believed Caliban tried to rape his daughter. Caliban is trying to rebel against his master, to get his island back, but it’s not working because Prospero is way too powerful. But that’s not the point or scene I’m driving at. Fast forward, new people arrive on the island and are also admiring the things they see and they want to take over. So Caliban sees this as an opportunity to merge with these ...

   Wargames      Slowly, every so slowly, you walk hunched over closer and closer to the enemy. You can see them plotting and talking about their next move. They have no idea you are there. You adjust your gun in your hand. Creeping closer and closer, you hold your breath. Then you hear it from behind you: footsteps. Someone is coming. You are going to be discovered. You decide to go down shooting. BAM! You look down, your vest is lit up red. You’re shot. The other team turns to you and laughs. “You have to walk away until it goes green again,” they say. You decide right then and there that you no longer like laser tag because you keep losing.       I am sure you first thought that I was describing actual war combat. While combat is a worthy topic to discuss because it has so much weight, in this post I want to discuss the history of wargames and their possible benefits and disadvantages. War as entertainment has been around as long as the fi...

In the realm of international relations, the past week has been one that will go down in history. On February twenty-third Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale military invasion on their neighboring country, Ukraine. Now, Putin has put his nuclear arsenal on high alert and I believe that it is to deter the west and NATO from making any military moves against Russia, but the chance of Russia using these nuclear weapons is slim to none, and there are two reasons why I believe this. First of all, there is the idea of mutually assured destruction of the countries that would be engaged in the nuclear conflict, which, in this case, would be Russia and NATO allies because both the NATO alliance and Russia have second-strike capabilities. The second reason is that NATO, with the United States, has supremacy in the nuclear triad of Bombers, Land-based missiles, Submarine-based missiles. If Russia were to launch a nuclear missile against western countries, the world would be en...

President Putin is now facing a serious dilemma following his decision to order Russian troops to invade Ukraine after deciding to recognize the Donbas region, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk, as an independent. I strongly believe that ultimately, Putin will be faced with a choice of following his imperialistic agenda or listening to his crippled nation and economy that are facing the immediate impacts of the developing conflict. Just because the United States isn’t directly putting troops on the ground in Ukraine does not mean that sanctions are a less effective measure. In some ways, Putin is daring the West as he is continuing to order Russian troops to continue their route into Ukraine while the Russian economy has already started to tank, a trend that we have seen historically that I will elaborate on later in this post.   As we talked about in class, the impacts of necessary goods, such as oil and gas, are large gambles in the crisis. Germany took the first step to cut of...

Blog Post #2 In recent days, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested the resolve of the United States and other Western powers after he officially recognized separatist regions of Ukraine and subsequently launched a full scale invasion. Though this move is a large gamble for Putin, I believe he is confident that the reward of a “successful” mission will certainly outweigh the potential risks including sanctions and international condemnation. While Putin has stated that he ordered military intervention to protect Russians from persecution, I disagree with this propagated notion that has virtually no corroborating evidence. Rather, I argue that Putin aims to upend the current liberal world order and transform the balance of power established between nations.  In the face of threats from rising powers including China, Russia, Iran, and others, the United States has still managed to remain the dominant global hegemon that always maintains an influential presence concerning inter...