Archive for February, 2010
Peaceful pluralism and nonkilling policy
By Jennie S. Bev
The world of politics is based on violence, within which killing — as a form of violence — is a major component in gaining and maintaining power.
Throughout the history of political philosophy, from Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Hobbes’s Leviathan, Locke’s Two Treaties of Government, Rousseau’s The Social Contract, Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, to Weber’s “Politics as a Vocation,” all agreed that killing is a necessary form of force used in a power struggle, if not as a last resort.
Weber even defined “a modern state” as a “human community that claims the monopoly use of physical force within a given territory.” He also added: “He who seeks the salvation of the soul, of his own and that of others, should not seek it along the avenue of politics, for the quite different tasks of politics can only be solved by violence.” Read the rest of this entry »
Defense reforms for 2010-14: Men over materiel?
Image source: english.peopledaily.com.cn
By Evan A. Laksmana
“To defend everything is to defend nothing.” There is a lot of wisdom in this old military axiom. Indeed, it is hard to deny that when it comes to national defense, and even war, we just simply can’t do it all. We need to prioritize.
Yet, when we briefly glance through the recent policies made by the Defense Ministry for its 100-day program, the policy makers there seem to be doing the exact opposite – from stepping up military modernization, strengthening local defense industries, to improving border security and disaster management.
The more worrying aspect, however, is not so much the all-embracing priorities, but the perception that the next step after getting the military out of politics and business is to upgrade their weaponry. Read the rest of this entry »
