Britain’s impending withdrawal from Afghanistan and France’s recent dispatch of troops to the troubled Central African Republic are but the latest indicators of a long-standing pattern.
Since 1945 most British and French overseas security operations have taken place in places with current or past empire connections. Most of these actions occurred in the context of the contested end of imperial rule or decolonisation. Some were extraordinarily violent; others, far less so. (more…)
One afternoon Nell Meosky ’14 was sitting at a table in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library with her classmates in the undergraduate seminar “Spies, Secrets, and Science.” She eagerly began to leaf through pages of a late medieval text, when an exclamation of “Wait!” by her professor, Paola Bertucci, made her take pause.
The text, Bertucci explained to her students, was the famous Voynich manuscript, an illustrated codex penned in an unknown writing system that has baffled scholars and fired the imaginations of people around the world. Carbon-dated to the early 15th century, the manuscript was acquired by the Beinecke Library in 1969, and Bertucci wanted her students to know that what they were seeing — and touching — is a rare treasure. (more…)
UD faculty members discuss 2013 prize-winners at annual symposium
Today’s chemists might work at a computer as often as in a laboratory, medical researchers studying conditions such as diabetes rely on understanding how cells carry and deposit materials within the body, and average investors in the market increasingly buy index funds to average out the short-term ups and downs of individual stocks.
The discoveries that led to these changes are among the work that was honored by this year’s Nobel Prizes. (more…)
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Please have a seat.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about what I believe should be our number-one priority as a country — building a better bargain for the middle class and for Americans who want to work their way into the middle class. At the same time, I’m focused on my number-one responsibility as Commander-in-Chief, and that’s keeping the American people safe. And in recent days, we’ve been reminded once again about the threats to our nation.
As I said at the National Defense University back in May, in meeting those threats we have to strike the right balance between protecting our security and preserving our freedoms. And as part of this rebalancing, I called for a review of our surveillance programs. Unfortunately, rather than an orderly and lawful process to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate, but not always fully informed way. (more…)
Richard Kirkendall is a University of Washington professor emeritus of history and editor of the new book “Civil Liberties and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman.” He answered a few questions about the book for UW Today.
Q: What’s the scope of the book?
A: The book surveys the civil liberties issue during the Truman presidency of 1945-1953, an especially important time in the history of this essential feature of the American political system.
The book begins with two chapters on Truman as a civil libertarian, one on his identification of himself, the other on his relations with Japanese-Americans, the victims during World War II of a major violation of American principles. (more…)
North Korea, which just conducted its third nuclear test, is using its weapons program to deter the United States by holding its allies “hostage,” according to Paul Bracken, who teaches management and political science at Yale.
Bracken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on several Department of Defense advisory boards, and is the author, most recently, of “The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics” (Times Books, 2012). The following is an edited version of an email interview with him. (more…)
On Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012, Park Geun-hye was elected South Korea’s new president, making her the first woman to hold the title. It’s a victory some say signals the beginning of a new era for the tension-riddled region. Lyle Goldstein, International Relations program visiting faculty and associate professor in the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College, comments on what Park’s election means for the future of South Korea and the country’s relationship with the United States and China.
Park Geun-hye’s election will come as a major relief to many strategists in Washington, given her pro-American credentials. Her opponent was inclined to fully reinstate the “sunshine policy” of a decade ago, a disposition that would have no doubt entailed a more discriminating look at the newly invigorated U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance. Irrespective of which candidate came to occupy the Blue House, South Koreans seemed to be looking for more sunshine and less inter-Korean tension. (more…)
*Berkeley Lab Researchers Developing Promising Treatment for Safely Decontaminating Humans Exposed to Radioactive Actinides*
The New York Times recently reported that in the darkest moments of the triple meltdown last year of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese officials considered the evacuation of the nearly 36 million residents of the Tokyo metropolitan area. The consideration of so drastic an action reflects the harsh fact that in the aftermath of a major radiation exposure event, such as a nuclear reactor accident or a “dirty bomb” terrorist attack, treatments for mass contamination are antiquated and very limited. The only chemical agent now available for decontamination – a compound known as DTPA – is a Cold War relic that must be administered intravenously and only partially removes some of the deadly actinides – the radioactive chemical elements spanning from actinium to lawrencium on the periodic table – that pose the greatest health threats. (more…)
