Owen Harries
Essay
Sep/Oct
1993
NATO cannot move into Eastern Europe. It would greatly annoy the Russians, have little credibility, create splits within the alliance and require much in blood and treasure. But leaving aside the specific problems, beneath all these problems to move NATO east, lies a relic of Cold War thinking-the concept of the political West. The West as a strategic entity was a product of the Cold War. The West has been and will remain a culture and a civilization. But the political unity of the past forty years will give way to differences of interests and strategies as each of the great powers of Europe and America searches for its own security.
Essay
Oct
1968
Let us make two assumptions: first, that the Viet Nam war has reached the beginning of the end and that it will be over within the next year or two; second, that the settlement will involve an American defeat and the extension of communist power to South Viet Nam. Events may falsify both these assumptions, but they may not; it is worth thinking about what the situation will be like if they do not.
Essay
Apr
1962
Anyone wishing to master the art of confusing the issues, scoring effective but unfair debating points, and persuading others to miss the point, should make a study of what is widely accepted in the West today as enlightened, liberal discussion of international politics. Many politicians, some of whom perhaps agree with Wilde's proposition that to be understood is to be found out, make no sustained or imaginative effort at clarifying issues and explaining policies; and many intellectuals seem to consider marching, sitting, signing, visiting, going to jail and attending conferences (all activities which involve contributing prestige rather than intellectual talent) as more important political activities than attempting to raise the standard of public discussion. Debating devices which are manifestly unfair and which can do nothing but mislead are accepted as normal weapons of controversy, even by, and in fact especially by, those who make the highest moral claims for their case. Such techniques are not for the most part new, but it is interesting and perhaps important to see how they are applied to the facts of contemporary international politics.
Review Essay
Jan/Feb
2008
Walter Russell Mead rightly argues that the United Kingdom and the United States made the modern world. But his call for Washington to pursue both a maritime grand strategy and Niebuhrian realism will not fly.
